Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Aero 8, 2012< Plus 8, SuperSports, Coupe & Aeromax Is your Aero/Morgan reliable?

Reliable to a point of your tolerance as well, speedo or fuel gage to some is a fail, to others it is charm.

Can not stress enought the regular usage part.

Morgan owners often talk of their cars being "hand made" but sadly that brings relative unreliability with it. Robots dont have bad Monday mornings or arguments with their wives, and they dont have the cultural issues that make british workers less reliable than japanese or german ones. You have seen this in your lifetime as mass manufactured cars have gone from 30000 mile decokes to 200000 miles with no problems. I am sure that Morgans have also improved, not least because they use components bought in from the big guys but the improvement wont be as great.

Then of course there is the volume issue. Production in tiny numbers simply doesnt give the resources to properly engineer and then de-bug a car such as the Aero.

In short, problems and some unreliability is the price you pay for driving a sports car that is really rare

I agree. Same risks if you have a tailored suit than an high end brand "standard" one.

Mine is not old enough with only 6,000 on the dials to say if it's reliable. I've had no issues with it.

The BMW engine should be fairly bullet proof I would have thought.

That is a very kind offer and if I was travelling alone I would definitely say yes, however the wife and I wouldn't both fit (tbh i'm not sure I would!) and we have a B&B booked about 1mile from Goodwood circuit.

This reminds me just how fantastic a community it is on here, I do love the camaraderie.




Thanks Adrian, it would be good to see yours sometime and hopefully that will be this summer.

Interesting about the gearbox oil, perhaps that is something I need to enquire about, albeit mine doesn't really get cold in the garage!




Some very wise words and I must agree it does put it into perspective, I do love it despite the woes, although I must admit I love driving it so much it makes the lack of driving more difficult.

Unless I move house and need the extra equity, I can't see myself ever wanting to replace her with anything else.




That is very, very true!




- Thanks everyone else for the responses and input, I won't reply to every post but it all makes very interesting reading.

2005 S2 Aero with 13,000 miles on the clock checking in from the US.
Not a single mechanical problem in my 2.5 years and 4,000 miles of ownership. Cold AC, smooth idle, even wear on the tires, even the TPS works!

I keep it in a climate controlled garage and drive it at least once a week...I think this is a car that simply needs to be driven!

Best-M

The issues I've had with Aero's have been caused by water ingress or driver error.

I would imagine that the electrical issues I had with the door window mechanism on the S3 and S4 were down to the actuators getting wet, the dials in the S4 misting up down to water getting in behind the dash.

A lot of people in the past have said their Aero's were watertight. I have always taken that with a pinch of salt but they may have been the lucky ones or not used the car as a daily driver in all climates :-)

Everything else down to wear and tear and aforementioned driver error.

The factory seem to have spent a lot of time on the roof design to be watertight (which whilst not as simple as the S3/4 roof to operate, it does appear to be a better fit when up) and I'm guessing they've had similar effort working around the bulkhead/dashboard area to achieve the same result so I'm hopeful that the water ingress is a thing of the past which will make for a much better experience.

Speaking only as a trad owner....
Mog1 was a 1993 4/4. When bought it was suffering from garage-itis. Lack of use. This resulted in poor earth for starter and rear indicators. Simple fixes though. A misfire due to fuel issues. Sorted by flushing the tank, new pump, extra inline filter. I had plans for upgrades to rear shocks instead of lever dampers, bearing upgrade to front suspension, improvements to interior. The age/lack of use were the causes but I expected to have some of these.
I got seduced by a Plus8........
Again reduced mileage for 3 years before I bought her. Just niggles since...belt squeal now cured, occasional warning light but nothing serious,rear foglight malfunction, water in front indicator. Nothing major so no real problems. Just ordered new shocks as those on the car are less than optimum. Rattles to cure still. Minor water ingress from hood...GRRRR.
Am I happy with her?
YES!
As both trads were well into the realms of well established and developed cars nothing really to worry about other than how they had been used and looked after.
What I would be wary about buying a new Morgan is with the "special editions" due to worries about lack of development or rushed introduction (M3W, GDI emissions, ARP4 handbrake, etc).
I do sometimes wonder if Morgan think enough about curing what are longstanding niggles such as hood fit etc. Mainstream manufacturers don't seem to have hood issues, in general. A little bit of effort and judicious "copying" would help! Are the developers at Morgan loking at what others have done? What issues they sorted? (ARP4 handbrake is a classic!).
In the end I am happy with my Plus8 and enjoy tinkering with the minor issues.the car is now 14 years old so some age related issues are there to be sorted as they show up. Maybe next winter some time on preventive maintenance is likely.

The issues with water leaks, whether from the hood, doors, scuttle, or whatever only be because MMC don't think that owners want to use their cars in poor weather and therefore don't think that doing anything about them is important.

As you say, a bit of judicious copying from others would quickly enable them to sort things out.

There should be no excuse for water leaks. The cars have been in production for long enough!