Speed Six engines. Reality

[donatien]

OK, we have a Tamora. It isn't very well, valve guides going loose, cylinder head back up to Birmingham for re-machining. luckily most of this is under warranty.

All in 12k miles? And it needs the cylinder heads to go back home (or Brum) to drill out the valve guides?

That just about does it for me. My girlies car has been off the road for a month whilst the engine is sorted. My Griff never has this crap.

There is a thread that says all is well with the speed 6. It may be but try getting a bust one sorted

Dave

[lucozade]

Good luck getting it all sorted Dave. Sorry to hear of your troubles. I agree with you - I read about this too often. That's why my last one went to the dealer and never came back.

Happily recommend a Noble. 1200 miles, no issues. Starts first time. No problems at all. Just as quick and just as much fun.

[bogie]

its quite scary really - know a guy with a Tamora, brand new, 7K miles later and its in for a rebuild.

we bought our Tuscan (late 2001) about 5 weeks ago...it had done 10K miles...3K miles later its back at Blackpool for a rebuild..not happy to say the least - pay £30K+ for a car drive it 3 weeks, then lose it for 3 months

You would have thought that 4 years in to having their own engine they could put them together properly by now !
...still ....Its a great car and we love it to bits, but if it happens again in another 10K miles (about 8-12months driving for us in the Tuscan) it will have to go and be exchanged for a Noble or such like...I can cope with niggles, self-maintenance/fixing things...but 3 months off the road every 12Kmiles/1 year for a rebuild is a bit much...oh well...will have to wait and see I guess

[lucozade]

bogie said:

its quite scary really - know a guy with a Tamora, brand new, 7K miles later and its in for a rebuild. we bought our Tuscan (late 2001) about 5 weeks ago...it had done 10K miles...3K miles later its back at Blackpool for a rebuild..not happy to say the least - pay £30K+ for a car drive it 3 weeks, then lose it for 3 months You would have thought that 4 years in to having their own engine they could put them together properly by now ! ...still ....Its a great car and we love it to bits, but if it happens again in another 10K miles (about 8-12months driving for us in the Tuscan) it will have to go and be exchanged for a Noble or such like...I can cope with niggles, self-maintenance/fixing things...but 3 months off the road every 12Kmiles/1 year for a rebuild is a bit much...oh well...will have to wait and see I guess

Have to second what you have said - "I love them to bits" too.

Unfortunately when you get a bad one nobody wants to know you and talk about it.

I love TVR's I just couldn't keep up with the constant returns to the dealer for simple things that should have been fixed by "4 years of development".

Good luck.

[J_S_G]

bogie said:

we bought our Tuscan (late 2001) about 5 weeks ago ... You would have thought that 4 years in to having their own engine they could put them together properly by now !

To be fair, that's not 4 years of development... that's still an early engine.

I do wonder if the new owner of TVR knows what he's letting himself in for re. S6 engine rebuilds, though. Personally, I think all engines under 40k miles that have the finger followers/valve guides/throttle bodies wear out should have them replaced completely free of charge - every major manufacturer would do this without question for an endemic problem. Assuming those are the only major issues, and that they've been sorted out now, it's what's needed to restore buyer/owner confidence. Without it, both potential buyers and residual prices will remain unnecessarily low, damaging the company.

If, when I get mine back, anything else goes wrong with the engine (I've had all three of those things sorted now), I'll probably be in a Marcos or a Noble within a matter of weeks. Good will and love of the marque are one thing, but when it's a car that's got to reliably get you from A to B, rather than just being a play thing, you've got to draw the line somewhere.

-JS (hoping for some happy Tivving from engine number 3 very soon...)

[swilly]

I picked my Tuscan up at 14k miles, now 16 months later its touching 30k miles without a problem.

Every day use, keeps it reliable you see, imho.

[alt]

My Tamora's past 20,000 miles of daily driving with no engine problems!

Amazing how many doom-mongerers post when a reliability thread is opened!

[Marki]

alt said:

My Tamora's past 20,000 miles of daily driving with no engine problems! Amazing how many doom-mongerers post when a reliability thread is opened!

But you would seem to be one of the lucky one`s
there seem to be too many bad examples out there

[bumcrack]

When I first looked at the Speed Six engine cars, it was clear the early Speed Six engines (00-51 reg) had issues with valves, and I avoided the early Tuscans and Tamoras mostly due to the engine problems.
I'm not sayings all early SP6 are problematic, but it seemed a bit of a lottery.
This lottery is apparent in the price difference between the early Tuscans and the 02 or later Tuscans, which command more cash due to the fact it hasn't got a pre 02 SP6 under the bonnet.
Even purchasing the later cars in no guarantee, but imo the risk of a rebuild is greatly reduced.

