Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Plus Four, Supersport & Plus Six (CX & CXV Generation Vehicles) Safety Recall - Brakes

I remember well when I took delivery of my 94 Mercedes E220 coupe, first in the UK with the facelift and twin airbags and within days I had an intermittent fault tripping the safe mode. Back to the dealership, within an hour the service engineer had found the fault (immobiliser wires rubbing on the edge of the metal tube they ran thru) spoke with Mercedes UK and also spoke with Mercedes production in Germany to correct the fault on the production line. That was the level of service Mercedes provided back then, but you also paid for, when even speakers, the radio and an aerial were extra's on top of list price of the car. It was quite an impressive service feed back system, that ensured quality, which went out the window when they joined up with Chrysler to bring greater mass production techniques into Mercedes. That tie up cost Mercedes billions, lead to an inferior product and it took years to unravel that mess and the impact it had in the quality finish of the vehicles and their service infrastructure which they still haven't fully recovered from, IMHO Mercedes was never the same again.

When I first purchased a Morgan I had to buy second hand as the daunting 8 to 10 year waiting list would test the patience of most people except the loyal Morgan faithful, but repaid by keeping resale values very high for even the most humble specification Morgan. When I bought my first Morgan second hand, a 5 year old former Sunday Times competition car, Life's took the current price list and added cost of the car then and the cost of extra's to finish the car plus £500 and that became the sales price, which was much higher than when the car was first sold five years earlier. When I sold the Morgan back to them I made £150, so other than running and service costs the first Morgan ownership experience had been pretty painless, which helped smooth out the Morgan foibles and lack of quality in certain areas for a quite unique in the market place product. But those conditions that held Morgan resale values etc with a customer base mainly of loyal enthusiasts have moved on, and Morgan now operates in a different market segment with a more demanding customer base.

If the likes of Mercedes can get it so fundamentally wrong when partnering with the likes of Chrysler for whatever questionable business rationale, what chance does Morgan have with finite financial and management resources dedicated to deliver a technically more sophisticated product, branching into new manufacturing platforms and more sophisticated driving aids eg power steering, ABS, air conditioning and so on. Are we expecting too much or have Morgan got to take that next step change in its customer relationship, quality and service infrastructure to really compete and justify their current price point in a very crowded marketplace.

In the UK Morgan has less than 8 years to the UK ban on petrol car sales, its biggest market so far, 3 years into the CX platform, like the M3W, they are dealing with fundamental engineering/quality issues on proven old technologies, which are consuming their quite finite resources to resolve. I'm not sure what a Morgan post 2030 will look like, will there be a market place for it and I question whether they will generate the resources to engineering the new ' form of motion' platform that wont be beset by problems and will the service infrastructure be sufficient to maintain it. Interesting times ahead, maybe a trad for all its foibles might be the true Morgan legacy.