Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 engine upgrade

"your driving the wrong vehicle"

Yep, that would be the Caterham Seven in one of its' many derivatives then?

It would I be indeed Paul. It's partly Morgan's fault. They have consistently marketed the 3W as something it's not. The original launch seemed dominated with silly comparisons to Porsche performance and the dealer open day I went too was full of 30 something yuppies who I felt, were doomed to disappointment.
What it is, is an imperfect upgrade of the original 3W. Owners must be enthusiasts: and by that I mean they must be "unreasonably tolerant of its many faults". However, the only fault in 12000 miles that actually left me stranded was timing belt failure and I can't blame Morgan for that one. It's a shame it's not perfect and better engineered but it's not a deal breaker for me. The positives vastly outweigh the negatives. Morgan could be more honest and state "If your not mechanically competent, willing to carry a comprehensive tool kit and be prepared to use it occasionally, don't buy a Morgan three wheeler". Funnily enough they might actually sell more. For a while at least.

What the future holds is another matter. Very few people under the age of 40 can even change a spark plug. Would a superbly engineered Honda engined/swing arm and shaft driven sewing machine appeal to them? yes I'm sure it would: but would it be as much fun as our flawed masterpieces?

It would not reduce the fun at all.
The things I expect from a machine is reliability and performance.
The great styling and driving fun of the MTW combined with todays technology standards was nothing less than I wanted when I purchased mine.
A 50k€ toy, and Morgan is not even able to put in a proper fuel gauge (which I did for little money myself some days ago...)

Matty , while I understand your point of view and am quite happy to put up with a few faults I would really love to have more faith in the reliability . It would I think make it more fun .
I may have been exceptionally unlucky , but I have had to call on Morgan Rescue 7 times in 14300 miles ......and that doesn't include various times i have managed to fix things sufficiently to get to the dealer or home .
I think the latest cars are much improved , a lot of bits and pieces on mine were sorted when the chassis was changed , eg re-routing and sleeving the wiring etc . But there is still plenty of scope for improvement without losing the character , as the Austrian says why continue to fit the wrong length fuel gauge sender ?!
I really love the car and probably no one apart from Morgan would have had the nerve to put it into production , I'm constantly amazed it's allowed on the road !
Anyway I'm nipping out to do a few errands in mine now :santa2:

Oh yes , returning to the topic ....I wouldn't mind a bit more power :xmashappy:

I understand (from the Mog Mag article) that one of the issues with the Pete Larson Liberty Ace was the swing arm rear which meant the back of the car moved up and down too much. It's also relatively wide so the passenger seat was too narrow to be of any use.

Hence why Morgan changed to the propshaft /bevel box / belt drive.

I readily concede to some of these points especially those regarding reliability.
I looked at the four wheelers some years ago. I walked into the show room turned on my heals and walked straight out again. The fit and finish was a shock.
However I always wanted a three wheeler and took the plunge to buy a secondhand 2012 . Had all the big issues also. Funnily enough the finish apart from the chassis and seats is better than the four wheelers I think. Of course all the parts are bought in. Fingers crossed the major reliability issues are behind us

The fuel sender issue is a total mystery to me. I genuinely think that 90% of Morgan staff want to do a great job. The guys who dealt with my chassis break were great and the service was quick and efficient. However the compensator issue was known on Harley's for years the design development team have not done a great job at all and you really feel the early cars were built like leyland, parts bin specials.

Yepp: back to topic
Another point of Morganesia: when they announced 115bhp in all praising articles and videos its a certain disappointment the (2 liter!!) engine provides poor 82bhp in reality. Thats 30% less than expected (what would you say if a Porker provides just 200hp instead of 300?)

Its still fun with the present engine, but far away from expectations caused from pre-informations from the media.

If I would run my business that way I would be off the market soon (and my customers would not trust me at all in the future).