At just approaching one month and 750 cold winter miles into my CX Plus Four I thought I'd ask what other owners felt about a couple of issues I have. My comments (subjective of course) follow:
On the positive side, and there are many, the engine and gearbox (AT) are frankly tremendous. Driven smoothly in automatic mode whilst following other traffic on A and B roads it barely exceeds 1400 rpm but strong acceleration is there with minimal lag. Its certainly no slower than my previous 3.7 Roadster when fully extended and in fast/moderate driving its clearly quicker to acclerate. Having the full 400Nm of torque available from 1,000 rpm enables it to gather speed effortlessly. In manual S mode it changes gear sharply and when I want it to, and is a lot of fun.
The platform itself is also great - very rigid and not prone to the 'characterful' shakes and shudders of the classic Morgan. For me the suspension spring rates and damper settings are also very good. On patchy B roads in the Cambridegshire Fens the ride comfort is way beyond my expectations where it has enough body control for stability but is a Morgan that actually 'breathes' with the road and the suspension is allowed to move easily. If anything the comfort is less impressive on smoother A where it can feel a bit firm on sharp transverse ridges but it is still good.
So what are the downsides after the first month?
Well the slightly high seats for one. I find them comfortable but I am perched on the car rather than in it - especially compared to the traditional chassis. Not a crucial issue for me but I had to buy a new winetr jacket as I am in the cold wind flow much more than before.
The brakes are another downside. Yes they stop you, but have very poor initial bite and a long soft pedal with lots of travel. Oh, and they also squeal most of the time at slower speeds. Apparently Morgan are aware of these problems and working on a fix. All I can say at the moment is that the brakes are significantly below those of other modern cars.
The most significant downside for me however is the steering and having heard about a number of Lotus staff joining Morgan I was quite honestly expecting a bit of the Lotus magic to have rubbed off here. The steering respsonse is linear and accurate (at least on alloy wheels) but I was expecting better feel. My Plus Four is not as good as the demonstrator I drove and has a sticky feeling around the centre with stiction and high force build up in the first few degreess of lock. It feels a bit like the electric power steering systems of some years ago and detracts from the driving experince. At larger steering inputs the stiction feeling goes but you still don't get a good relationship of steering force to steer angle to yaw response. Futhermore, I always lack road contact feedback from teh front wheels esepcailly and never have a clear sense of what the grip levels are. I just assumed I was being too fussy here, especially as most of my driving of the Plus Four has been on cold and greasy winter roads. But then I got back into my daily driver (which hadn't been used much since I got the Plus Four) to take a pre-lockdown 400 mile dash just before Xmas and I had a quick reality check. For that trip I used my similarly powered 2.0l Jaguar F-Type P300, and its steering feel and effforts only highlighted to me the deficiencies of the Plus Four in terms of steering feel.
I took delivery of the F-Type just before the first lockdown (don't ask why I bought it then ... hindsight is a wonderful thing!) but due to this year's unusual working situation have only covered about 4,000 miles in it this year. However, I can honestly say that each time I drive it I end up more impressed with its dynamic behviour. Unfortunately I have to say this is not the case with the Plus Four brakes and steering, where the deficiencies simply become clearer the more you drive it.
If other CX4 owners have news of any brake modifications on the way from Morgan or have any similar issues with the steeirng I would be interested to hear.
In the meantime I'm looking forward to giving my very grimy Plus Four a good clean over the coming days. I might even get the wheels off to clean off the salty grime from below (and satisfy my OCD side!!)
