99% Success is rubbish

‘99% success rate!’

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

You’d probably buy something that has that promise. It sounds really good!

Put into real life though, it’s pretty crap.

A car has around 30,000 parts.

If each part was only 99% good, then you are looking at 900 parts failing out of those 30,000 parts.

Put it another way…

A large airliner, such as an A380 Airbus has around 3 million parts.

That 99% good is terrible as it allows 30,000 parts to fail.

That’s every part of a car failing. Not just a switch, but the spring, washer, fulcrum, each electrical connector, the plastic button itself, the bulb, every part of that switch would fail.

Literally everything on the car failing. Each wheel nut, every tyre, every single component on the stereo, even the cup holder and each section of upholstery… A bit like a British car from the 1970’s.

Would you feel okay flying in an aircraft that boasts it’s parts are 99% fail free? ‘Only 30,000 parts likely to fail!!!’

Even 99.9% fail free still allows for 3,000 parts going wrong in that aircraft. Still not great.

500,000 open heart surgeries are carried out a year. That’s not all heart operations – that’s just full cut open and hands in wet work. 99% success would accept 5000 of those to die.

International air transport saw 3 billion people flying around this year. Just standard passenger flights – not including any other flights.

3,000,000,000 people a year. If 99% of those people survived their flights, that would accept 30 million deaths per year… 99.9% survival would accept just 3 million deaths a year, so that’s okay…?

2014 has been a terrible year in civil aviation. Due to several airliner losses (including shoot downs/missing), 761 lives were lost. Usually this number is much lower. In 2013 it was just 265 lives lost out of around 3,000,000,000 that flew commercially.

That’s more than 99.99999% surviving their flights – and we’re still driving that number
down because even one loss is not acceptable.

That’s why automotive, aviation and medicine etc. work to much, much higher quality standards than a terrible low target of just 99%.

Geriatric old fool…?

My dad was 75 when he was called in on this. It caused one hell of a shake up.

Hugh was in the same mould as my dad. Boffins… Both contributory scientists that weren’t just text book perfect in their roles, they wrote the books… (Not just a play on words, they did write them…).

He was accused by one of the investigators of being too old and they inferred he was past it…. and then dad dropped some undeniable evidence in the case. Next thing he knew they had asked him to fly overseas to help & discuss his findings… He said ‘I don’t think I could possibly do that journey… I’m far too old, apparently…‘

Amazing Find…

I just stumbled across a short story someone wrote…

HERE

It features my dad (Fred Jones)… and yes, his role in the V2 saga is accurate.

Author’s Note: The following owes much to ‘Air Crash’ written by Fred Jones.

Mr Jones was employed in the English government services between 1935 and 1980.

Mr Jones worked out of Farnborough and specialised in Air Accident Analysis. Fortunately for me he was there during WW2 and was involved in one very particular bit of analysis which is mentioned below…and yes, he did have ring-ins for the job, but he doesn’t say who or where from. This being the case I took a minor liberty and added one of my own people.

August 1st 1944 – Weybridge, England

I take a simple view of life: Keep your eyes open and get on with it. – Sir Laurence Olivier

Hope had been staring at the telephone in perplexity for over five minutes…Mac had been timing it. It was an odd expression of her face and Mac was less than comforted by it. It was an expression she tended to wear when something had gone wildly wrong with an aeroplane. It was an expression which had been becoming more frequent ever since work had begun on the jets. No one knew what happened with high speed flight, the casualties were mounting and the problems becoming increasingly bizarre and senseless.

“Hope?” There was complete silence and Hope continued to stare at the telephone.

“Hope!” A little more volume drew no more response.

“HOPE!” Mac settled for a yell and was relieved to see Hope twitch, it would take a moment or two before her full attention returned from where ever it was though.

“Something up?” Hope looked around and blinked rather owlishly.

“You’ve been staring at the telephone as if it’s a particularly nasty crash.”

“Oh.” Hope moved away from the telephone and found a chair. “It was Jones from Farnborough, seems to think he’s got an interesting job on hand and wanted me to show up because of something to do with the recent crashes we’ve had here.”

“Our crashes have been remarkably boring…except for the fact that we seem to be studying how many pieces you can separate an aeroplane into.”

“That’s what worries me.” Hope twisted restlessly and frowned out the window. “Fred has seven others over there and all they do is spend their time dissecting smashed planes. Why me?”

“Did you tell him no?”

“He said it would be interesting.” Hope was frowning at the counter top.

“Then go pack.” Mac settled himself down carefully. “Me and the twins will endeavour not to destroy ourselves, or the house, before whatever interesting problem has passed and I trust the big sneeze doesn’t mind letting you go.”

“It’ll probably come out of my leave.”

“You haven’t had leave in years.”

“Take it up with him, not me.” Hope was frowning at the bookcase, one book in hand and her intention clearly to obtain another one. “I really…no, no, no…possibly not…maybe…is it at all important?” Hope turned away from the bookshelf with a perplexed expression.

“What?”

“It coming out of my leave. Is it an important matter?”

“No one else given such an invitation or request would have it taken out of their leave.”

“Oh.” Hope turned back to the bookshelf and pulled a book out. “Fred’s usually reliable…or at least if not reliable he’s not boring…that Halifax…”

“Which Halifax?” Mac looked up from the book he had acquired.

“Oh, it was back at the beginning of the war.” Hope returned the book she held and grabbed another. “Rocket assisted bombs or something like that. The Halifax blew up and no one knew why.” Hope began to flick through the book. “It was really rather idiotic because they loaded the plane for multiple tests and one of the bombs fired but wasn’t released…it was rather bad for the aeroplane.”

“Really?” Mac carefully swallowed a smile as he noticed that Hope now had seven books and was searching for more.

“I wonder…” Hope had pulled yet another book from the shelf and was thoughtfully thumbing through the pages. Mac smiled quietly to himself and went back to his book, the house could blow up and Hope wouldn’t hear it now.

Hope knelt among the litter of metals and knew a moment of awe. They’d been working for days now, simply sorting the different fragments into their individual metal types. There were days more work to do before they even began attempting to assemble this mess, and they intended to compress the assembly time and analysis time as well. It was the ultimate jigsaw puzzle. It was also a secret which Germany undoubtedly considered to be safe…to any sane person this was the outcome of obliteration. The people gathered at Farnborough were not sane though, mathematicians were already working on the trajectory information balanced by the mass of metal which had been collected. This mess was a gift from Sweden, a high altitude explosion and many fragmentary scraps of metal…well, hardly a gift, the Swedes got Spitfires in return. This and some mathematics were all they had to work with, but Hope knew no doubt, they would know success before Hitler ever used it against them. Hope fingered a sharp-edged piece of metal and pondered which of the millions available to choose from would actually have once joined it. The clues were sometimes subtle, sometimes glaringly obvious, but always there. Explosions sometimes actually made the job easier, for explosions marked the metals. This was going to be fun…long, hard, fun.