The factory does offer a re-build at a much reduced rate if you write to them.

Good luck


>> Edited by bumcrack on Tuesday 3rd August 09:26

[alt]

All I can say with 100% certainty is that I've never exceeded 2,500 rpm until the oil temp has reached 40C.

But I'm not saying that people with problems are not doing the same! It's just that I don't know.

Other than that the car's used daily and driven hard whenever possible.

[nubbin]

This topic has been done to death - I've done 20000 miles in two Tamoras, and had no problems. like alt, I warm the engine (3000rpm max until 50oC) before any right foot antics. My first Tamora was the same vintage as alt, and I never had an engine problem.

The truth is, no-one, not even the factory, know which engines received the faulty batch of components that caused all the trouble - so it is a complete lottery with early cars. That said, I'm amazed how many people still manage to lunch their engines, and the finger follower problem is a nice excuse. Personally, I think that in some cases, particularly with Tuscans, some owners just thrash their cars straight from cold, again and again, with no mechanical sympathy, then get all heated when the valves go pop! That's possibly why older cars are the main problem area. Operator error, IMHO.

[bogie]

My 4 years comment was with regard to new cars still having problems. When we bought ours we were aware of possible issues with the early cars

And yes - I do agree on taking care of the engine - ours is religiously warmed up before going over 3K revs (same as my Elise) ...but we dont know how it was treated prior to that....Ive been on runs before and watched as an owner jumps into their car that has been stood still for 2 hours and they then go tearing off down the road bouncing off the limiter !

[griff2be]

donatien said:

OK, we have a Tamora. It isn't very well, valve guides going loose, cylinder head back up to Birmingham for re-machining. luckily most of this is under warranty. All in 12k miles? And it needs the cylinder heads to go back home (or Brum) to drill out the valve guides? That just about does it for me. My girlies car has been off the road for a month whilst the engine is sorted. My Griff never has this crap. There is a thread that says all is well with the speed 6. It may be but try getting a bust one sorted Dave

Dave - your is also a relatively early S6. Plus it was a demonstrator car at not the best dealer in the world (Kings of Warwick, now defunct so I can speak ill of the dead). I would be amazed if that dealer was always careful to warm up the car when driving it. Certainly when I bought my Griff from them they thrashed it from cold when taking me out for a test drive.

And when I went to pick up the Griff having bought it, I found that they had only stamped the service book but not actually carried out a service.

I refused to accept the car and ended up going home in your Tamora - which refused to idle, the speedo didn't work and had a few other 'niggles'.

But it was amazing to drive - handled and went6 superbly.

I'm sure once Steve and TVR Power have finished the car will be fantastic - but I agree it is very frustrating and shouldn't happen even if the first owner/dealer wasn't mechanically sympathetic to it.

[Targarama]

Thing is, I have read on this very forum about people who said they had religiously kept to the warming up procedure and their engine went pop.

I have heard from several reliable sources that there was a design flaw in the cylinder head, fixed in more recent cars (not sure exactly when), which result in oil starvation for some of the fish fingers. I believe the flaw was fixed at the time they were working on the T400/440 engine range.

The bottom line is, some people certainly help their engines go bang, but there was also a design problem.

Anyone had a 2003/2004 engine go wrong yet?

P.S. I sincerely hope TVR put a different engine in before selling in America ... they're asking for trouble otherwise.

[andyvdg]

So who are these "several reliable sources" ?

We've asked the factory a number of times and they have said there have been no design changes.

>> Edited by andyvdg on Tuesday 3rd August 10:37

[Targarama]

1 dealer, 1 Tuscan race mechanic and it's been mentioned on here around 9 months ago (well one of the TVR forums on PH).

Think about the implications if the factory did admit to any flaws in their products. I would expect them to keep schtum.

Trefor.

[jamster]

andyvdg said:

So who are these "several reliable sources" ? We've asked the factory a number of times and they have said there have been no design changes. >> Edited by andyvdg on Tuesday 3rd August 10:37

My main dealer asked the factory whether I could get a 2003 spec upgrade done to my engine. Answer was ehh

NO WAY it's completely different. They did mention cylinder heads too!

[jamster]

alt said:

My Tamora's past 20,000 miles of daily driving with no engine problems! Amazing how many doom-mongerers post when a reliability thread is opened!

Doom-mongerers!!! Think you've got that mixed up with REALITY. This is real. It's happening on a huge amount of Speed six cars if not the majority. Probably the worst example ever in the motor industry of engines needing rebuilt. Sad but true.

[bogie]

Theres 24 cars in the queue for a rebuild before ours ...quite a few considering they only make around a 1000 per year !

[sidpinup]

Not mine, 14K and no problems. In fact I would say better than ever.