From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Reputational damage and a serious customer complaint regarding carburettors on the 20/25 HP car.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 102\1\ scan0283 | |
| Date | 17th May 1935 | |
| S/W....Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} c. to Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} -> Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} Pl. Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} X508 C3/C17.5.35 (Dict.16th) Re 20/25 h.p. CARBURETTORS. We feel that we are losing quite a lot of the reputation of the 20/25 h.p. car with this carburettor which appears to have given dissatisfaction in many ways. As an instance, we have had another very serious complaint from Major Monro, who is very well known to us and a very good customer, having owned our cars for 15 years, and at the present time he and his brothers own 5 Rolls-Royce cars in all. He recently parted with his 40/50 h.p. and bought GRF-35. He has had constant trouble with the carburettor, having been hung up in Cornwall and two or three times in London traffic. "N" having done all that was possible to the carburettor about a fortnight ago replaced it with a new one taken from a chassis newly delivered to Thrupp & Maberly, sending the old one to "W" for attention. He was then without trouble until the beginning of this week, when he was again hung up with identically the same trouble. He telephoned to Br.{T. E. Bellringer - Repair Manager} that he had given the matter the most careful consideration over-night, as a man of experience, especially over the last fifteen years of R-R cars, and he definitely considers we have come to grief over the new carburettor. He says that he will only be content with one of two alternatives, viz:- (1) That we should give him our old type carburettor, which has never let him down and which he knows to be eminently reliable; (2) To fit him a genuine S.U. carburettor, and not what he calls our "poor imitation of an S.U. Carburettor." We were firstly faced with the very bad petrol consumption. We have, of course, stated that more pc is given but are often faced with the reply that the car is no | ||