“I trust your absence for the past couple of weeks has been suitably interesting.” Mac glanced up from some cheap paperback as Hope let herself in through the back door. Hope noted with faint curiousity that there was actually quite a significant stack of books next to Mac’s chair.

“Yes.” Hope sank into another chair with a sigh. “Marmelade and Marine?”

“Upstairs and asleep.” Mac laid the book aside and rubbed his forehead. “Very hush-hush?”

“Hmm?” Hope blinked in momentary bewilderment. “Oh, yes.” Hope gave her head a small shake. “Some rocket which came out of Germany and detonated. We think we got it sorted…but we may be wrong.”

“That is always a possibility.” Mac smiled faintly and then it slowly widened. “Payload?”

“Nasty…also a whole sudload of senseless electronic stuff. At a guess we assume they’ll start arriving in London within the next couple of months…but we’ve got their flight trajectories, ranges…we know where to look for the launch sites even if we can do nothing about them.”

“Nice.” Mac picked his book up again.

“Mac?” Hope had finally managed to bring her mind back to the present and that pile of books was bothering her.

“Mm?” Mac looked up from his book.

“It’s two o’clock in the morning and you have eight thrillers piled next to your chair.”

“Oh.” Mac glanced at the pile with a faint frown. “Obviously I only thought about aski…” Mac stopped what he was saying and turned back to his book.

“Mac?” Hope’s brows had risen questioningly.

“Picked a fight with the back door and lost…resulted in some enforced rest I’m afraid…the kitchen is the most shocking mess.”

“When?” Hope was feeling distinctly resigned.

“Ten..twelve days ago.” Mac gave a slight shrug. “Just something else I’ll have to get the hang of not doing.”

“Why do you usually seem to save your best attempts at killing yourself until my back is turned?”

“Skill.” Mac gave a tired smile. “Marmelade’s managing the dogs so you needn’t worry about that this time…though I might have to worry about finding a new job…he’s good with them.”

“Well…try not to get one in London.” Hope gave a tiny smile.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Mac returned the smile and then picked up his book. “I’m not sleeping much courtesy of pain, there’s no need to wait up.”

“Am I allowed to sit and chat with a husband for a bit after not seeing him for twenty days?”

“Certainly…said husband felt his company was pretty rotten though.”

“Well, said husband is not made up of crumpled pieces of duralumin I’m trying to piece together and is therefore a very welcome change.”

“Oh.” Mac laid his book aside again. “That being the case said husband will stop imitating being a piece of stuffed furniture.” Mac rubbed the back of his neck and then yawned. “You’ve been offered a week of leave.”

“Good.” Hope kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet up. “Such an odd fin formation on that thing…must have a chat to someone about the effects of such variations…might be a…” Hope trailed off her eyes fixed on something in the infinite distance outside the window. Mac smiled quietly to himself and picked up his book once more. Life was good.

A/N: September 8th 1944, the first V2 Rockets arrived in Kent with specifications exactly matching those predicted by RAE…the senseless electronics were absent though, they were a remote flight control system which had never received permission to use a rocket.

Goodwood Revival 2012

The Revival was upon us again….

So a few years ago I got to sit in a Jaguar XJ13 whilst talking to Norman Dewis – and that was a Revival meeting that is hardly ever to be topped… but this year came close. (See that 2009 write up HERE).

Over the years more and more people have decided to don period clothes and dress for the occasion that is one of, if not the world leading classic motor sports events. Last year we didn’t dress up, and that was the year that we felt more out of place for not dressing up, than if we had dressed up…. So this year we went in style…

Chris went in a military style, as did Alex, and I went as a 30’s racing driver.

As usual, the entire day was fantastic – that’s pretty much standard for the Revival, but this time we were invited as guests, so got a little closer to the action, sounds and smells of the racetrack.

It was astounding. Driver changes and pit stops within arms reach! Cars worth hundreds of thousands, even millions, of pounds, were racing as if it was 1960 all over again.

We’re not talking sedate demonstration laps – We are talking foot to the floor, spinning out on corners and sharing paintwork style racing…. Exactly what these cars were designed to do. When you see a Ferrari GTO rub up alongside an Aston Martin, or a £10 million Maserati spin off and slam into a tyre wall, then you know these drivers are in it to win, and not to show off the looks of these often unique historic cars.

What was the value of all the cars there over the weekend? I’d hate to think! Even a parade of classic Ferrari GTO’s must have topped 10’s of millions!!!

GTO’s are surely a pricey car…. but then I saw this line up…

The most expensive car total value on the track at one time must belong to the German ‘Silver Arrows‘…. The original German bad boys of motor racing.

The pre-WW2 silver Mercedes and Auto Union ballistic racing cars that dominated the sport… V16 engines, rear mounted, meticulously built with typical German detail and precision. Even now, these cars are a marvel of engineering. Just looking into the engine bay you can’t believe that these are 1930’s racers!

Not just cars though – The track was filled with vintage motorbikes, tearing around on the ragged edge of their limits… and beyond! Vincent, Norton, Rudge, BMW, Ariel, Honda… so many types – and the noise was all enveloping!

For a motorsport enthusiast or just for a fun day out to see all the events and sideshows, Goodwood Revival really is second to none. For me, one of the highlights was the pit stop that was that arms reach away….

I say ‘one‘ of the highlights, because as I walked around after the racing had ended, I saw a Tojeiro chassis Jaguar D-Type. Much like today, many racing cars used to be custom built to suit certain specifications.

Quite often a standard car was modified to suit a particular need, and Tojeiro used to work with Jaguars to produce some top racers of the day. Trojeiro’s work eventually lead to the monster Shelby Cobra, so he has a pretty substantial claim in the racing car hall of fame.

7 GNO : Year of Manufacture 1956 : Date of First Registration 19 04 1956

Anyway, several Trojeiro models were racing, and after the day of racing ended I went to have a closer look. One of the best looking (in my opinion) was the first Trojeiro, based on the D-Type Jaguar (which was a stunning car in its own rights, and one of my all time favourites). Luckily enough, 7GNO was at Goodwood on this Revival Sunday…

…and…

Well…. If you don’t ask….

There are MANY more photos and films HERE!!!

