Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Photo Gallery New Cars with cracks in the Headlight cowls...

The attached photos were taken of the headlight cowls on a brand new 2013 +4 after the car was parked in the sun for an hour.

Both headlight cowls developed a split in the same place along the join to the body big enough to slide a credit card into. When we examined the car a few day later in the cool of the evening the crack had substantially closed. Morgan claim it is to do with heat and humidity – sounds reasonable.

There have been 3 new Morgans (+4, and Roadster) in Australia so far with the same problem.

No doubt heat is a major contributor but if this can happen on a mild autumn morning in Sydney, I hate to think what may happen when we get some real heat.

As the northern hemisphere moves into summer (hopefully soon) this may be a real watch point for all owners of new Morgan cars.

Has anyone had any experience with this?

I'll see what I can do!

It's OK Richard, I am going to organise it this end and hopefully have them ready for the arrival of the Mozzies dinner in Perth. Looks like there will be a big rollup -"East meets West" so to speak, there will be a lot to talk about.

That's just what Al Capone said

Great!

OZ 4/4

Please keep me in the loop on the dinner, as I would love the oportunity to catch up.

PS with the tshirts please include a couple of 3XL for us petite boned gentlemen

I most certainly will Graeme, at this stage August 5th but you will get notice from the WA MOCA supremo soon.

As for the T Shirt, well that’s a bit trickier.

You have to be identified as a fastidious Morgan owner by Morgan themselves. We have found the easiest way to do this is to write to ‘Rest of the World’ 2011 Morgan Dealer of the Year and complain about something minor - like bits falling out of your brakes or parts missing from your suspension after a warranty repair!

You will then probably get a response like “there really is not a problem, we did not have to fix it" - and only did so because you’re such a fastidious owner – and you’ve joined the club and will get a T Shirt, simple.

I wonder if Morgan used lead loading in days gone by? Modern fillers are good but for the best and perfect job lead loading is the way to go. Probably not cost efficient for Morgan even with their build rate these days.

Assuming they maintain the quality standard in their build processes, they have no need for lead loading. Having walked the factory recently, they use very little filler on the traditional cars. The most I have seen used is on the aero coupe/ss.

On the traditional cars the only filler used is on the headlight pod join to the wing. Rather than the welds be faulty there is always the possibility of the surfaces being contaminated for some reason, allowing the filler to move.

Well that could be it - contamination on both wings on three cars that finished up in Australia and rumours of some others in Europe...