I wanted the post to come off as factual and minimally whiney but more a starting point for a more philosophical discussion about morgan, the cars they produce, and the expectations of a new morgan owner.
As for the BMW - Morgan comparison I stated from the beginning that it wasn't an apples to apples comparison but i still feel that morgan shouldn't be immune to be held to a standard of craftsmanship or testing of their cars/parts. I guess a more apt comparison would be to a pair of high dollar custom made leather shoes. they are not mass produced, they are handmade by a craftsman to your exact specs, the take time to create vs the mass produced $80 pair of loafers from the department store, but in return for the price premium of the $600 pair of shoes you get a product that was meticulously crafted by individuals, not a machine, gone over time and time again to make sure they weren't delivered until everything was finished. These shoes will also last a lifetime if properly taken care of an occasionally resoled.
As for the delivery, i was there at the cargo area as i gave my dealer a lift to the airport. After pickup he took the car to my house to do a car swap with his. and yes, i believe there should of been done a proper PDI on his part and this is something that i have taken up with him as i felt he took the easy road by handing over the car shortly after him driving it 30 minutes to my house. PDI or no PDI on the dealers part, i do still feel like it is morgan's responsibility to ship out 100% complete and vetted cars and not cars that need a full day of PDI by the dealer to discover things that should of been done right at the factory (front brake lines that often are resting against the exhaust pipes, misaligned drive belts, and just a few other issues new 3 wheeler owners experience at delivery) once at the dealership to go over all of morgan's work making sure all the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted.
As for the bevel box being a known issue and me not doing proper due diligence at researching it, or course i knew of it via the forums, i was also told that "new and improved" boxes were being used on the new cars. unfortunately that was also followed by a "some cars get loud ones and some get quieter ones", and it's just the luck of the draw and if i get a loud one to just complain often and loudly to morgan and maybe they will replace mine with a new one.
again, I still feel strongly on an issue like this that if morgan knows a part is faulty in it's design or construction they should stop fitting new cars with the dermot bevel box and only resume builds when they have properly solved the problems as i don't think it should be the owner's job to vet their box and if their car has recieved a loud one to have it towed (with so few morgan dealers in the US, not all of 3w owners are fortunate to have a dealer close by) and be without their car for a week or two. If the BMW or custom made shoes comparison doesn't hold properly in this analogy, maybe one of fine, handmade timepieces will. would you ever expect a Patek, IWC, or Panerai watch to knowingly have faulty parts installed from the factory and to be expected to be either tolerated by the new owner or required of the new owner to bring the issue up frequently to their dealer and handing in their new timepiece to service for rebuilding. Again, for those of us who aren't in the UK, the option of dropping it by the works for them to work on it is out of the question.
As for the floor mats and using double sided tape, while i'm not opposed to using either the tape or velcro to keep them in place my point is that they are too big and overflow out of the openings in the frame/floorboard. but again, are we really going to give morgan a pass on that? It's things like this that to me signify a larger issue of what they are willing to let that pass. What about issues of the wishbone cracking? Had a journalist not made it public would morgan have brought it up to owners and offered a fix, and if so how long would that of taken?
I'm trying to plan a 1,500 road trip and struggling with full confidence that everything has been tightened and secured properly. Beyond our own safety, many of us take our loved ones motoring with us and can we have full confidence in build quality if something as simple and visual as floor mats not fitting are looked over, what else has been looked over ( and in know that sounds dramatic but i don't think it's an unreasonable question to ask)?
As for the cleanliness of the car that was delivered I guess a large part of that can be put on my dealer but i'm just a bit surprised that with all the pride that is supposedly taken in the products morgan creates and the premiums for which they charge that there ins't more uniformity to what gets shipped our or delivered.
This is the kind of post that people need to make when they have issues with their vehicles; factual, with photos and videos to illustrate the problems. I just don’t think that you can accurately compare Morgan with BMW. The quantity of vehicles produced, the scale of their operation, the method in which they are built, and the resources invested in R&D are nowhere close to equal. The only thing that they share is a price point. The analogy is very apples to oranges.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Blake had his vehicle flown in and, looking at the photos, appears to have been picked up right at the airport; totally skipping the dealership (correct me if I'm wrong). So, there was never any chance for the dealership to detail it or give it a good quality-control inspection. I was informed by my dealership that when the car arrives it is filthy and they request an entire day for detailing and inspection. When I went to see my car for the first time, it was spotless.
As for the bevel box - that was one of the earliest and most well documented issues that this car had. From my own experiences with the dealer demo vehicle and my vehicle this was vastly improved upon to the point that it was hardly noticeable when compared to the old version. But, either way, some noise from the bevel box must have been somewhat expected, unless there wasn’t much research done pre-purchase.
Now the improper weather strip installation and the wobbly shifter nob are both issues that I would take up with my dealership, and I would expect them to fix these issues as the car is still under warranty and these are all manufacture defects. While the not-quite-right size floor mats may be a bother, some double sided tape or Velcro would remedy this as it seems only a very minor inconvenience.
I am glad that overall, as he stated, Blake is still happy with his purchase despite these issues, and while it is unfortunate that anyone has to deal with these little issues no car no matter who makes it is going to work all the time at 100%. If you wanted to still compare Morgan to BMW, my BMW has had a faulty head gasket, leaky headlight washers, had to replace the weather stripping on the rear windshield, who knows how many recalls and service bullitins; and it was built by robots.
