That rare thing—good service

Sir,
One hears many complaints about the service given by garages and I have had my fair share. It is a pleasure therefore to record that recently when the throttle cable of my Capri broke on a bitter cold, snowy Sunday afternoon one of the youthful proprietors of Hints Service Garage on A5, some miles south of Litchfield, turned out and spent three hours in most uncomfortable conditions effecting a fine piece of improvisation to get me home.

I was charged only for half an hour’s work, which would have been the time required had it not been for the difficulties imposed by the cable itself. The carburetter end was crimped on to the cable and could not be sweated off. The other end of the cable was found to he nothing more than a blob of plastic—not at all amenable to solder!

Cable-operated controls are a cheap and nasty substitute for proper linkage and this failure took place at less than 3,000 miles. It would appear that clutches are now being increasingly operated by cables, which are proving to be another source of trouble.

A.A. Walker.
Totteridge Village.