.

Share this & save a life… REALLY.

Oh crap…. He’s on one!

Actually, by sharing this, you ARE more likely to help save a life, or protect an endangered species, or stop someone getting car jacked, or help raise money for truly needy charities and programs…

Money scams, charity requests, sick kids, murderers, stalkers of women drivers, dead soldiers, freebies, Facebook charges….. and OMG LOOK WHAT THIS GIRL WAS CAUGHT DOING BY HER DAD…….

Rather than fuelling the crap, why not check the validity of it at somewhere like snopes.com first?

I know you mean well…. but…… ARGH!!!!

You see, every time I see a scam ‘Share this to help raise money for this child with cancer‘ story in my Facebook feed, or a tweet… even if it is well meaning… a little bit of me dies.

Okay, so technically a little piece of all of us is dying all the time, as cells die and new ones regenerate… but that’s beside the point…

Very sad, but you're not helping THIS child... or anyone else.

Most of the stories are scams and falsehoods (verily).

They are contrived rubbish DESIGNED to make people want to spread them around.

Yes…. People are arseholes who prey on other people.

At best, all these continuous ‘PLEASE SHARE THIS!!! URGENT‘ etcetera stories just numb people, and eventually, like the kid who cried……

“WOLF!!!! OH SHITOSHITOSHIT“

…….people just ignore them, they become blasé …. and in doing so, the REAL stories… the REAL advice… the REAL charities…. that GOOD stuff gets ignored too.

A High Horse, Yesterday

Whilst I’m way up here on this high (but extremely valid) horse,  please….please…. don’t say things like;

“Well, maybe the one legged child didn’t save the leprous old woman, but it’s a lovely story about human nature…”

…because it isn’t. You’ve just made more people ignore REAL messages. You’ve just killed a rain forest and let more people die from an illness that NEEDED real help. Moron.

You’ll most likely find the messages, status updates, tweets etcetera, are variations of old emails that were written to make people spread the sad tales around, whilst actually spreading an attached virus that you didn’t know about.

Same goes for the emails, texts and messages that say:

“Send this to 5 friends right now or an elephant will shit on your car and your first born will be born terminally stupid“.

Then people say “What harm can it do to share it? Ho ho!!!“… apart from the virus it may carry… or the fact that people will just end up ignoring relevant information you send them because they are so used to the bogus stuff you send out…. well…. no harm at all… Although are you really that crazed to think forwarding on this pap will actually get you some good luck… or do you really fear the bad things that might happen if you don’t forward it on?

Are you really from the Middle Ages?

Look, just extinguish that witch you are burning and stop worrying that the sky is falling and CHECK YOUR FACTS FIRST….

If you want to share something, it’s not better to be safe than sorry… it’s better TO BE RIGHT.

Less fictional, poorly researched crap means people take note of the real news, the real information…. I’m sure I’ve said that enough now….

So you see… by sharing THIS blog entry, and getting people to check sites such as snopes.com first before blindly sharing and posting bogus information, well…. you could save a life…. because the less cries of wolf there are, the more likely it is that people will take notice of the real stories again… and then those people might help the child, donate to charity, stop the internet virus…

Search Snopes.com FIRST

So, next time you see some repeated repeated repeated status update, tweet, message, email etc…. then share this blog entry with that person….

http://bit.ly/scamandspam

….and relax……

Thank … God?

Okay… there are a lot of links in this blog entry. They go some way to showing what is involved, and who is involved, in parts of the following tale…. It is quite a short write up, considering how deep I could take it… so please bear with me…

The Scene…

A lorry has a tyre blow out on a major busy road in a hilly area of the country.

The trailer slides across the Tarmac & hits a car.

The car is smashed off of the road and it ends up upside down at the roadside.

A little girl inside is seriously injured.

In seconds, the traffic has stopped & other road users are phoning in the accident. They use mobile phones that have been developed over time by countless thousands of engineers who can trace telephone technology back to people like Bell and Marconi – or in this case, Dr Martin Cooper of Motorola with the first mobile phone.

These engineers went to school, college & university to study. They were taught by countless more lecturers & teachers who spent their lives learning their vocational skills and also attending schools, colleges, universities etc to enable them to go on and educate others. The same is said of the people who trained these instructors and… well, it goes on and on. Thousands of people lead to the witnesses of the crash being able to phone emergency services.

Of course, the emergency services couldn’t be contacted if there was no telephone infrastructure in place, and also if there was no way to generate electricity to power the systems that allow for the phones to charge and for the entire grid of communications to operate.

Again we have engineers, scientists and the initial inventors to thank for harnessing the power of electricity, into making it possible to give all the houses & businesses the ability to power their equipment… and go in all of the cars, lorries, boats, aircraft and so on… that all need batteries to start/run their engines, motors & electrical systems. And again there are the instructors, lecturers etc that teach these skills to enable this resource to develop and operate safer & more reliably day after day…. and the people who taught the people to teach…

Thinking about it, those teachers need somewhere to teach… so we must remember architects, builders, plumbers (ooh, the Romans for their work on plumbing), electricians, carpenters, roofers etc… and all the people who taught them… and those that taught those that taught them… etc.

Oh Hell, mustn’t forget the workers (and those that died progressing their areas of employment, working to provide for our prior generations, and those to come) in foundries, mills, mines, quarries who supplied the materials to build the schools… And don’t forget the people who taught them…. and here we go again….

So far we have a witness calling for help over a mobile phone, and someone from the emergency services taking that call & passing it on the the relevant rescue services… and we have thousands and thousands of people who helped make that call take place…. So many people who are each owed something for what they brought to the table on this day, so to speak.

Wiltshire Air Ambulance

Rescue and emergency services head out to the crash site. The rescuers included countless Police to divert traffic & control the crash scene for starters. Then the ambulances & fire engines come along. Paramedics & firefighters to cut the victims from the wreck & give emergency aid to get them stable for the urgent ambulance helicopter flight to an airport so that the girl can be transferred to a faster aircraft to get to the hospital.

I've worked on this aircraft at GAMA - I'm part of this huge chain that helped.

Think of the technology, the training, the skills and dedication involved in all of this! Even down to the rescue services “Jaws of Life“… the hydraulic cutters used to remove the roofs off of cars to allow people to be removed from them safely…

Heck, we need to thank the ancient Greeks & Chinese for their initial work in hydraulics, and Blaise Pascal (1600’s) for his work in modern hydraulic principles, that eventually lead to generations of teachers training generations of engineers to eventually come up with, and make “The Jaws of Life”.

