Lambchop

iTrader: (1)

nice to hear good experience stories! i really love the look of a noble and they seem to be AWESOME performance for the price and well within reach as a future car for me! it'll be the step before my 360

nobleguy

Completely wrong. Don't know where you've got that opinion from.

A little understated....

The only major problem I've had with mine in 2 and a half years is the open differential going. That was already a known issue with the Nobles and many of them have already been upgraded to the LSD.

Parts are generally very easy to get hold of. For those bits that are a bit more difficult or expensive there are often non-standard alternatives.

The early 2.5L models ran at about 10 degrees hotter than the later ones (fan upgrade available for those, many already done) and the ECU's are not so good (again many already have been upgraded). The cabin does get hot, which can be solved with a simple tunnel modification (I did mine myself). They're easy to work on, pretty simply built compared to most of todays cars and if you're mildly sensible with a spanner you can do a lot of the day to day work/niggle solving yourself.

When buying, make sure the car's have these upgrades, or factor in the possible cost of these items in the price.

As for performance, I haven't had a motorbike going past me for as long as I can remember. I don't even bother competing with most cars..... You could spend Ł25K on a well sorted example, spend Ł5K on upgrades (if you're into that) and have a 500bhp/tonne monster.

Oh, and the electrics are miles better than my Ford Galaxy.....

Porkie

iTrader: (1)

From the 3 people I know who have owned them perhaps?

One is on here and has already posted.

I don't just make things up!

So aren't you admitting yourself that there are problems and niggles??

I just can't stand cars that are realeased that need stuff like tunnel modifications because they get hot...

if its that simple why wasn't it done by the factory in the first place! They were not cheap cars to buy!

Day to day work?!??!?!?!?! Wow.... Sounds a quality product

I REALLY don't think this is a car for you AJ.... they are a car for a proper enthusiast who has some mechanical skills and likes to get his hands dirty.

Then I can totally see the appeal. As I said they are fast, they are cool looking and they do handle.

Porkie

iTrader: (1)

oh and anyone been following the story about Lee Noble and his missus getting fired after getting caught stealing hundreds of thousands of cash from the company?

Nick D

Armchair Critic?

I think not, I've owned a shonky noble piece of shit!

I don't own a dodgy old ford, and i'm sure my DMS tuned 996TT could blow away your noble!

In reference to maybe I own a dog? The car was less than 2 years old, the floor leaked, it overheated, it was constantly back in the workshop.

The dealer network it absolutely shocking, what about there plans to close all of the dealers down and make them re-open?? Is this crap as well? A guy who is very close to Nobel who owns a Volvo dealership in lancashire informed me about all of this.

The statement "Nobles are usually more reliable that a TVR" WOW FUCK ME SIDEWAYS what an awesome piece of engineering to compare a car too!

I have been on Nobledrivers.com and within the first 3 pages on the shit forum there are 4 complaints about along the line of "my car is back at the workshop" " I have to wear wellington boots to drive it as the car is like a swimmingpool"

Nobles are not cheap, I do not expect to be riveting floor pans before I go out for a drive.

I know most of the people at Prestwold Hall in loughborough who do a supercar racing day that used to include a Noble, after driving it was what made me buy mine. They do not have it anymore, it was always FUCKED!

Glad Yellow was a noble colour because if AJ gets one, thats what he'll want.

This is not an assasination, i'm glad your happy with your car and wish you all the best with it. I am not an armchair critic, and as you have stated your feelings on them, I feel as a PREVIOUS owner I should give mine.

Mike Rainbird

iTrader: (3)

Wouldn't touch one with a barge pole - looked into getting one, but was told too many horror stories from owners / ex-owners, so did the sensible thing and walked away.

And a lot of the above owners came from TVRs etc, and it was them that said they made TVRs look reliable .

As to the engine, it is just a Ford Mondeo lump with a couple of turbos bolted on, so hardly non-Ford just because another company was farmed in to do the development work on it to get it to work .

On track (Snetterton) in the wet a standard 2.5 is marginally slower than a standard Esprit S4 (although that may have been the driver ).

Daveysaff

iTrader: (9)

Andy who's painting the Focos has got his M12 for sale, its the quickest thing i've been in, sticks around every bend too and surprisingly easy to drive.

Nick D

Mostly designed? Who designed the block?

And if you notice my commnet it had a after it.

The engine is one of the better things on the pieces of shit! Still not brilliant though. So take your back!

Turbocabbie

The biggest concern to me is the fact you have Cosworth owners past and present complaining about reliability and build quality, this in itself should be warning enough

RichardPON

Only on this website could one previous owner detail his experience of actually owning one, and then get shot down for being "wrong" or "misinformed".

I remember seeing a website once, dedicated to the lack of reliability of one guy's M12.

