Motoring
Advice on Buying Cars
IT is with some misgiving that I refer again to my rash promise to advise readers of The Spectator in the choice of a new . car. Letters have reached me in formidable quantities from various parts of Europe and, of late, from niost places overseas where cars can be used. It is a ticklish business advising anybody anywhere to buy this or that car, to avoid the other like the plague: With the best intentions in the world one can so very easily misunderstand a question, read into it a meaning the inquirer never thought of,_put an altogether wrong value on a phrase. The chances are that -the car one recom- mends will, at worst, do what is required of it, but there is also 'always the chance that it will do it in a way the buyer dislikes. Inevitably I have to read between the lines of most of my letters, particularly those written by people who say, in effect : I like the 15-h.p. Bird and I shall almost certainly buy it. I want it for fast con- tinental touring in summer and for town work in winter. What car would you prefer to the Bird ? " It sometimes happens that the 15-h.p. Bird is the very last car I should dream of buying for continental or any other sort of touring, and that for very good reasons such as the experience of myself or my friends or of enough strangers for continued reports of failure to be more than a coincidence.
How to answer such a question ? It is easy enough to write back and say that personally you have no use whateVer for the Bird, either because you have had evil experience with it, or because it has an unsavoury reputation among people who know a good car from a bad, or because you dislike its general design. But that is really shirking the issue. It may be that when your correspondent writes in this strain about a given car he is really in grave doubts about it, and although he would like to have :them dispersed and his choice applauded what he really wants is to be told exactly why you would not advise him to buy it. And this is the most delicately dangerous point of the whole affair. The Bird his neighbour buys may be one of those curious exceptions to the general rule which are still so common in matters of car-choosing. A thousand Birds may be spreading dismay and repair bills all over the country, but there is quite likely one or even half a dozen which are perfectly successful cars. It is one of those that your correspondent is certain to meet shortly after he has bought the alternative machine you have suggested to him. The " Bird " does not exist, but there is one quite familiar marque which illustrates. my point very exactly. I think it is a -detestable car and I would not trust it as far as the end of the street, but every now and then I hear of people rejoicing in their third year of ownership of a machine I know to be inherently rotten. It also occasionally does well in competitions of various kinds.
You see the difficulty. In spite of mass-production, in spite of " hand-made " work of great cost, in spite of every precaution any experienced manufacturer can take, black sheep get out and, to confuse a stupid metaphor, pass as white in every flock. It is only a year or two ago that I heard of a car costing more than £2,000, with a reputation for reliability second to none, that had a complete engine replacement in the Arst week of its life, an event rare enough in a type that is produced at the rate of a thousand a week. If you do what you feel is the fair thing—after all you are only asked to give .advice and there is no compulsion on anyone to take it—and :set out your reasons for and against this or that car, you -May unwittingly be 'the cause of yeart of disappointment.
Readers have asked me to suggest two or three cars with certain definite qualities, silence, speed, acceleration, bodywork comfort; and so on, and again I have realized that -what I consider to be - good examples of what is wanted in each case may strike the buyer very differently. Just hs nO two engines, or complete- cars for that matter,. - are exactly -the same so no two motorists put the same value on the same qualities, nor apply the same standards. When a man says " she must be able, at any time, to reach and hold 65 miles an hour " I do my best-to find him a car that will reach and hold 70. That should be safe enough. Yet it is quite possible that he is dissatisfied with its genefal performance. He may dislike the brakes or the steering or the suspenskai and any of these will effectively prevent him- from doing his 65 miles an hour in comfort. Another man may be perfectly content with the same car's behaviour but owe me an undying grudge because it is more extravagant on petrol and oil than an inferior machine that costs thesame. There is no end to .tbe possibilities of trouble for the dispenser of advice. .
These considerations' are • not so grim -when it is a question of choosing.a car for use at home, as when a reader in the Far East; for example, or in some unfre- quented corner of Africa, disagreeably remote from spares and repair-stations, asks for the name of the car best suited to his purpose. - If he sets down exactly what duties the car will have to perform, the conditions of service and - the -approximate useful life expected and nothing else, one can offer him several alternatives, safe in the knowledge that, barring accidents outside the radius of probabilitY, he will be content with his choice. It is when he demands something -special that the risks begin. For it is still unfortunately true that unless it costs a good deal of money, which means, as a rule, - that it is a " hand-made " machine, a car with a special performance requires special attention. In theory it may be just as reliable as the normal model out of the same factory.: in practice it is unlikely. Nothing serious will happen, but little 'worries may arise, due to the character of the car itself. You still often have to pay for speed and 'red-hot - acceleration, not only in the price but in either extra watchfulness or service-station bills. At home a decently designed fast car, which has not cost an outrageous amount, will do what you expect it to do for a long time, but it is well to remember that the knowledge that expert service is available within at most 24 hours has a definite influence on your driving and general treatment of it. When the nearest man who has had personal experience of the various nervous ailments to which nearly all igh-efficiency cars are sooner or later liable is ten thousand miles away, you will be wise to stey lightly on the accelerator and to keep the engine in tune. You will be much wiser to buy a different sort of car, a. duller, a less temperamental car, the sort we used to call " Three Holes," because the three holes, for petrol, oil and water, were the points that received the most attention. • My account in an article some weeks ago of my experience with colloidal graphite used in the sump has brought me so large a correspondence, including so many letters from people who have evidently either mistaken my meaning or failed to grasp the function of graphite, that I feel I should repeat what I wrote. I said (in connexion with " making the old car do ") " I would try the experiment of using colloidal graphite in the sump if the oil-consumption is heavy . . . for the past-5,000 miles the consumption [in my own engine] has been _far lower thaw it has ever been." In reply to scores of inquiries, most of which I have answered individually, the amount I used was half a pint to 1f gallons of oil. I only put it in once and, although the oil- has been changecl at least six times- since, the consumption remains exceptionally loW;:there is certainly less carbon formed on the pistons and cylinder heads, and the exhaust is practically free from smoke. That has been my experience. On the other hand, one Spectator reader writes " Colloidal graphite will_reduce oil: consumption and it is a grand lubricant bid-2-and I fear._ that you will haVe discovered it ere noWl—its frequent use leads to cylinder distortion. 'I speak as a sufferer." As I say,, I have only once put in the; recom- mended half-pint and so far my cylinders are cylindrical. I hope-they will remain so.
JOHN PRIOLE Ali.
Previous page