All of those emergency vehicles have engines that developed from steam engines to internal combustion engines… We owe Karl Benz for some of the first practical motor cars… Nikolaus Otto is to thank for coal/gas burning reciprocal engines.

Then there’s the gas turbine engine in the air ambulance helicopter… this goes back to Bernoulli and more practically, Sir Frank Whittle… Oh yeah, the helicopter goes back to Leonardo da Vinci… and the modem father is Igor Sikorsky.

The technology that went into making all of those car, lorry, helicopter systems etc… is owed to an impossible number of inventors, scientist, scholars, boffins…. teachers, foundry workers… and on and on….

Almost forgot Babbage & the calculating machine he created, or the first simple mechanical computer of Thomas Fowler in 1840! … or the many variations of the abacus… or the efforts at Bletchley Park with Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers… regarded as the fathers of modern computing… Without this line of thought & engineering, the computer reliant vehicles (ground and air) would not function… or be able to be designed…

Do I have to go into how many people have helped progress THIS side of technology! MILLIONS! Don’t forget all of those ancient mathematicians that developed theories, rules, formulas etc that allowed ANY engineering to take place… Archimedes, Aristotle, Pythagoras… some of maths many fathers…

So yeah… The little girl is cut from the car & her condition is stabilised. She is put in the helicopter & flown to the hospital (by trained pilots who have spent years training etc and so on… you know what I mean by now…).

She arrives at the trauma centre, which was an idea first established in the 1960’s by R Adams Cowley, and is rushed into surgery (developed from around the 1500’s by countless scientists and researchers in medicine)… and I think if you have half a brain cell, that you’ll know where this is heading….

Trained staff, technology, inventors, scientists, infrastructure, upper tier staff, lower tier staff, buildings, services…. allowing the paramedics, doctors, nurses & other specialists to save the little girls life, using equipment that has been developed over generations of medical and non medical research, by people whose names you can’t help but recognise, including the likes of Florence Nightingale, Marie Curie, Hannah Myrick, Louis Pasteur, Alexis Carrel and Henry Dakin, Joseph Lister…. the list is endless…. or at least it may as well be, because every branch of medicine or medical research was generated from a different branch, or developed into others…

Research has expanded and helped us… and with that expansion comes the need for more people to teach, to learn, to think, to progress…

Millions of people and their ancestors all helped

The above list doesn’t touch the surface of all of those that were involved in that one little girls life being saved, but as you can see, the human count in this pyramid that ends with that little girls life contains millions of unsung heroes. People who worked just to find answers. Some were imprisoned & forced to work. Some were slaves, some were kings & queens… All walks of life through the ages.

And then there’s the press who interview the parents after the girl has been saved…. and the parents… they turn to the camera and say into the microphone…

“Thank God our daughter survived…. We knew he was looking down on her all the time…”

No mention of the Doctors, the nurses, the pilots, the Police, the rescue and emergency services, the witnesses at the scene… let alone the millions in history that allowed it to all play out….

Even if you are religious, then sure, thank your God, but don’t forget the physical people who did all the hands on work.

If you do want to thank ‘God’….. Don’t forget one tiny little thing…

…Who do you think allowed the crash to happen in the first place?

Yes, you guessed it....

You live on the shoulders of millions who lived before you.

Don’t ever forget that.

Oh, and before you go and say “It’s all a test God has set us“… then please read THIS…

Cars, and why Farnham Carriage Company suck(ed) the big one…

Another Update (November 20 2011):

It must be said that the responses to the blog that I originally wrote were mainly people having trouble with Max Emmerson-Fish. I don’t think anyone else had trouble with Glenbourne Motor Company apart from me. Both of these companies/people were operating under the umbrella of Farnham Carriage Company at the time, but have since moved on.

My last update (October 2011… below) was due to Martin Dawes from FCC contacting me. Within it I wrote that:

If Glenbournes fancy a bit of a shoulder pat for customer satisfaction, then they could buy our Fiesta back…

Well…. I received a call the other night from the owner, and he offered that very deal (or some other arrangement if we wanted). Now this does nod in Glenbournes favour, as even though this problem has gone on for a couple of years, they have not just brushed it under the table.

They have now followed it up to give me, the customer, the satisfaction I require. We have yet to discuss the finer points, but I want to get this blog updated to at least show they have stepped up to the mark, and to separate them from the Max Emmerson-Fish fiasco that a lot of my blog readers commented with.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I will go back to a company time and again if they offer good service. If they make a mistake, or something goes wrong, I won’t automatically walk away and never use them again IF they deal with the situation calmly, honestly and politely. If they ignore me, or blank me… or tell me to piss off…. then sure, I’ll not recommend them and I’ll spread the word around…. but if they do all they can to help, then that’ll gain my favour.

Faulty products happen. Sometimes they can’t be helped, sometimes wires cross, sometimes a company might just try to get away with something and get caught out…. but as long as they front up and DEAL WITH THE SITUATION, then I’d rather go to them, than go to someone with a better product and NO customer service.

Windows offer sod all customer service – or at least a customer service that is near impossible to deal with… yet the pricier Apple have customer service that is second to none. Honestly, they bend over backwards to delight the customer – even if it is the customers stupid ass mistake if something went wrong in the first place. They KNOW that any money lost in this type of event will come back in multiples if they give a good follow up service. I know this first hand – See HERE for details.

 

UPDATE (October 11 2011):

Okay – A strange thing happened tonight. I step out of the shower, throw some clothes on and the doorbell chimes.

The man on the doorstep is Martin Dawes of Farnham Carriage Company.

This is the company that in 2009 caused me a lot of problems (on going), and prompted me to write a blog entry. The blog entry gained momentum….

I was half expecting the visit at some point – and was in fact planning to call him up regarding this blog. I had a feeling that changes were in motion after receiving a response over the original write up (Aug 2009 – below). – THE RESPONSE

You see, this blog entry about his company has had so many hits that it ranked higher than the company itself.

I

This gave me a warm feeling inside – a victory for the man on the street…

…but as Martin Dawes of Farnham Carriage Company now explained from my doorstep, not only has Max Emmerson-Fish left the Farnham Carriage Company site, but so has Glenbourne Motors.

This means that Farnham Carriage Company has removed these tumours from site – and Farnham Carriage Company themselves would like to distance themselves from the past problems caused by the other people they shared the site with.

The thing is, I don’t want to remove this blog entry, and explained to Martin that, seeing as I have been getting more hits than Farnham Carriage Company itself, that as a gesture of good faith I would write this new introduction. After all, people searching for FCC will still land here, and from here they can click the link below to Farnham Carriage Company itself, happy in the knowledge that things have moved on, and that the people who caused my problems have been removed…..

