Midlands Salesmen

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 14

Midlands Salesmen

Sir,—l read with interest your leader entitled “Midlands Salesmen.” I would like to refer to the defects to British cars. 1 recently bought an English car. It stalled every time I slowed the engine down. It went back to the garage, but came out little better. Next it left me completely stranded; it failed to move with the clutch and gears to. I refer you to the complaints on “Unfair Guarantees” appearing to the “Daily Telegraph” of June 26 last year and to the Research Institute of Consumer Affairs’ finding that buyers should have replacements. Surely it is up to British manufacturers to put this right; whisky apart, they depend so much upon the export of small cars to keep them afloat financially.— Yours, etc., MERIVALE. February 2, 1966. [The leader of the Birmingham Trade Mission to New Zealand (Mr H. Baskerville) said: “I have a great deal of sympathy with your correspondent ‘Merivale’ who has apparently been unfortunate to have one of the very few of the three-quarter-million cars exported from Great Britain each year which do not give the owner complete satisfaction. From the type of complaint described, it would seem the engine has not been properly tuned; this presumably was done locally. We hope the local agent has now rectified the whole matter. As a motorist myself, I re-

alise there Is nothing which causes greater irritation than to have one’s proud possession react in a mulishfashion, particularly if one is not a do-it-yourself kind of man, which most New Zealanders are. British manufacturers are proud of their high, reputation which is keeping them in the forefront of the world’s suppliers of the smaller motor-cars.”!