Living with a Noble - Servicing and Repair Quality
Discussion
There have been some adverse posts recently regarding poor service from some of the individuals currently repairing Nobles. I am not going to get embroiled in those arguments as I have no basis for judging that particular case. What I will say is that I have been getting my cars serviced for long enough to know that ALL repairers and servicing outlets are capable of doing good work and bad work. This is completely independent of whether it is main dealer, a factory or a small trader. This is true for Nobles as much as any other brand. I have had my share of arguments over the years with all such businesses both with Nobles and other marques.
To cite a recent example I took my car to Vegantune for an investigation and potential repair surrounding a noisy transmission bearing and ended up, after several months without the work being completed despite continual chasing, in getting a pile of bits back from the bailiff's after they went bust. How often do you simply hand over the keys to a repairer at the start of a job with a care-free confidence that you will actually get your car back? (As an aside a large Lotus main dealer pranged my Elise into a ditch whilst they were repairing it so this is not an isolated incident).
Anyway if it was not for the help of Gary Reynolds I would probably not have got my car back at all. He alerted me to the plight of my car which neither the company, the liquidators or the bailiffs had the courtesy to do. After suitably persistent negotiations with the liquidation company I got access to Vegantune's premises and the remains of my vehicle and with his help managed to recover what we could. Gary then put the car back on the road after purchasing the required parts or getting them fabricated locally.
Whilst he clearly doesnt have the resources of a large dealership I have found him to be a highly competent mechanic well capable of looking after Nobles and I am happy to entrust my car to him. Equally I have found him to be very fair with his billing and courteous with his approach to customers. He tells it how it is and if he cant do something he would say so. I hope he succeeds as he builds up his business.
Noble M12's are never going to be perfect cars - go and buy a Porsche if you want that sort of build quality. I for one dont have a large income and cant afford to pay Porsche purchase or garage prices and have had to learn to live with the consequences of owning a fast car on the cheap. With my M12 I have had over 300 faults over the 6 years and 50k everyday miles since new which have required either factory or garage repairs outside regular servicing. OK mine is an early chassis and many of the problems were productionisation issues but I have still have had to deal with them. It has cost me some £28K too.
Its not been a happy ownership but, for now, one I continue with in hope of those good days when the car is working well and I have an empty challenging road to drive. Nothing can beat that!
In the mean time I will try to make as many friends in the business as possible so that when the car goes wrong I have got someone to turn to who can help me out. Anything else would result in Noble disappearing off the map just like other British car vendors and we will have to go back to driving boring tin boxes instead.
To cite a recent example I took my car to Vegantune for an investigation and potential repair surrounding a noisy transmission bearing and ended up, after several months without the work being completed despite continual chasing, in getting a pile of bits back from the bailiff's after they went bust. How often do you simply hand over the keys to a repairer at the start of a job with a care-free confidence that you will actually get your car back? (As an aside a large Lotus main dealer pranged my Elise into a ditch whilst they were repairing it so this is not an isolated incident).
Anyway if it was not for the help of Gary Reynolds I would probably not have got my car back at all. He alerted me to the plight of my car which neither the company, the liquidators or the bailiffs had the courtesy to do. After suitably persistent negotiations with the liquidation company I got access to Vegantune's premises and the remains of my vehicle and with his help managed to recover what we could. Gary then put the car back on the road after purchasing the required parts or getting them fabricated locally.
Whilst he clearly doesnt have the resources of a large dealership I have found him to be a highly competent mechanic well capable of looking after Nobles and I am happy to entrust my car to him. Equally I have found him to be very fair with his billing and courteous with his approach to customers. He tells it how it is and if he cant do something he would say so. I hope he succeeds as he builds up his business.
Noble M12's are never going to be perfect cars - go and buy a Porsche if you want that sort of build quality. I for one dont have a large income and cant afford to pay Porsche purchase or garage prices and have had to learn to live with the consequences of owning a fast car on the cheap. With my M12 I have had over 300 faults over the 6 years and 50k everyday miles since new which have required either factory or garage repairs outside regular servicing. OK mine is an early chassis and many of the problems were productionisation issues but I have still have had to deal with them. It has cost me some £28K too.
Its not been a happy ownership but, for now, one I continue with in hope of those good days when the car is working well and I have an empty challenging road to drive. Nothing can beat that!
In the mean time I will try to make as many friends in the business as possible so that when the car goes wrong I have got someone to turn to who can help me out. Anything else would result in Noble disappearing off the map just like other British car vendors and we will have to go back to driving boring tin boxes instead.
As I said - I am not going to comment as I dont know the history of that car, its original state or what was agreed with the customer or the insurer. If there is a disagreement on results versus expectation then this is best sorted privately in my view. I can only detail the experiences I have had with my car and let others form their own overall view.
kippaxking said:
One post in 72 months? Makes me look like a regular contributer! 
Well to be fair - since I originally started the Noble Owners Club with Jools I did tend to use that forum instead.
Recently I have been too busy doing other things to get involved. Thats not to say I dont quietly read the forum from time to time.
kippaxking said:
One post in 72 months? Makes me look like a regular contributer!
I've known Dave for many years now.
You may find many of the problems which have gone away over the years have been as a result of Dave's technical feedback to Noble.
The original Noble owners club forums were setup by myself and Dave, and at the time it was the only place owners and prospective owners could ask questions and get answers.
Oh, and hi dave. Nice to hear from you ! Looks like you are still 30K shy of my mileage total !
--Jools
flashydave said:
Well to be fair - since I originally started the Noble Owners Club with Jools I did tend to use that forum instead.
What ever happened to that....thought it was a non starter, as the website stopped being developed, no packs or any details of membership ever went out!!
Or was I just left out??
Alex
I spend £14k on my Esprit GT3 in 6 years and 65k miles. I even detail it on my site, www.adrianmugridge.co.uk
alex s said:
What ever happened to that....thought it was a non starter, as the website stopped being developed, no packs or any details of membership ever went out!!
Or was I just left out??
Alex
Thats a good question! The original Noble Owners Club was primarily a mailing list. I obtained formal blessing from the factory in 1991 and whilst we didnt get as far organising any significant formal events it proved to be an effective communication tool both between owners, people waiting in the queue and between owners and the factory. We had been running the mailing list on a server that was physically in Jools's possession and unfortunately that became unavailable when he fell ill. The club then went somewhat dormant not helped by the fact that the server also contained the emails of others who could have helped us out at the time. Subsequently I have become busy in other things. The relaunch of the Owners Club was something Jools undertook with a couple of others. I was not involved so cant really comment on where that got to or what might happen in the future.
snuffy said:
I spend £14k on my Esprit GT3 in 6 years and 65k miles. I even detail it on my site, www.adrianmugridge.co.uk
I have a SAAB 900 Turbo classic which has cost 9K for 150K miles (over 20 years) and my Elise has cost about the same for 120K miles (over 4 years).
I also had an MR2 but only have partial records for that as it was my company car for some of the time I drove it.
In terms of "pounds per smile" the Elise definitely works out the best.
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