As Martin said in a comment response in September this year:

Farnham Carriage Company would like to thank Max Emmerson Fish and Glenbournes for leaving the Farnham site. Please feel free to use this blog if you have any complaints regarding FCC and we will try our best to resolve any issues you may have, or telephone us on 01252 711900 anytime.

… oh yeah, they’ve gone all right…. but just in case you want to contact them… Just in case you have outstanding issues with them… Martin included their company details too. After all, free advertising cuts both ways.

So… Click link for the Farnham Carriage Company (now with 100% less Emmerson-Fish and Glenbournes):

Now with 100% less Emmerson-Fish and Purdy

If you have outstanding questions (etc, etc….) with either Glenbournes or Max Emmerson-Fish (Auriga), then I am sure that they’d be more than happy to hear from you at their new sites…….

Glenbourne Motor Company – Twelve London Road, Bagshot, Surrey, GU19 5HN

Glenbournes…. Just so you know

Max Emmerson-Fish can be found at Auriga Autos, Bowenhurst Golf Centre (apparently).

Oddly enough Auriga Autos only has a phone number, with no address. A car dealership who won’t say where they are? Am I the only one that thinks that is a bit odd…. It seems like someone is trying to stop their past catching up with them… but that’s probably just my strange way of thinking, and might not mean anything….

Address…. yeah…. erm….

If Glenbournes fancy a bit of a shoulder pat for customer satisfaction, then they could buy our Fiesta back for, lets say £995. It still drives poorly, the engine still misbehaves and we have to keep nursing it due to intermittent faults (which we are still trying to fix). Yes, that would be a turn around for the books – a phoenix from the ashes…. a fat chance of ever happening….

Hell…. whilst I’m dreaming… they could really get huge kudos from me if they gave me an old Discovery or Land Rover in exchange for the continuing nightmare of the purple Fiesta! As if….

That original blog:

Remember, Farnham Carriage Company are mentioned below in the original blog, but the group within FCC that caused all of the problems in the blog & the comments after the blog, have moved on (Glenbournes/Auriga). As far as I am aware, FCC are now a good company to deal with. Credit to Martin Dawes for coming over to see me to explain the recent history.

So… step back in time…

Cars, and why Farnham Carriage Company suck the big one…

Allegedly….

August 23rd, 2009

The Purple Fiesta died again…. due to a mistake that could only have been made by a mechanic used by a Farnham car dealership.

Lets start at the beginning…. Due to some unobservant idiot driving into our Citroen Berlingo and sending it to the car graveyard we were forced into buying a replacement car in a very limited time.

Death of a work horse

We found a Purple Ford Fiesta with low mileage and in superb condition at Farnham Carriage Company.

It was purchased with 3 months warranty and a service. I had looked over the car and found the handbrake a bit slack, and a spark plug hanging out. Not to worry, Farnham Carriage Company said it would be serviced before I picked it up.

I picked it up… got home… spark plug still loose… handbrake on end of adjustment.

Mechanic said spark plugs in Fiestas have a tendency to do that (can you smell that? can you?)

60 miles later it blew its guts out on the M3…. head gasket had blown…

They

Oh yeah, they’ll do that if the temp gauge doesn’t work – a known issue – Missed at service.

So they fix it – In the meantime I chuck money on top of the purchase price as I have to get a hire car for a week – which Farnham Carriage Company don’t pay for.

We get the car back and it doesn’t sound right. The sales ‘robot’ says I’m being over sensitive and just picking out faults. He says it sounds fine for a car of that age. I say it may sound fine for a car of that age, but it sounds bad compared to how it was when I brought it… 60 miles earlier.

Getting fed up of trying to get the smug numpty to even admit there may be a fault, I accepted to drive away and give it a go.

Less than 8 weeks pass and it blows its guts out again. It turns out that the mechanic hadn’t fixed a pipe back properly and it had worn through on a drive shaft. Water emptied everywhere. Car had to go back to the warranty garage at Farnham Carriage Company… and I had to get a hire car again…. yet more money!

The mechanic tries to use sticky tape to do a temporary repair…..it chucks water out again… funny that.

I tell him I’ll leave the car there until he gets the parts in.

We have to pay half of the bill under warranty conditions, even though it’s the fault of the repair THEY carried out last time. Bloody cowboy criminals. Half the £100 bill…. which doesn’t cover the £200 hire car…. Their £50 is no way half of the costs these repairs have cost me. Thieves, if you ask me.

Farnham Carriage Company yesterday?

They even tried to say the pipe might have been like that all along! That’s a bunch of arse – No way a rubber pipe would last 60,000 miles bouncing on a drive shaft! Maybe 1000… which is what I had done since the head gasket repair was carried out…. what a coincidence… Yeeee haw!!! COWBOY! You don’t need to be ‘engineeringly minded’ to realise this doesn’t add up.

So they fix it… ahem. Chris drives it home. The thing is filthy orange from all the rusty water that has sprayed all over it… and they didn’t even bother cleaning it. Chris then notices a big scratch where something has rubbed hard against the wing whilst at the garage.. bloody shoddy workmanship, and no care for the customer vehicles.

Where

She then pops the bonnet up and sees…. NO WATER in the car again! She calls the garage and they say that sometimes after a repair like that, the water needs time to settle and get the air out of the system! Once more the flaming cowboy alarm goes off! I have done car and aircraft maintenance, and I know that after topping up reservoirs and systems you BLEED them.

You don’t give an unfinished job to the customer and try to fob them off with some half arsed lame tale, because according to other technicians I know, and general engineering common sense, that’s exactly what it was – an excuse.

I did double check with a couple of well trusted auto technicians I know…. and they said that you would never return a car like that. One even said that he would bleed the system fully, but also tell the customer to check the level once they got home just in case there had been an air block. The Farnham guy mentioned nothing.

There you go – If you are looking for a car or mechanic, then stay clear of Farnham Carriage Company if this is anything to go by. Seriously.

I am honestly thinking of legal action, as the car fails to meet SSG act limitations.

LATEST NEWS: Farnham Carriage Company and the AA FAIL – It goes on – Still haunted by FCC

On the plus side, I was forced into getting a second car sooner than I had envisaged.

We always needed the two cars as I need one for work, and Chris needs one for here weekly tasks. I had a list of things to look for in a car, and number one was it had to have the VW TDi engine…. so that meant a VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat….

