Mr. Humpidge Asks for Stronger Components
Page 44
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MANY interesting points were made in questions put to a panel of CAV Ltd. executives at the company's annual conference held in Harrogate on Tuesday (see page 56).
A plea for more robust components was made by Mr. C. T. Humpidge, of Sheffield Corporation Transport. At least 100,000 miles before attention should be attained by electrical equipment on p.s.v., he said, and if electric windscreen wipers did not improve he would be forced to specify air-operated units.
Mr. F. W. Margetts, service manager of Leyland Motors Ltd., believed that operators would pay more to get 100 per cent reliability and said that manufacturers' provingdepartments were not really able to find all the faults with a new design because their personnel discovered slight faults immediately and corrected them, thereby preventing major failures. Normal drivers could not be expected to do this, therefore only when a vehicle was in service was it finally
n10 proved. Mr. J. Cook, of CAV, agreed with the last point and said this was borne in mind on the company's proving programme.
Failures that had been met with for a number of years were still experienced, said Mr. S. C. Vince, chief engineer of the BET Federation, and suggested that lack of competition was the reason why. vehicles were not 100 per cent reliable. In answer to this, Mr. M. F. Barnes, of CAV, said that as an international company CAV faced a good deal of competition overseas.
Mr. Vince ;Also said that the use of salt on roads in winter caused problems with corrosion of components and that this was going to get worse. He said there was a lack of co-operation between chassis and component makers on the siting of units. Mr. J. D. Mundella, of Potteries Motor Traction Co. Ltd., also laid some blame on chassis manufacturers for electrical troubles, saying that wiring harnesses were often badly designed and located.