The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

I have run the Carledo on both a Sprint servo and an 1850 one.

The Sprint servo failed and this was before the club started (or restarted) doing recon ones, so Sprint servos were like expensive hens teeth, to get the car back on the road quickly and cheaply, I fitted an 1850 servo as a temporary measure - and it's still there as I found I liked it better that way! I also have TJ brakes and a very light body. With the 1850 servo, the pedal loadings are very slightly higher, but there seems to me to be a lot more "feel" to it.

Steve

I've always wondered about feel, whether that is really just a code for heavy. The only car I have ever driven without power assisted steering is the Dolomite, I can't say I found any superior to the power assisted cars I am use to.

As for brakes, my father will complain that brakes are wooded or over servoed, whereas they feel OK to me. It is noticeable that he tends to use allot more force on the brake pedal, having learnt to drive in the 60's.

Of course I have never driven on a track and I don't take cars anywhere near their limits.

"Feel" is the distance in the pedal travel between light check braking and emergency stop!

Too many modern cars are thoroughly OVERbraked (because with ABS, you can get away with it) with a brake pedal that is more like an on/off switch, which makes you grateful for the seatbelt when you breathe a bit too hard on the pedal!

I pride myself on driving smoothly (as well as quickly) and a braking system with a good feel, one where you can press lightly to brake lightly or press harder to stop quicker and you can FEEL the amount of work you are doing to achieve this, is a real advantage.

I too learned to drive in the 60s when nothing much had power steering or even servoed brakes. I had a number of 2.5 litre 6 cylinder, 6 seater Ford Zodiac mkIIs that had neither and didn't need them. And they were a large car in their day! But driving a car like that took skills that most youngsters these days couldn't cope with bothering to learn. Double declutching, for example, if you can do that, you can continue to drive a car when the clutch activation mechanism (cable or hydraulic) has failed. nowadays one just gets on the mobile phone and calls Green Flag or whoever. I have had some spectacular car failures in my life and ALWAYS got home, I once drove most of the way from Liverpool to London in an MG 1100 that had a broken crankshaft! The only time I've EVER called the AA was to a nearly new Metro that wasn't mine. Since it was under warranty and the warranty included AA cover, why not?

Steve

Exactly the complaint my father makes, that the brake is an on/off switch. However it doesn't feel that way to me in a modern car, I am use to cars with allot of power assistance, so it is noticeable I use allot less force when braking than he does.

Give me an older car without a servo and drum brakes, I would probably end up in a ditch, tree or other hazard before I could get it to stop.

Your dad is right!

And it's not your fault that you had the misfortune to be born a generation too late to be taught to drive properly on a proper car that doesn't do everything but change your nappies for you!

Your dad and I were taught to use the gearbox to slow down, because brakes couldn't be trusted, we were taught cadence braking because ABS didn't exist. We were taught skid control, to drive "by the seat of your pants", double declutching and a myriad of other skills that modern cars have made obsolete. This is called progress and though I have learned to live with it, I don't have to like it!

What I find totally unforgiveable about modern cars is the way they isolate the driver from any sense of connection with the car, it's no longer possible to be "man and machine in perfect harmony" as one old adveritising slogan claimed, because you can't TELL what's going on under your bum anymore! It's why I love driving old cars and regard modern stuff as "white goods"

As a professional spannerman, I am in and out of moderns and classics all day long and it no longer bothers me to swap from one to the other, you just have to keep in mind what you are driving! Fortunately, the seat of my pants still works, if it's recieving signals, my hindbrain understands that I am in a classic car and drives accordingly. If there are NO signals, it goes to sleep and engages the autopilot!

Steve

Barry, I had no wish to offend anyone with my remarks, my criticisms are levelled more at the manufacturers who make cars SO easy to drive that it no longer requires concentration to do it and SO insulated from the road that the driver can't feel, instinctively, that something is wrong.

It's also obvious to me that you feel the same, as whilst you mainly seem to drive cars that are not as old as mine, (with the exception of the Triumph of course) they are still not what I would describe as moderns. Bearing in mind the age difference between us, it's likely that my Zodiacs and 1100s were about the same age when I had them as your Orion and Audi were when you owned them, if you see what I mean. It's only really since around 2000 that cars have lost their way so badly.

I do actually own a car that I describe as modern, a 2006 Xsara Picasso, but it's just a tool for a job, which, to be fair to it, it does admirably and without fuss or excessive cost. But I don't and never COULD love it!

Steve