I had been looking for some time, but no cars matched my criteria – and if they did they were in Scotland or some other far flung location. The day the Fiesta blew its pipe I was desperate to find a car as I needed reliable transportation to do my 110 mile round trip to work each day.

My luck was in this day… Whilst waiting to pick up the hire car I carried out an Autotrader.co.uk search… and there was a ’96 Audi A4 only 7 miles away… in my price range…. with a service history that was so anal it was untrue! This car has been so well looked after! It appeared to be owned by a person who would replace a whole engine if an air filter needed changing! A quick test drive and a look through the records and I was off!

Mr Audi

The only problem was a mismatched alloy wheel – but £30 later and eBay got me 5 second hand A3 alloys with good (nearly new) Pirelli P6000 tyres… only 5 miles from my place of work! A little bit of luck was due our way!

The fan belt was on the way out though – but one chat to my auto technician friend, a Haynes manual later, and a trip to Camberley Autofactors and I was elbow deep in the engine bay.

Haynes said remove the front bumper and associated parts, and jack the car up, use axle stands, two people etc….. I managed with opening the bonnet and cranking a 15mm spanner to swap the belt over! (with a third hand from Chris to keep tension on as I fed the new belt in). This was thanks to advice from the technician I use – and can’t rate highly enough!

I took the new Audi (or Mr Audi, as Alex calls it) to T.J Services – who I trust. I wanted to get a service done to make sure it is all up together. He looked over the history and was taken back by the work the previous owner had carried out. Most of the expensive bits that haunt any car… all of them had been replaced already! I had spotted a gem of a car! Trevor (T.J) simply said he’d see me at the next MoT, as no work was needed yet. Hurrah for honest tradesmen!

Cars, and why Farnham Carriage Company suck(ed) the big one…

Another Update (November 20 2011):

It must be said that the responses to the blog that I originally wrote were mainly people having trouble with Max Emmerson-Fish. I don’t think anyone else had trouble with Glenbourne Motor Company apart from me. Both of these companies/people were operating under the umbrella of Farnham Carriage Company at the time, but have since moved on.

My last update (October 2011… below) was due to Martin Dawes from FCC contacting me. Within it I wrote that:

If Glenbournes fancy a bit of a shoulder pat for customer satisfaction, then they could buy our Fiesta back…

Well…. I received a call the other night from the owner, and he offered that very deal (or some other arrangement if we wanted). Now this does nod in Glenbournes favour, as even though this problem has gone on for a couple of years, they have not just brushed it under the table.

They have now followed it up to give me, the customer, the satisfaction I require. We have yet to discuss the finer points, but I want to get this blog updated to at least show they have stepped up to the mark, and to separate them from the Max Emmerson-Fish fiasco that a lot of my blog readers commented with.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I will go back to a company time and again if they offer good service. If they make a mistake, or something goes wrong, I won’t automatically walk away and never use them again IF they deal with the situation calmly, honestly and politely. If they ignore me, or blank me… or tell me to piss off…. then sure, I’ll not recommend them and I’ll spread the word around…. but if they do all they can to help, then that’ll gain my favour.

Faulty products happen. Sometimes they can’t be helped, sometimes wires cross, sometimes a company might just try to get away with something and get caught out…. but as long as they front up and DEAL WITH THE SITUATION, then I’d rather go to them, than go to someone with a better product and NO customer service.

Windows offer sod all customer service – or at least a customer service that is near impossible to deal with… yet the pricier Apple have customer service that is second to none. Honestly, they bend over backwards to delight the customer – even if it is the customers stupid ass mistake if something went wrong in the first place. They KNOW that any money lost in this type of event will come back in multiples if they give a good follow up service. I know this first hand – See HERE for details.

 

UPDATE (October 11 2011):

Okay – A strange thing happened tonight. I step out of the shower, throw some clothes on and the doorbell chimes.

The man on the doorstep is Martin Dawes of Farnham Carriage Company.

This is the company that in 2009 caused me a lot of problems (on going), and prompted me to write a blog entry. The blog entry gained momentum….

I was half expecting the visit at some point – and was in fact planning to call him up regarding this blog. I had a feeling that changes were in motion after receiving a response over the original write up (Aug 2009 – below). – THE RESPONSE

You see, this blog entry about his company has had so many hits that it ranked higher than the company itself.

I

This gave me a warm feeling inside – a victory for the man on the street…

…but as Martin Dawes of Farnham Carriage Company now explained from my doorstep, not only has Max Emmerson-Fish left the Farnham Carriage Company site, but so has Glenbourne Motors.

This means that Farnham Carriage Company has removed these tumours from site – and Farnham Carriage Company themselves would like to distance themselves from the past problems caused by the other people they shared the site with.

The thing is, I don’t want to remove this blog entry, and explained to Martin that, seeing as I have been getting more hits than Farnham Carriage Company itself, that as a gesture of good faith I would write this new introduction. After all, people searching for FCC will still land here, and from here they can click the link below to Farnham Carriage Company itself, happy in the knowledge that things have moved on, and that the people who caused my problems have been removed…..

As Martin said in a comment response in September this year:

Farnham Carriage Company would like to thank Max Emmerson Fish and Glenbournes for leaving the Farnham site. Please feel free to use this blog if you have any complaints regarding FCC and we will try our best to resolve any issues you may have, or telephone us on 01252 711900 anytime.

… oh yeah, they’ve gone all right…. but just in case you want to contact them… Just in case you have outstanding issues with them… Martin included their company details too. After all, free advertising cuts both ways.

So… Click link for the Farnham Carriage Company (now with 100% less Emmerson-Fish and Glenbournes):

Now with 100% less Emmerson-Fish and Purdy

If you have outstanding questions (etc, etc….) with either Glenbournes or Max Emmerson-Fish (Auriga), then I am sure that they’d be more than happy to hear from you at their new sites…….

Glenbourne Motor Company – Twelve London Road, Bagshot, Surrey, GU19 5HN

Glenbournes…. Just so you know

Max Emmerson-Fish can be found at Auriga Autos, Bowenhurst Golf Centre (apparently).

Oddly enough Auriga Autos only has a phone number, with no address. A car dealership who won’t say where they are? Am I the only one that thinks that is a bit odd…. It seems like someone is trying to stop their past catching up with them… but that’s probably just my strange way of thinking, and might not mean anything….

Address…. yeah…. erm….

If Glenbournes fancy a bit of a shoulder pat for customer satisfaction, then they could buy our Fiesta back for, lets say £995. It still drives poorly, the engine still misbehaves and we have to keep nursing it due to intermittent faults (which we are still trying to fix). Yes, that would be a turn around for the books – a phoenix from the ashes…. a fat chance of ever happening….

