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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).
Analysis of customer complaints regarding rear seat ride quality, specifically low speed dithering and pitching issues.

Identifier  ExFiles\Box 16\7\  Scan245
Date  14th May 1930
  
-2- Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/RM.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}1/MJ.14.5.30.Contd.

about, but unfortunately not 5% of the cars sold are of this type.

All our observations, unless otherwise qualified, refer to the rear seats of the car. In our opinion there is little or no cause for complaint about the riding in the front seats of the car. The type of complaint with which we are so far dealing, two or three of which are from Phantom 11 owners are :-

(1) Complaint of low speed dithering.

This is the old Phantom 1 complaint at about 20 m.p.h. on a main road. We do not consider that there is really much justification for such complaints because on both Phantom 1 and Phantom 11 we are incomparably better off than we were, now that the lubricated road spring has been standardised.

The only way we know of dealing with this is to use drilled valves, but we do not like this because it brings up complaint (2). On the whole we think that this 20 m.p.h. complaint is confined to people who habitually drive at this speed and therefore are a small minority. We do not think that front springs have a very large bearing on this complaint.

(2) Complaint of Pitching 40 - 50 M.P.H.

This complaint is frequently justified and we are concerned about it. It is particularly in evidence on main roads where 'buses operate and produce a wavy surface. Most people are driven at about this speed and most main roads carry
  
  


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