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).
Article, reprinted from 'The Autocar', on servicing a new car during the first two thousand miles.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 145\3\ scan0040 | |
| Date | 8th March 1935 | |
| Reprinted from The Autocar MARCH 8TH, 1935. FOR NEW MOTORISTS THE FIRST TWO THOUSAND MILES Servicing the New Car by EDWARD CASTELLAIN A NEW car—and the first you have ever owned! Is there any thrill to beat it? It makes no difference whether it cost £120 or £2,000; the fact remains that it is your own property—yours to make or mar. For months, perhaps for years, you have subsisted on lifts from friends, varied occasionally by a drive in a borrowed machine with yourself, a proud if nervous driver, at the wheel; but what a difference in the sensation to know that this time the car is yours, to carry you wherever you wish, by day or night, always at your service for the price of a gallon of fuel! Of course, you are proud of it. With the exception of your house a car is the most expensive single purchase you make in a lifetime. Naturally, you want to get the best out of it. You are going to clean and polish it with loving care, to follow the makers’ instruction book in every detail, never to exceed thirty miles an hour for the first thousand miles, to inspect the sump level daily, and the radiator and battery level every week. In effect, by the time you have finished with it, it is going to be the finest, fastest, smoothest, and best-kept example of its type on the road. Twelve months later you will have forgotten all your good intentions. The daily polish will have become a weekly rub-over with a bucket and rag. The oil that once you checked and changed so regularly will be a black and treacly fluid barely rising above the “half-full” mark on the dipstick. The wings will bear dishonourable scars where you backed the car into the garage door. . . Or will they? It all depends on how you start. Take my advice and don’t begin by trying to do too much. Select the important points, make up your mind to keep on with them, and then forget about the rest. The two most vital matters are good lubrication and careful running-in. Take these first. You can leave a car unwashed for months on end, and the finish will still come up bright, shining, and undamaged after a good hose-down and polish; but neglect the engine and transmission for half the time, and the result will be noise, roughness, loss of power, and wear of bearings that will never be made good. I do not claim to be a veteran motorist, but twelve years of driving have taught me something, and the most important lesson is that thorough running-in pays for itself time and again. Treat a car well for the first five thousand miles, and you can neglect it to the point of cruelty subsequently. Take a practical example. You will hear of cars “eating oil” after ten or fifteen thousand miles. Your friends will tell you that “you can’t expect any better from a mass-produced job,” and that it is the fault of shoddy material. Don’t believe a word they tell you. It is not the car at fault, but the driver. “If you can afford to have it done for you, don’t do it yourself.” I have never owned a new car of other than the very lowest-price class, but I have never experienced any trouble in this respect. My present vehicle is a 1934 8 h.p. saloon. In ten months it has covered eighteen thousand miles, and its actual consumption of oil by way of replenishment has been four pints. The explanation is simple. Colloidal graphite was used for the full running-in period. For the first 500 miles the car was driven on barely quarter throttle. At the end of this period the sump was drained, flushed out with special oil, and all particles of metal dust were removed through the orifice at the base of the sump. Included in the haul was the broken end of a split pin! It pays to carry out this process yourself. You have a personal interest in the car, and will spend more time | ||