Hell…. whilst I’m dreaming… they could really get huge kudos from me if they gave me an old Discovery or Land Rover in exchange for the continuing nightmare of the purple Fiesta! As if….

That original blog:

Remember, Farnham Carriage Company are mentioned below in the original blog, but the group within FCC that caused all of the problems in the blog & the comments after the blog, have moved on (Glenbournes/Auriga). As far as I am aware, FCC are now a good company to deal with. Credit to Martin Dawes for coming over to see me to explain the recent history.

So… step back in time…

Cars, and why Farnham Carriage Company suck the big one…

Allegedly….

August 23rd, 2009

The Purple Fiesta died again…. due to a mistake that could only have been made by a mechanic used by a Farnham car dealership.

Lets start at the beginning…. Due to some unobservant idiot driving into our Citroen Berlingo and sending it to the car graveyard we were forced into buying a replacement car in a very limited time.

Death of a work horse

We found a Purple Ford Fiesta with low mileage and in superb condition at Farnham Carriage Company.

It was purchased with 3 months warranty and a service. I had looked over the car and found the handbrake a bit slack, and a spark plug hanging out. Not to worry, Farnham Carriage Company said it would be serviced before I picked it up.

I picked it up… got home… spark plug still loose… handbrake on end of adjustment.

Mechanic said spark plugs in Fiestas have a tendency to do that (can you smell that? can you?)

60 miles later it blew its guts out on the M3…. head gasket had blown…

They

Oh yeah, they’ll do that if the temp gauge doesn’t work – a known issue – Missed at service.

So they fix it – In the meantime I chuck money on top of the purchase price as I have to get a hire car for a week – which Farnham Carriage Company don’t pay for.

We get the car back and it doesn’t sound right. The sales ‘robot’ says I’m being over sensitive and just picking out faults. He says it sounds fine for a car of that age. I say it may sound fine for a car of that age, but it sounds bad compared to how it was when I brought it… 60 miles earlier.

Getting fed up of trying to get the smug numpty to even admit there may be a fault, I accepted to drive away and give it a go.

Less than 8 weeks pass and it blows its guts out again. It turns out that the mechanic hadn’t fixed a pipe back properly and it had worn through on a drive shaft. Water emptied everywhere. Car had to go back to the warranty garage at Farnham Carriage Company… and I had to get a hire car again…. yet more money!

The mechanic tries to use sticky tape to do a temporary repair…..it chucks water out again… funny that.

I tell him I’ll leave the car there until he gets the parts in.

We have to pay half of the bill under warranty conditions, even though it’s the fault of the repair THEY carried out last time. Bloody cowboy criminals. Half the £100 bill…. which doesn’t cover the £200 hire car…. Their £50 is no way half of the costs these repairs have cost me. Thieves, if you ask me.

Farnham Carriage Company yesterday?

They even tried to say the pipe might have been like that all along! That’s a bunch of arse – No way a rubber pipe would last 60,000 miles bouncing on a drive shaft! Maybe 1000… which is what I had done since the head gasket repair was carried out…. what a coincidence… Yeeee haw!!! COWBOY! You don’t need to be ‘engineeringly minded’ to realise this doesn’t add up.

So they fix it… ahem. Chris drives it home. The thing is filthy orange from all the rusty water that has sprayed all over it… and they didn’t even bother cleaning it. Chris then notices a big scratch where something has rubbed hard against the wing whilst at the garage.. bloody shoddy workmanship, and no care for the customer vehicles.

Where

She then pops the bonnet up and sees…. NO WATER in the car again! She calls the garage and they say that sometimes after a repair like that, the water needs time to settle and get the air out of the system! Once more the flaming cowboy alarm goes off! I have done car and aircraft maintenance, and I know that after topping up reservoirs and systems you BLEED them.

You don’t give an unfinished job to the customer and try to fob them off with some half arsed lame tale, because according to other technicians I know, and general engineering common sense, that’s exactly what it was – an excuse.

I did double check with a couple of well trusted auto technicians I know…. and they said that you would never return a car like that. One even said that he would bleed the system fully, but also tell the customer to check the level once they got home just in case there had been an air block. The Farnham guy mentioned nothing.

There you go – If you are looking for a car or mechanic, then stay clear of Farnham Carriage Company if this is anything to go by. Seriously.

I am honestly thinking of legal action, as the car fails to meet SSG act limitations.

LATEST NEWS: Farnham Carriage Company and the AA FAIL – It goes on – Still haunted by FCC

On the plus side, I was forced into getting a second car sooner than I had envisaged.

We always needed the two cars as I need one for work, and Chris needs one for here weekly tasks. I had a list of things to look for in a car, and number one was it had to have the VW TDi engine…. so that meant a VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat….

I had been looking for some time, but no cars matched my criteria – and if they did they were in Scotland or some other far flung location. The day the Fiesta blew its pipe I was desperate to find a car as I needed reliable transportation to do my 110 mile round trip to work each day.

My luck was in this day… Whilst waiting to pick up the hire car I carried out an Autotrader.co.uk search… and there was a ’96 Audi A4 only 7 miles away… in my price range…. with a service history that was so anal it was untrue! This car has been so well looked after! It appeared to be owned by a person who would replace a whole engine if an air filter needed changing! A quick test drive and a look through the records and I was off!

Mr Audi

The only problem was a mismatched alloy wheel – but £30 later and eBay got me 5 second hand A3 alloys with good (nearly new) Pirelli P6000 tyres… only 5 miles from my place of work! A little bit of luck was due our way!

The fan belt was on the way out though – but one chat to my auto technician friend, a Haynes manual later, and a trip to Camberley Autofactors and I was elbow deep in the engine bay.

Haynes said remove the front bumper and associated parts, and jack the car up, use axle stands, two people etc….. I managed with opening the bonnet and cranking a 15mm spanner to swap the belt over! (with a third hand from Chris to keep tension on as I fed the new belt in). This was thanks to advice from the technician I use – and can’t rate highly enough!

I took the new Audi (or Mr Audi, as Alex calls it) to T.J Services – who I trust. I wanted to get a service done to make sure it is all up together. He looked over the history and was taken back by the work the previous owner had carried out. Most of the expensive bits that haunt any car… all of them had been replaced already! I had spotted a gem of a car! Trevor (T.J) simply said he’d see me at the next MoT, as no work was needed yet. Hurrah for honest tradesmen!

Red Arrows Crash (bang, what a story)

I can’t stand watching the news when there has been an air accident.

