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Sports car chat

Tony Lockhart said:
I knew a guy with a 2010-ish Aston. Every month he had to send an engine oil sample to the factory so they could have it analysed for debris etc. Why the actual ***k would you spend a shed load of money on a pretty car that spent more time having oil samples taken than it did being driven on the road?

Making your own engine in the 50s and 60s was fine. Design it, build it, make it run ok, tell the world it it has 240bhp when it really doesn’t, make some money. Doesn’t work like that now.
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Massive paranoia there. The guy who used to live opposite me drove an AM and he did just that - drove it.
 
myles said:
Massive paranoia there. The guy who used to live opposite me drove an AM and he did just that - drove it.
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Perhaps I should’ve made it clearer. The sampling was done at the request of the factory due to issues the engine had previously experienced.
 
bor said:
It's a bit off-topic, but it is absolutely intriging from a psychological point of view.

In design and development terms, using well-proven components from another manufacturer is EXACTLY what you want to do, but some customers completely flip-out over the idea that it's not a "real" bespoke Aston motor.

The problem is that with the low volumes that Aston make, you don't have that in-depth confidence that comes with producing the same number of parts in one week instead of one year.
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Very true. McLaren made a good decision with using an experienced engine company (Ricardo) for their "own" engine. It has its origins in a Nissan race engine project by Ricardo.
 
Tony Lockhart said:
I knew a guy with a 2010-ish Aston. Every month he had to send an engine oil sample to the factory so they could have it analysed for debris etc. Why the actual ***k would you spend a shed load of money on a pretty car that spent more time having oil samples taken than it did being driven on the road?

Making your own engine in the 50s and 60s was fine. Design it, build it, make it run ok, tell the world it it has 240bhp when it really doesn’t, make some money. Doesn’t work like that now.
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That's a joke, right? About sending in oil samples?
 
A friend who is a very skilled engineer ran one for a while, it was an ex factory demonstrator/press car. It had done above average miles & ended up requiring a lot of chassis work. I’d not have an Aston Martin myself but they do look lovely.
 
Even such a relatively large company as Volvo has had outside assistance from Porsche when it comes to designing engines. SAAB had help from Ricardo designing the in those days advanced four valve head.
 
RJohan said:
Even such a relatively large company as Volvo has had outside assistance from Porsche when it comes to designing engines. SAAB had help from Ricardo designing the in those days advanced four valve head.
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That's interesting, I did not know that. I had several Saabs and knew they developed from the old Triumph engine but did not know they had external help.
 
On the Aston front and, for balance, my friend who has the Aston Martin DB9 V12 pictured with my Marcos earlier in the thread has owned it for three years now.

In that time, nothing has gone wrong, fallen off or broken, and it has sailed through every MOT with no advisories. It’s a 2008 model with 70,000 on the clock and the history file shows no major engine rebuilds or disasters!

Obviously the annual service at an Aston independent specialist still sets him back £900-ish, though…
 
Beobloke said:
On the Aston front and, for balance, my friend who has the Aston Martin DB9 V12 pictured with my Marcos earlier in the thread has owned it for three years now.

In that time, nothing has gone wrong, fallen off or broken, and it has sailed through every MOT with no advisories. It’s a 2008 model with 70,000 on the clock and the history file shows no major engine rebuilds or disasters!

Obviously the annual service at an Aston independent specialist still sets him back £900-ish, though…
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As with Range Rovers there’ll always be the freak that escaped the factory as intended.
 
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