Triumph Warranty

Sir,

The correspondence “knocking” British Leyland probably has some basis of truth. All the people making all those complaints cannot all be exaggerating or worse. Undoubtedly there are rogue cars produced by every manufacturer and the standard of British workmanship, and inspection, have declined disastrously since the war. However, every dark cloud has a silver lining and I would like to put on record my appreciation of the honesty of this much maligned firm.

I am the owner of a Mk. 4 Spitfire, bought in 1972, which devoured its crankshaft thrust bearing, with disastrous result to the rest of the “bottom half”, last year. The mileage covered at the time was 12,800, 800 miles above the warranty.

Triumph covered the cost of a new engine (£165), plus 50% of the labour costs, a total of £203. They did this on their own initiative, their engineer having spotted my engine stripped down in their agent’s workshop as he was visiting.

Mr. Burton of Triumph/Rover, Coventry, a charming and most helpful man, went to a great deal of trouble on my behalf and I am eternally grateful to him.

The point of this letter is that Triumph did not have to make any sort of restitut:on as the warranty period had been exceeded. That they did is a credit to them.

Eastham J. B. Powell