Still would love one though in principle.

Mike Rainbird

iTrader: (3)

That was the main one that I was reffered to, where he purchased the car brand new and kept a FULLY detailed list of every single thing that went wrong and it worked out that the dealership had the car longer than he did in the period he owned it .

nobleguy

Fair enough.

Yes. Just like any car. Anybody saying their car is 100% perfect all the time is not being realistic.

Like these examples you mean?
http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/re...sche&makeId=D3
What about Audi releasing the TT without that little wing on the back so they frequently flew off the road? What about JC's Ford GT? Porsche's seats that provided inadequte crash protection?

Noble's have aircon to preclude the need for a tunnel mod. I'm just too tight to use it. Too much petrol and horsepower taken away .

What I meant by that was the checks and maintenance we all should do but most people probably don't (check oil, coolant and other fluid levels, air filters, spark plugs, radiator flushing, etc.). The Noble is easy peasy for this kind of stuff.

To a certain extent that's true, although I have very little mechanical knowledge but have managed to do this and that to the car, which almost exclusively have been things that I've wanted to do rather than needed to. It doesn't have to be an anorak experience.

daddysumo

As I put in my origional post, I didnt say they were the most reliable cars in the world, as they do have niggles, but the ones you suffered dont seem to be the known ones so I was just informing the OP of that.
I was also referring to 'armchair critics' by the people who probably have never even seen a Noble, jumping on the band waggon and making comments about stuff they have no personal knowledge of.
I was just telling him of my personal experiances with my Noble and out of the box its a fast car. Im sure your TT is fast but its tuned so it should be, I wasnt talking about that, but if tunings your thing then your car would not stand a chance against some of the tuned Nobles around so get off your high horse. Why do people always go mad on forums when others dont agree with what they say, its a forum and Ive given my opinion as you have given yours and thats it, so hopefully the OP will have both the good and bad tales to mull over to help him make his decision.

Physio

You know me too well Nick

Indeed you have mate & I appreciate it

Paul Eggleton

My BMW is

AJ get an M3, oh wait a minute..............

Physio

art411y

iTrader: (1)

a piccy of mine last year .its now a couple of days away from coming out to play after a major strip down but not for probs but just to make it mine if you know what i mean
car i sold to buy it

Physio

That looks awesome mate, got anymore pics?

art411y

iTrader: (1)

will get better pics for the weekend with the upgrades etc

Physio

Sweet

foreigneRS

nonsense. if the maximum of 10 horsepower that the a/c would require for the very first few minutes of the hottest day on record in the UK is too much, your 3.0 litre twin turbo engine is too feeble

as for using petrol, doesn't having your windows open create drag that uses petrol? (depends on speed, journey length etc, but using a/c can use less fuel than open windows)

Paul Eggleton

YOu can't deny that it looks the nuts and I expect if you are prepared to fettle it a bit to keep it in nick it would be great to own.....

Lambchop

iTrader: (1)

that noble above looks fucking AWESOME!

nobleguy

Are you aware that mankind has for some time had the concept of a joke at his disposal? Thought not....

Well yes, possibly. Details details .
(that was a joke again)

The only thing more that I can add is that I can honestly say the only car I've ever thought 'Cor, I'd swap mine for that...' was a Carrera GT in Monte Carlo last year. There are probably a few others I could think of, but not many. Even if I won the lottery I'd have the Zonda, the CGT, the F50 (OK, OK I like it alright?!?) but there would, honestly, still be a Noble there alongside them.

NickyTwoHats

Guys...just found this thread. It's lovely to see stories about "I had a friend who" but most of you are way off.

I've owned lots of quick stuff (and a few fords) including TVRs.
The Noble as cost less to run per mile than the Cerbera by a factor of about 3.

Depreciation - don't make me laugh - the Noble's cost me about 28K in five and a half years Ł5K a year or what you'd lose on a mondeo driving it off the forecourt.

Performance - erm...mine's got about 350 brake per tonne so spits out all but the 997 Porsche Turbo and even that won't get away under 130mph. The handling makes every other car i've driven (bar a PROPERLY SORTED Elise) feel sub-standard. To give you some perspective 997 GT3RS came close but just didn't have the feel a Gallardo felt imprecise. I could go on!

The TVR was better at erm....carrying luggage and interior design (and I loved it)

Munch

where are all these Nobles fuckers coming from?

I still bet AJ buys one anyway pmsl!

foreigneRS

sorry, i lived in germany for 4 years. i forgot what a joke was

usually on here, we use some of the smiley faces to indicate humour

rickslack

Ive owned a 3r and loved it. Only problem i had was a very minor electrical fault that was quickly sorted at the factory (forget the dealers!). Everything on them is pretty simple if anything does go wrong and almost all the parts are easily available and cheap if you know where to look. Did track days and two trips to the ring and found it surprisingly comfortable on long journeys.
Its like any car, the ones with bad experiences make the most noise!

