Beware budget Rolls-Royces
As someone with more than 30 years of experience with Rolls-Royce and Bentley in the US and UK, I was quite shocked to read your suggestion of buying a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow without breaking the £10,000 barrier ( CCW, 3 October).
Describing them as ‘handsome and friendly’ is all very nice, but these cars can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Shadows and their relative models have what I call ‘elastic band’ prices where caution on the condition is paramount.
Far too often I have checked a very nice, shiny Rolls or Bentley, only for closer examination to reveal wallet-gouging problems that would cost serious money to sort out.
Buying anything on a budget like this is frankly dangerous. Last year, someone got in touch with me, having bought a Silver Spur at a budget price. Lots of service history that you could see was tailing off as the car got older, indicated how it had been maintained. While it was an attractivelooking car and drove well – that is where it ended. Not only did I find a list of problems – essential, not frivolous ones – but I could not believe how it had got a new MoT. It had hydraulic and suspension leaks, and handbrake calipers not working correctly – and this is just a snippet of the issues.
These are cars that can develop problems just parked up. You might be able to buy them on a budget, but you certainly can’t run them on one.
Richard Heritage, Dorking