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Message |
    
Peter Kentwell
Yet to post message
Username: pete_kentwell
Post Number: 5
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, 05 October, 2003 - 10:15: |    |
I was wondering if anyone has heard of "lifetime warranties" on certain SS11 parts? A friend (who also has a SS11) told me that he thought there are when I mentioned that the diff on mine is making noise. |
David Gore
Moderator
Username: david_gore
Post Number: 113
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, 05 October, 2003 - 18:47: | |
Peter,
In my dreams - if only this were true!!!!
The only extended warranty I am aware of was one offered by the R-R/B agents where parts fitted by their Service personnel benefited from a 3 year warranty - if anyone can provide more specific information I would like to know.
As I do all my own maintenance; I was not in a position to be influenced by this offer. |
Bob UK
Unregistered guest
Posted From: 172.189.35.143
| | Posted on Sunday, 26 October, 2003 - 01:27: | |
Rolls-Royce will look into warranty claims up to any age
But only if the claim is a safety issue such as a suspension part that is in good condition suddenly snapping in half. --------No chance because they built them like luxury trucks
After 3 years unless one has taken out an extended warranty one is on ones own.
Normally by the time the car is a year old any niggles will have been sorted by RR and the car should be trouble free.
A lad who worked on pre-delivery inspection for a RR agent told me that every car had something wrong with it. And every car came back for it's first service with a list of faults.
And the final drive whine was not an unknown compliant.
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Bill Coburn
Prolific User
Username: bill_coburn
Post Number: 63
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, 26 October, 2003 - 09:10: | |
Interesting. One of the better guarded secrets about the earlier Shadows was that they had a quaint little habit of breaking their Pitman arms. The things usually snapped in the spline and usually through some owner trying to move the car sideways by turning the wheels against the gutter. On one occasion I saw, it was trying to turn the wheels while they were in the tramlines of a car wash. This is/was such a fundamental fault that whenever one happened in Australia (and I knew of four) the then local agents would smartly grab the car replace the item, fully service the car and return it with a smile and no charge. I gather this would not be one of the things one could count on under the new arrangements. Should it happen to me I would approach the new mob and suggest simply replacing the item, it takes little to fit it. As to the diff - forget the whine. For whatever reason the Factory put their diffs in aluminium casings. The stuff moves like a startled gazelle when it gets hot and all the carefully set up clearances and profiles go out the window. One treatment they used was to fill the tailshaft with polyeuorfoam (sp) and the other replace the universal joints with good old rubber doughnuts. This cut down the problem of the hollow tainshaft making like a didgereedoo with the diff providing the obligato! Having said that they are a very reliable unit and only occasionally do you need to replace the pinion bearings. Otherwise ignore it and if some insensitive cretin comments on the diff whine tell him it comes from special tyres! |
Bob UK
Unregistered guest
Posted From: 172.189.107.229
| | Posted on Friday, 31 October, 2003 - 04:19: | |
Interesting use of foam.
I will remember that for future use.
I have used foam behind dashboards to cut engine noise on vehicles.
Would a layer of foam above the diff help.
Or would it cause problems like over heating and rust.
In the UK the pitman arms shearing its splines resulted in a recall of all the Uk Shadows for replacement with improved arms.
RR was in the position of either doing it voluntary or being ordered to by the courts.
The main 2 faults that turned up on new Shadows was electrics and paintwork.
The new stuff has electrics which are better but faulty paintwork is still commom on new Bentleys
The customer normally does not get to see the faults before the PDI.
RR build cars as much the same way as Ford or any other car maker.
Ford and others leave the little faults and use cheaper materials.
I went to Jaguars in Coventry ( Ford ) in 1998.
The dashboards were machined on a table router in batches of 100.
then they glue the veneer on.
then spray.
then polish.
The end result was very good easily as good as RR.
The staff in the wood shop were all quite young and as explained to me are not skilled cabinet makers and only know how to make dash boards and the in house training takes 2 weeks.
Which is what RR do as well.
RR would have you believe that the car was built by highly skilled craftsmen wearing brown coats and cloth caps.
I don't see any difference in an engine that was assembled by one person or 10 people.
Handbuilt can sometime be fits where it touches.
The Shadow is still a good car at a bargin price.
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David Gore
Moderator
Username: david_gore
Post Number: 125
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, 01 November, 2003 - 21:05: | |
Hi Bob,
Well put in true West country fashion!!
Yes, modern techniques can give very good quality using relatively unskilled labour at low cost.
Only problem for the prestige car manufacturers is that they have to create a mystique to justify the high prices they charge for their cars. I was very unimpressed with the paint finish and panel quality on the new Phantom - I thought AUD1,000,000 would buy a paint finish that didn't show panel imperfections underneath the paint. |
Bob
Unregistered guest
Posted From: 172.185.159.101
| | Posted on Saturday, 01 November, 2003 - 22:59: | |
Further to that.
Example.
Press tools produce high quality panels that are always the same ----they don't get Monday morning blues.
I regularly drive the lastest cars and I often question what a new RR or Bentley is really worth.
A the moment I have a 3 week old Vauxhall Zafira Diesel £14,000 new ( firms pool car ) and it is very good. Would a £140,000 car really be that much better.
Shadow is good car and time will probably show the Shadow 1 as the best all round luxo barge ever made.
In the UK we have even raced them. |
David Gore
Moderator
Username: david_gore
Post Number: 127
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, 02 November, 2003 - 19:43: | |
Bob,
We leave racing Silver Shadows to our Tasmanian compatriots [local in-joke for our international readers] - seriously, if my memory is correct, a Tasmanian owner actually raced a Shadow some years ago.
I am not averse to demonstrating the performance of a lusty pre-smog 9:1 compression Corniche when the opportunity presents itself [she who pays the bills certainly does not approve of this practice as being incompatible with her R-R/B image!!].
I agree whole heartedly with your comments about the Shadow becoming a true R-R/B classic in years to come. I believe it will become the "Silver Ghost" of the post-war era due to both its innovation and sales success as it was the right car for its time and the Shadow engineering subsequently served as the genesis for all R-R/B models until the demise of the Company.
Forgot to add a comment to Bill Coburn's musical reference to the drive noise - light alloy metals do not have the sound deadening capacity of heavier metals such as cast iron as there is a direct relationship between mass and sound deadening - this is why sound-proof rooms are lined with lead. A cast iron diff housing will be much quieter than an aluminium casting but is contrary to the engineer's wish to reduce vehicle weight so there is a trade-off between mass reduction and noise generation - perhaps the factory hoped the owners would crank up the new-fangled 8 track tape players installed in the Shadows to the extent they masked all other noises!!
(Message edited by david_gore on November 02, 2003) |
Peter Kentwell
New User
Username: pete_kentwell
Post Number: 6
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, 03 November, 2003 - 19:57: | |
Thanks Fellas - great read! |