1985 Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible

I cannot recommend Park Ward Motors highly enough. I just purchased a beautiful 1985 Corniche in Horse Chestnut. I requested for the car to be delivered to Louisiana, where I was attending Mardi Gras with family, and then sent to my home in Los Angeles. Rodd generously agreed to ship my car to Louisiana at no charge, and as a nice touch, they included some Mardi Gras beads in the car! I was able to enjoy the car, and I put over 700 miles on it during the 10 day period I had it. Rather than sending it on to Los Angeles, I asked to ship it back to Chicago for enhancements (a front air dam, enhanced woodwork) and Rodd covered that cost as well. I was so impressed that I wanted to visit the facility, and was welcomed with open arms and given a 3 1/2 hour tour of the workshop and showroom. Rodd and staff are fantastic, and I wouldn't hesitate to work with them again on my next purchase.

Park Ward Motors 10 piston ACDelco AC compressor is an excellent unit for Shadows as well as one of the few remaining experts (service and sellers of RR) on maintaining the Shadow series car. To start I am not a do it yourself mechanic so what I did was costly. I converted the AC on my 1978 Shadow 2 from R12 AC system to R134A (I did not want a temporary R12 freon quick fix substitute) I spent 2 months researching converting the AC and found very little info on this subject via the internet (bits and pieces with a lot of info missing) as well as not getting much help from any one source on this subject. I contacted numerous people and spent time and money to learn all aspects of the AC system to get it to work correctly to my satisfaction. (Thank you, Rodd, at Park Ward Motors, Albers Motor Cars, Auto AC Solutions, Stve at European Auto Service Chicago, Flying Spares and Marty at Master Rolls Oak Lawn Il.) I purchased my Shadow 2 new in 1978 in which the AC was working great up until 2018-2020. What changed? Up until these years the summer temperature in Chicago (and New York) had always been from the 70s to upper 80s with some days in the 90s. Now we're getting weather in the upper 80s and 90s and even higher with high humidity more frequently, which taxes the AC especially in stop and go city traffic and heavy slow, stop and creep-along highway traffic. The AC did not function properly in this new extreme climate condition. I went online and looked for dual pulley compressors. I went to Rolls Royce parts websites, Albers Motorcars and Park Ward. What I found were full R134a conversion kits that included an A6 twin pulley compressor in 6 and 10 piston configurations (the 10 piston Sanden and ACDelco compressors uses less engine power)), a drier and expansion valve (both a must for the conversion). But what was also needed that no one mentioned was that the POA valve is critical (the original is not compatible with R134A)to the cooling which must match the type of refrigerant being used when converting from R12 to R134A. I found a POA valve with preset thermostat and wire harness to convert the factory A/C unit to the cycling clutch type system from Auto AC Solutions in Texas where I had purchased other AC items in the past. (There is a screw inside the POA that needs to be carefully adjusted, go to youtube video Ronnie's Garage Shadow AC video 6 of 7) For the AC to run effectively there are other items that need to be checked out. 1- The condenser needs to be clean. 2- The evaporator should be blown out. 3- If the high-pressure hose has a leak, a new hose is not available, so you have to find a shop make one with the old hoses fittings. 4- You need to check switches and sensors. 5- The heating tap needs to be checked to make sure it was closing correctly so no heat was interfering with the refrigerant, 6- and the vent doors needs checking for proper closing. A major issue was how much refrigerant should be put into the system. When putting in too little or too much refrigerant you will find that the system won't work well, I was told to put in 24 oz which was too little. I called Albers and they told me (as well as Auto AC Solutions in Texas) that the original R12 system used 3.4 lb (52 oz) so the amount of R134A refrigerant for the new system would be 2.3 lb (35 oz). With this being done now the new AC was working very well. But I still had an issue that when the weather goes well over 90 with high humidity the AC starts getting warm while in slow traffic or standing in traffic. The reason I was told was the fan cooling the condenser would shut off at a certain temperature in which the heat from the engine would start to warm up the freon which would diminish the AC cooling capacity, To remedy this I needed a fan control switch to keep the fan on to keep cooling the condenser. What was recommended was a switch or fan controller unit to override the factory settings so to keep the fan running when the AC compressor is on, which I did and now I am very satisfied.

I’ve bought several cars from Park-Ward Motors and I can honestly say I could not be happier. A 79 silver Shadow, an 84 Corniche and a late Silver Spur. There is no other dealer that puts the effort into these cars like Rodd and his team do. I am writing this review after Rodd sharing his disappointment with some recent negative reviews which, I must agree, were of a truly unreasonable nature. I think the record needs to fair. Complaints about a car being dirty on arrival because of the transporter. Seriously? Or a small issue of something that stops working, like a battery. These are classic cars that are +/- 40 years old. Buyers have to reasonable in understanding that things will fail. Its not about “if” but about” when”. You have to take some of this on the chin when buying any older classic. Importantly, Park-Ward cars all go through a type of “certified” process once sold so you have to think about the many items that have been attended to and not just the couple of items that have decided to misbehave. That all said, I too had a couple of minor issues with my Shadow. They are complex motor cars. I reached out to Rodd and he immediately helped me get things right again. He’s genuinely a good guy. Not your typical car dealer by any means. These negative reviews are simply unfair as they suggest nothing is done to these cars whereas I can personally attest to the amount of work that goes in them. No other classic car dealer, let alone a dedicated Rolls-Royce and Bentley one like Park-Ward Motors gives as much care and attention as they do. I can confidently say you are buying from the best!