4 Turn of the Screw ll ) CORDON WILKINS NUMBER of
people seem to have appreciated the few words I wrote recently pleading the case of the man who pays for his own motoring. One reader rightly ri)ints out that slipshod design and workmanship are not con- ned to Britain; he quotes his own experiences with a French Far whose notorious leakiness has caused me much discomfort len the past and he seems to have had little luck with two popular "merican cars. But British sales have been built up on a promise of craftsmanship and conscientious detail work which as somehow got to be fulfilled if the markets are to be re- tained. I have since covered 2,000 miles in yet another British car where the floor was continually water-logged, and I have `n°,1' the second time this year worn out a set of rear shock- absorbers in 1,000 miles of Continental motoring, so that the ear developed a ride like a trampoline and became virtually unmanageable on corners. I cannot recall a single occasion this year when I received a car back from servicing operations in England without smears It 34 filth on the seats, steering wheel, controls or coachwork. It •"happens in France, too, but I have not yet encountered it In either Switzerland or Germany. In Italy, I had a unique Z4Perience; putting the car in a garage after a long drive in morning, weather, I found it freshly washed and sparkling next i;'411itig. The garage hand who had done it refused to take :Y money; it just pained him to see a beautiful car with dirt (14;1 Over here, we seem to be so busy snatching leisure and ak°,uging work that our lives are spent increasingly amid avoid- able squalor. Some garages now hand over the car with a PINT tissue provided by one of the oil companies, so that you can Wipe the filth off for yourself before you drive away. It Takes me feel as though somebody had spat in my eye and "p offered me the use of a handkerchief. m▪ Driving enotnley car inatpop othnet mseernvticen astturtaiollny ) ofI its klocal odr istthrie- engine oil to be changed, specifying a brand which is available all countries where I normally travel. The receptionist ;1 g 31d: " We don't sell that; we only sell one kind of oil," lentionin a little-known brand with a limited distribution. W' h. it in a mile there were half a dozen garages where, by j3ending a boy on a bicycle he could have got the oil I needed, he didn't wait to discuss the matter; he simply struck the IP change off my list of things to be done. I thought of the 4,,retich restaurants which will send an assistant scampering up re road to the butcher or the baker if they do not happen ° have what the customer requires, but then I am perpetually astounded at how easy people find it to make a lush living in England. The retail motor trade in this country seems to be ripe for :!• erganisation. The customer might be better served if we separated petrol sales and routine lubrication from car sales, repairs and overhauls as they tend to do elsewhere. When ?ended petrol came back to Britain, the oil companies spent Tuell time and money training pump hands to serve petrol ▪ oil efficiently and to carry out small tasks like cleaning wladscreems and lamp glasses and inflating tyres. Unfor- tunately, they did not manage to induce the majority of garage proprietors to take a very broad view of their responsibilities the matter. Congestion on the roads of Britain has now distances the stage where the only tolerable way to cover long 1,8;afICeS is to travel by night, but over large areas it is impos- sul"le to buy petrol and oil after 11 p.m. Garage proprietors argue that current costs of light, wages and taxes render it unprofitable to stay open at night. I do not doubt it, but the a"tiPPIY of petrol and oil has become a public service which must be carried on throughout the 24 hours, and if the retail take cannot afford to do it, then the oil companies should t Zice over, as they do elsewhere. Don't tell me I should fill Lite tank during the day; that is the usual answer from the man who works from 9 to 5 and has all his evenings and week- ends free. Unfortunately, some of us have to earn a living at strange hours by making unexpected journeys. Petrol tanks are often too small, fuel gauges are unreliable, carburetters and oil pipes spring leaks. The area round Oxford is particularly drought-stricken after 11 p.m., and I have on occasion had to make a 60-mile detour to reach the isolated all-night oasis at High Wycombe when starting an unexpected journey or using a strange car whose fuel consumption proved abnormally high.
The owner driver is squeezed from two directions nowadays. Cars are put together in a way which makes it difficult for him to do his own repairs or maintenance, and the trade seems to be swinging steadily towards the American plan which consists of ,replacing whole units with new or reconditioned ones rather than carry out the most trivial repair. I am told that in the United States they will replace a fuel pump sooner than fit a new diaphragm, and disillusioned motorists have even alleged that the average service station would try to sell a reconditioned carburetter rather than clean a choked jet. The modern car is increasingly built of cardboard and held together by spring clips. On one popular model which I sometimes drive, even the drip tray round the engine is made of card- board. By now it is pretty well saturated with oil and petrol and seems to constitute a fairly potent fire hazard. Those coachwork fittings which are not clipped on are usually held on by self-tapping screws with cross:shaped recesses in the heads. These can be removed with a normal screwdriver, but it must be a very precise fit; if the screwdriver is too big it will not go in at all, and if it is too small it gouges the cross- shaped slot into a jagged hole. Even the lamp rims are secured by this kind of screw. It says in the instruction book ' Remove the screw with the cross-headed screwdriver in the tool kit,' but they didn't put one in the tool kit. They never do.
Occasionally I make a half-hearted effort to buy a set of cross-headed screwdrivers of various sizes, but have so far had no luck. I know what will happen. One night soon, I shall be stopped by a policeman because one of my side lamps I out. It will be very late on a very wet night; all the garage will be shut, and I shall suddenly remember that I have n means whatever of fitting the spare bulb. I shall start babblin in a paroxysm of impotent rage. 1 shall pray fervently fc hideous tortures to be inflicted on the designer, the manufa( turer and all connected with the car, and my wife will hiss Really, you must control yourself; the officer will think yo are drunk l ' Cars may have been less reliable in the 01 days, but they were easier to mend.
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