Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Quality Control versus Marketing Gimmicks

I suspect that the market that Morgan are aiming for do not buy their Morgans as keepers but just as they would buy any car. So goodies etc will be gratefully snapped up. Improved build quality, alloy roads etc will not come into it.

It does show how desperate Morgan is to sell cars at the moment....it’s never easy this time of the year and not now helped by the lack of the 4/4 and Aero platform cars. Not an easy time for them.

Quite like mine

No doubt improvements are being made, even this year, but still a long way to go. Its the inertia (or lack) of such improvements that IMHO, folk should be complaining about. I suspect this is a policy that extends back many decades.

Andy, Yes there has to be someone at the top blocking progress but the cost of the upgrades I listed are easily obtained off the shelf and ammounted to less than £1,000 in total, (Excluding my own labour to fit), and well within the £8,000 budget for the 110 so-called freebies.
Taken to extremes you might buy a high end Tourbillon watch for £250,000 and treat the Morgan as an accessory.

And it also explains why they are so enthusiastically following up any opportunity to monetise the Brand. If they can't sell cars, how else are they going to survive?

Actually, here's an idea: Why don't they offer a 'Factory Refresh' service to existing owners. Not necessarily a full restoration service, but a optimisation/repair service that exploits the deep familiarity and knowledge of the workforce.

Things like fixing a persistent leak, or setting up the suspension for a specified style of driving, or maybe a bit of mild engine work.

Completely agree Andy, but if they don't get it right it's ultimately going to kill them. A fault discovered and fixed on the line costs £1. If it gets to the QC inspector it costs £10. If it gets as far as the dealer it costs £100. If it gets as far as the customer before it is discovered it costs £1000 to fix.

It seems to me that sometimes MMC is banking on the fact that the customer isn't going to discover the fault(s), or is going swallow the 'They all do that' excuse, or is going to sell the car on with the issues unresolved.

They could get away with it in the days when they were selling cheap sports cars to enthusiasts, but now they are playing in the luxury lifestyle toy market it simply isn't a sustainable strategy.

Like the 'Factory Refresh' idea Tim. But this could also be a line that the dealers or independents could take too and stock up on the most commonly failing components or requested upgrades. Perhaps they do already but I would imagine that they only use these for repairs once a component has failed.
The word 'lifestyle' is the one that worries me in the car sales area. Perhaps manufacturers have always alluded to this but usually in a marketing image rather than a full brochure. Gone are the days when a sales brochures and company publicity first of all explained the mechanicals, performance and safety features etc. Its now all about what you could do with the car and how well connected it is. Maybe all the other things are taken as read.
I can see that Morgan maybe trying to attract a different audience by association with other brands and hinting at 'lifestyle' but that wouldn't tempt me to part with a significant sum of money I'm afraid. I like them for what they are.

The "Factory Refresh" would only help customers in GB!?

I think poor Quality of some parts and work is also a theme for all customers all over the world.

As I wrote here in the forum I like my morgan but as a HONDA-Bike customer I was scared several times about so much bad quality and workmanship on many parts.

For example I was astonished about the little piece of foam between the indicatorlens and the overrider! The reason: The distance between the indicatorlens and the wings is on one side more than 1cm less!

The foam has to protect the lense on one side!!


Dealing with customers also does not seem to be very accommodating.

With customers I mean all the morgan enthusiast all over the world but also the Morgan-dealer.

How soon can I expect my three year old Plus 4 to fall apart? Seems pretty well-made to me. It’s had a good look-over by Tecniques who found a badly routed brake cable, but other than that it’s taken everything I’ve thrown at it. Can’t deny the quality of the footwell carpets is rather unsatisfactory but hey, it’s a Morgan!

It does make me wonder about the 'dedicated craftsman' idea. I could be convinced if I was told that all the factory staff had full apprenticeships, they'd be much less inclined to let shoddy work go by if they had.
I understand that they tend to stay on one job permanently. So someone who's come off the street and is given a job of knocking some bits of wood together for years on end can hardly be called a craftsman. And what are their supervisors doing?
When I went on a factory tour, I saw little evidence of accurate jigs and fixtures, gauges, inspection stations, and 'zero defect' devices. When I toured Kawasaki and Toyota factories, I saw constant evidence that they were continuously taking small steps to eliminate quality problems, and were very proud of that.
I hope I am wrong and would love to be shouted down by those who know better. I have written this rant anonymously as I might upset some people at the factory. But on reflection, there have been so many threads about poor quality that I don't think anyone there reads them.

Please take no notice of my name on the left.