JAP CRAP

The ones on the link on Mo's look awesome. I'm not sure about look of the others, I used to like them but now 50% of me thinks they look cool 50% thinks they look like a cheap kit car.

I came on this thread cause I thought it would be funny to take the piss out of any cossie owners with 300 bhp saying Nobles are slow but instead it's the opposite. Noble owners thinking they have literally the fastest car in the world! :rollyeyes: that make all out shonky old fords look slow as F.... I had a few races against a mildy tuned 3L noble at an event for 1/4 mile/0-60...even when I missed a gear on one run twice he still got caught. I was giving him head starts to make it interesting for me Obviously they'd piss on my car round a track though probably lol. They're fast but not so fast that If I owned one I'd come on all berty big bollocks like the owners have

Andy_R

iTrader: (3)

Interesting thread, good to read the Noble owners input too. I did consider both Noble & TVR ownership a few years back but was put off buy the scare storys. Looks like your doing your homework better than I did AJ, good luck in whatever you decide & if I can help you further givz a bell.

RS Grant

iTrader: (1)

Probably a link to this thread on the Noble Owners Club.

I think they look awesome, and all the reviews have been mega, but its good to hear from a few different people that have lived with them.


Cheers,
Grant

R5FORD

iTrader: (1)

aj go for one.. think the look awesome.

rickslack

unfortunately this is the case with quite a few owners. Bit like rs owners thinking that they have the best cars ( and evo owners etc).
truth is they are not that fast in a straight line. only around 330 bhp in standard form. My old cossie was much faster. the difference comes when you want to get round a corner at the end of the straight. Handling wise they are awesome on the road and with a change of shocks and springs make a superb track car.

nobleguy

It had one.....

daddysumo

I dont think any one has given it 'berty big bollocks' maybe apart from yourself, the comparisson was made to the STANDARD performance of nobles as that is prob what the OP would purchase, not a noble versus a cossie engine with 20 years of development and I stand by my statement that a standard noble would have more straight line performance than a standard cossie, as I have owned both I can make the comparisson,also I do know the noble isnt the fastest in a straight line drag race and have not said anything to the contary. So please read the last line of my original post as this is why I dont post very often on forums,and hopefully the OP has found some of this of benefit. On a side note though at last years fighting Torque, the nobles did show well against lots of 'fast cars'

nobleguy

That's true for a standard 2.5L model. Still around 345bhp/tonne though.
I've not spent that much that money on mine and it's running at about 430bhp/tonne.

I had a straight line drag with a 911 Turbo while in standard form and we were exactly equal. Personally I only use mine for the road and I think that's really about as quick as it needs to be. As with any car I suppose you could upgrade it until the only thing the same as the original is the body shell. Depends what you want...

Some of them are mental .

Porkie

iTrader: (1)

nothing wrong with that. They are my fav Ferrari ever...

Did you see the EVO test a few years ago?

288GTO v F40 v F50 v Enzo????

The car they all thought would come last.... WON.

The F50.

Awesome.


By the way was it a Noble that had a severe and very dangerous front suspension failure whislt with Autocar magazine? I have that in my head somehow, but I think it may been another manufacturer?

ThatPhilBrettGuy

Actually up to around 130-140mph they're very fast just because of their great power to weight ratio. Over that they run into an aero wall and it takes ages to get to their top speed which is round 165-170mph.

If you fiddle a little though

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QEwZLAJ16rU

I've had mine from new and it's gone wrong exactly the same number of times as my Ford GT. Once. Make of that what you will.

Porkie

iTrader: (1)

Its nice to hear some positive examples from happy owners!

I was hammering around last night in a Exige 250R slightly modded and on some amazing Ohlins suspension last night and was thinking much as I like this.... it needs to look harder and have another 100bhp+ and a shed load more torque to be REALLY good!

Which to be is pretty much what a Noble is....

Always liked them in theory! love the looks and performance.... and really considered one for a while! BUT I really have heard some horror stories first hand from 3 ex owners and it was all the little things I read on the net about them not having a proper sump baffle... I mean bloody hell! thats one of the first things I'd want in a car so obviously suited to going on a track!!!! that just made me think... wafty and rushed and poorly designed!

So its nice to hear some people are happy with them and that they are going well. I may look again at one some time. I do love the looks, and the grunt and handling are supposed to be very good

Doby

i have always thought about getting one and nearly did,but my current german car won the day so my missus could drive me home from the pub (auto licence only!) If i didnt love my other garaged car so much i might have traded for one.