Thought I should chip in with thanks to all at the factory for the focus group day now that I have finally got home.
My take on the day is that they did a very good job of defusing a lot of potential criticism by showing us the solutions to known problems that are now in place or are arriving in the pipeline which allowed much discussion about the communications issues that many have suffered from. I have been lucky in that my dealer has been very good at sorting out the problems that I have had with my M3W and that has made me less inclined to get angry in public; others may not have had this experience.
While I was in the focus group the boys in the workshop managed to get the steering "comfort pack" fitted, so many thanks again for getting this done not so much on short notice as on no notice at all.
As to taking quite so long to get home...the morning after the day at the factory I carried on south to visit friends in Devon. On the motorway the readout on the voltmeter dropped from its usual 14.4 or thereabouts to 12 and a bit so it was time to switch everything electrical off and carry on knowing that I had an eBay special spare regulator/rectifier in the boot. Having arrived safely I did notice that the gear change had become very notchy and reverse was very difficult to select - a bit worrying. Fitted the spare reg, charged the battery and got the thing fired back up to have a bit of an investigation of the gear change only to find that it was even worse and definitely in the not good sector so several phone calls to the factory and to Revolutions in Perth and to the breakdown service saw me arriving back at the factory on a flat bed on the Friday afternoon to find that the courtesy Skoda hatchback that I had been promised had metamorphosed into a burgundy Plus 4. I duly disappeared for the weekend to visit relations that live nearby and to cut a long story marginally shorter on the Tuesday afternoon I returned the Plus 4, picked up my M3W which had had its engine removed and replaced, the clutch sorted out, Centa compensator fitted, new regulator fitted complete with new mounting arrangement and probably the biggest job - it had been cleaned! So one last night down south and yesterday I drove from near Tewkesbury to Aberdeen in one hit before meeting Donaldosaurus for a beer in the evening.
On the technical side I would say that the the steering modification is something of a no-brainer (unless you have a very early car with the original Suplex shocks perhaps) the steering is lighter about the centre but still has plenty of feel for sorting out those wet roundabout moments of enthusiasm or even the pulling out of the factory gates on to a damp Pickersleigh Road moments which the threewheeler is so good at. The 465 miles of almost exclusively motorway would have been much more tiring without the mods also.
With the Centa compensator there is much less noise and I would say that subjectively the limiting factor on low revs is the engine rather than the compensator being defeated by the torque spikes. Having said that while the engine now feels like it will pull pretty much from idle I don't think S&S recommend doing so.
I now appear to be contributing to the record for the thread with the highest number of longest ever posts so I will sign off with the following thanks and apologies;
Many thanks to all concerned for getting things sorted out - the effect I must have had on the workshop schedule must have generated some full on gnashing of teeth behind the scenes but I saw no sign of it.
Apologies to whoever got the job of cleaning the Plus 4 - I really did not expect that lane in Herefordshire to be quite so deeply muddy but hope the photos make up for it a bit;
Donnington Photos Apologies to my cousin's husband for taking him out in the Plus 4 and giving him a shot behind the wheel; he is now scheming towards finding a way to afford one - don't worry Rob, you don't really need both kidneys or all your children.
That's it I'm off.
