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

That is a very expensive "hobby" then out of warranty.

I am not surprised at all by your solicitors advice, I think people should start a group action and return cars, only that may make Morgan sit up and take notice.

Having googled a bit, it seems it happens to the best of them. 5900 Lambos recalled due to risk of fire,10,000 Ferrari recalled for brake failure issues, 1000 Ferrari recalled for life threatening airbag issues. Lotus had recalls due to issues with oil cooler connectors/risk of fire, Porsche recall 4500 EV Taycan for sudden power loss, and so on.......

One wonders if it is an indication of the poor quality of modern global manufacturing?

Are the CX rads made in house, or bought in? I know in visits in the 80's I watched rads being built, but don't recall seeing that in my visit this year.

How many of the M3W issues were down to poor quality assembly at MMC, or a result of bad design and/or problems with quality from suppliers?

I fully understand the frustration and disappoint of CX owners, but it seems to be that this is a blight of many of the smaller sports car manufacturers due to the need to outsource so much of the manufacturing process.

my dealer told not to worry about the warranty , the radiator is a well know problem and it will be changed untill it is fixed. About the brakes i think Morgan overreacted , they should have asked for a control and then if necessary change the master cylinder.If the master cylinder has to be changed all three years it is ok for me . The bmw 3 cylinders 1200 cc engine in the peugeot of my wife needs 1 litre of oil every 3 weeks since almost 2 years. Peugeot has never proposed to change the engine on warranty.

So, is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning for Morgan?????

For ever, the quality has been average, it has, but owners/enthusiasts accepted, gladly, 'the issues' and even saw the issues and inherent faults as a challenge and an opportunity to personalise and modify their cars.
The idiosyncrasies, the peculiarities of the cars are the very reason they are so loved by owners. You have to be very patient and understanding to be an owner, you probably have to be a quite odd to be a long time owner....!

"They all do that sir', may have been acceptable in the first 100 years, but as we've moved into the second century, with new models and new examples of poor design and manufacturing, it can't go on.

For most of the first century I'm not sure there actually was much of a design department at the factory, things just happened. Now that the factory actually have a team of designers, things are actually planned and designed.........!
People, owners new and old have a right to expect more from their new sports car.

The Marque has definitely improved and advanced thanks to some incredibly clever owners and specialists modifying and remodeling cars to cover up ancient 'design' and parts bin cost savings.
I appreciate that many manufacturers raid parts bins and that cost and profit is vital, but when you're charging £80k+ for your product you have to choose your parts bin very carefully!
I appreciate that many manufacturers have safety recalls, but Morgan being a tiny manufacturer will feel the pain more acutely.

Hopefully this latest PR and reputational disaster will be the kick up the arse that Morgan needs to buck it's ideas up. If they want to play with the big boys they have to get a grip of quality.

Let's hope that lessons are learned from this, let's hope that no one is hurt by any brake failures and let's see if this focuses minds in Malvern enough to make it a new beginning when it come to quality, reliability and safety.

Come on Morgan........!!!

1.7 million cars recalled here...!
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/08/automakers-recall-1point7-million-cars-with-fatal-airbags.html

That's the one Ferrari were using too.

End-stage Capitalism. It always used to be argued that a free market would always ensure that the most efficient solutions would emerge, and to a certain extent that was true. We had to do a bit of intervention now and again to ensure the worst excesses of the profiteers were curtailed by things like safety standards and employment law, but we are now operating in a materially different environment.

1. The manipulation of the negotiating process. We used to see it all the time when dealing with external consultancies. You'd put out an invitation to tender, and some of the big companies would bid. You'd get an incredibly impressive presentation, a lot of very expensive senior consultant telling you how wonderful and inexpensive a service they could provide, and any attempt to get them to commit to specific prices for specific specifications was always met with an airy wave of "That'll be no problem, we can iron stufff out as we go along". Then when the contract was signed the A team they promised was replaced with loads of keen but incompetent graduates who we used to train, and every possible piece of work was classified as a 'change to spec' and charged extra for. I bet the samples MMC get provided with from contract bidders are orders of magnitude better made than the stuff that get delivered when the contract is in place

2. The loss of competition. There are fewer and fewer genuine manufacturers out there, with less and less choice for the purchaser to go to. 50 years ago there were probably dozens of engineering companies within an hour's drive of Malvern, each of whom would have been capable of providing the necessary services and all of whom would have been competing against each other for the business. Now they are all owned by the same few manufacturing conglomerates and the element of competition doesn't exist.

3. Multiple levels of sub-contracting make it extraordinarily difficult for QA processes to work effectively. Somewhere along the line someone is going to to slip up or deliver sub-standard components and it's not necessarily going to be detected until that component has been incorporated in a few more super-assemblies

4. Poor incentivisation for departmental heads. Many managers are bonused on their team's performance above anything else. A bean-counter gets a win if they can get a supplier to knock another 2% off the bill, and doesn't care that the effect of a lower quality component is paid for by another department. Production is incentivised over and above quality, leading to the inevitable. See something and fix it on the line and it costs £1. Wait for the batch inspector to catch it and it costs £10. Leave for the dealer PDI and it costs £100. Wait for the customer to discover the fault and it costs £1000.

It's very easy to buy crap these days, and bloody difficult to get good stuff. But the good companies are out there. There are a couple of top-end engineering companies in our parish. Both have excellent reputations, full order books and provide a lot of local employment. Both focus on the aerospace field, and I think it's probably because aerospace is one of the last bastions of proper quality engineering.

Of course as you pointed out there are good companies, whose modus operandi embraces both quality, best business practice and value customer satisfaction as key driving factors in their business model, often delivering enhanced bottom lines and long term customer relationships.

Whilst I've only come back into the Morgan fold recently, after a near 30 year sabbatical, its increasingly clear to me where the current Morgan business model direction lies. I prefer the Morgan business model philosophy John Harvey Jones experienced, others may disagree, and of course, it may not have survived into these increasingly demanding legislative environment for motor vehicle manufacturers.

I'm not so sure that aviation is the last bastion of engineering as clearly demonstrated by Boeing when the FAA delegated more of its oversight and governance processes to Boeing with its resultant 737 Max debacle.

Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote comes to mind ” The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten”. MMC should perhaps take note.

Even if component part suppliers were to eventually fork out, the car manufacturers reputation will take a big hit going forward.

Disappointing but not entirely surprising.