I posted this on the other "Why do they do this?" thread:
Sadly Peter, the things you mention are typical of what I was trying to say on TM >12 months ago. If you integrate these sort of things with the M3W story we've seen unfolding on TM over the past 18 months, then IMHO it just doesn't portray the "high quality, hand built by craftsman" and "100 years of engineering excellence" image that MMC tries to market itself as. It's more an image of "built by blokes in sheds" ... "blokes who've been grandfather trained" ... "blokes who don't care much for the constraints of those newfangled quality control systems". So the customer gets what he gets, pays a premium for it, and has to enjoy being the fettler, or beta tester if it's a new model. Oh, and of course graciously accept that he is privileged to be in this position. Reading the further contributions above, I would add that I too wouldn't buy a new Morgan to replace "Monte". The cost to change for an unknown quantity with the current quality concerns is just not worth it to me. I'm sure that there will be those out there who would come to the factory's defence and claim that I just don't get the Morgan proposition. Well may be I don't, and may be to quote NeilM's words the factory don't give a toss whether I buy a new one or not. But how many times can they continue to say that before it starts to become an issue? Perhaps with a burgeoning Chinese market, it may never be a problem... and Williams Morgan will do very nicely ensuring quality products arrive in the Far East