Being brought up with air accidents made me hate the news reports on them as they all spout utter rubbish and speculations whilst the damned wreckage is still smouldering and the pilot has yet to be found.

Take in case the accident at Bournemouth Air Festival today  . Within minutes of it happening the TV news were all over it…

Not even 5 minutes after it had happened and…

• The pilot can’t be found.
• The pilot was killed.
• The pilot was pulled out of the river after ejecting.
• The aircraft were doing a display.
• The display had finished.
• The aircraft were landing.
• The Red Arrow had power problems & dived into the ground.
• There was an explosion & fire (my favourite –  Most false witnesses see explosions & fire… even if it’s a glider crash or failed parachute display…).
• One news reporter actually fed the ‘witness’ lines during the interview (Sky).

RAF Red Arrows

I have the greatest respect for the crews, families and all directly involved. It’s a dangerous job, things can go wrong and yet they still do it. My hat is off to you and the rest of our armed services.

As for witnesses… they are near useless.

A witness (or even a group of witnesses) can go on for 20 minutes about an event that happened in a split second. You can’t take in and process all of that data that your eyes just saw, so your brain fills in the blanks with possible scenarios. If a witness adds anything to a scene it is usually confusion and speculation.

My dad put more faith in examining a hangar full of wreckage to find the cause, than he ever did a witness. So ‘witnesses’ and ‘News reporters’,  just shut up & let the investigators do their jobs. They are trained to do it and funnily enough, they know more about it than you…

If you do want to run around like headless chickens, then I suggest you go HERE for that particular information.

UPDATE:

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the Red Arrows pilot killed on Saturday afternoon was Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging. He was 33. My sympathies to his family and friends.

This from the MOD Red Arrows site:

The Joy of Old Land Rover Ownership

The older Land Rovers (leading up to the Defenders) are pretty much covered tractors with extra seating.

They were never intended as motorway cruising town cars. They were meant as work horses – and they do that well.

This leads to a few eye openers for those who do not know what to expect when they first get in an old Landy.

Take ours for example – a short wheel base (88″) Series III 2.25l petrol engined tank from 1977 – or ‘Frank‘ as Chris calls ‘him’….. or ‘The 88‘ as Alex calls ‘him’. (I use either…..). MEET FRANK

Some FRANK stats……

Driver comfort:

Square of foam for a cushion, with another one for a back rest…. some ‘posher’ models have the block of foam shaped slightly.

Air filled tyres.

Big letter box sized holes under the windscreen for cold air (and anything else that goes in them).

Engine for hot air (constant).

Passenger comfort:

Same as the driver – less a steering wheel to hold onto for reassurance.

Driving aids:

Steering wheel (big, as there is no power steering).  Clutch, a brake and a throttle.

There are indicators, but no hazard lights or reverse lights.

Mirrors. These give an idea of things around you… The vibration doesn’t really help with identifying what the things are though.

Gear stick. Ah, yes…. there are several of these. Where it lacks in other areas, it makes up for in the number of selector levers.

Stereo…. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Sure! Fit one, but you’re not going to hear the damned thing over the road noise and the engine and transmission howl!!!

Safety:

Frank has two normal (modern) belts for the driver and left hand passenger. The middle passenger gets a lap belt.

Rear passengers (4 people) get two shiny bench seats – No belts. Plenty of room to tuck and roll though…

That being said, the Landy is built on a massive girder chassis. If you do crash into someone, you probably won’t know it until you get home and spot their poxy Saxo boy racer embedded on the bumper…

I had a very early Range Rover that had the same type of chassis. A Ford Ka managed to write itself off on my Range Rover… whilst the Range Rover was parked and stationary…. The Ka hit my front bumper whilst reversing far too quickly out of a parking space. My Rangey didn’t suffer a scratch.

Performance:

0-60mph:  Ha ha ha…. really? 60mph? What’s a 60mph?

Braking: Eventual. Plan ahead.

Fuel Economy: 20mpg is possible….

From the Highway Code:

(Obviously not intended for drivers of old Land Rovers…)

1st gear – for speeds between 0 and 10mph
2nd gear – for speeds between 10 and 20mph
3rd gear – for speeds between 20 and 30mph
4th gear – for speeds between 30 and 40mph
5th gear – for speeds over 40mph

Reality:

1st gear – for speeds between 0 and 5mph
2nd gear – for speeds between 2 and 10mph
3rd gear – for speeds between 10 and 20mph
4th gear – for speeds between 20 and 45mph
Ear defenders & brave pills – for speeds over 45mph

Cost of running:

Spares are dirt cheap. I mean pocket money cheap for most of the stuff you require. It’s a giant Meccano kit and dead simple to work with (mostly).

Ignore the miles per gallon, as the smiles per gallon make up for it.

To improve of speed (and a little economy) there are various options you can go for, such as overdrives, bigger tyres, better engine, gearbox modifications – but it’s an old Land Rover, so I never expected 60mpg and precision handling! The overdrive or gearbox modifications can help with cruising speed though as you can safely sit at 60mph without over-stressing a good engine.

So…..

It doesn’t have whistles and bells (it does have a proper loud honking horn). Its all terrain capability comes from the driver knowing how to use the tools provided. It is geared for two wheel drive in high ratio (road use)  and has a high and low ratio four wheel drive – and if used correctly it’ll get you out of anything.

More modern 4×4’s (like the ones you see on school runs) rely more on computers than driving skills, which explains why you see more and more 4×4’s NOT GOING ANYWHERE in the snow, because people THINK the car can do it all itself. It can’t! You have to know what you are doing and how to use it! Most modern 4×4’s are just wasted on clueless numpty posers who think the car can go anywhere…. and up up getting stuck when their skill runs out.

The main question with any car is; “What do you need?” – A Land Rover makes a useless boy racer car, a Ferrari makes a useless family car, a Clio makes a useless utility car, and a Nissan LEAF makes a useless long range sports car…. You have to buy for what your needs are – and you have to weigh up what your needs are before you start to criticize what any particular vehicle can do…

The old Land Rovers were built to cross huge distances with really simple maintenance… If anything went wrong, the damned things could still limp home with engines rattling and gear boxes hanging off…..

For us though, Frank leaves a huge grin on our faces. It’s a simple, rugged vehicle that came up at a good price at the right time. Frank is perfect for Chris and her work with horses, where she needs a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week, rain, sun, snow and ice capable vehicle that can take the knocks without any concerns  about getting stuck somewhere, and that the dent you just put in the wing won’t write the car off due to the insurance expense of fixing it… (you can fit a new front wing to Frank for under £30…..).

.