Rover Prices

unkel

ds20prefecture wrote:

Anybody know who's Diesel engine is used in the 75? If it was BMW's 2.0, it would be a great buy, in a chintzy kind of way. Particularly in estate form.

It is the BMW 2.0 Diesel but with lower power. The Rover 75 has 116 BHP / 260NM (CDT) or 131 BHP / 300NM (CDTI) where as a new 320d has 163 BHP / 340NM

For about 40% below list, it would be a great buy indeed imho

Bluehair

unkel wrote:

It is the BMW 2.0 Diesel but with lower power. The Rover 75 has 116 BHP / 260NM (CDT) or 131 BHP / 300NM (CDTI) where as a new 320d has 163 BHP / 340NM

For about 40% below list, it would be a great buy indeed imho

Where are they going for 40% below list? :eek: I'd love a 75 diesel.

gaizka71

Bluehair wrote:

Where are they going for 40% below list? :eek: I'd love a 75 diesel.

that is what I would love to know.... Jeremy was talking about it last sunday, although we would have to wait yet....

bazz26

Bluehair wrote:

Where are they going for 40% below list? :eek: I'd love a 75 diesel.

Wait another year and a dealer will be probably be paying you to take a Rover.

Bluehair

Ahh just found it...

http://www.mg-rover.com/static/mg-rover-direct.html

gaizka71

I have sent them an email through the website showing my interest, we will see...
thanks for the link!

Webmonkey

Yeah i've been told this constantly too, "your mad buying a rover etc etc."
I believe it is because of their weak headgasket but besides that problem they a great car. Just baught a Rover 400 5dr 98 for under 3k. its a neat car, only 44k on the clock. I will be keeping my eye on the water because i am paronoid about the headgasket going, if it does and you continuly drive then engine warps. Happens on most rovers I believe but i love the car.
They have smart features, almost luxury interior in a lot. Comes with all Electrics and are very economical, well at least mine is. 390 miles on 3/4 of a tank (€50 put into it) But thats along a motorway i know so on the long journeys its good. And its damn comfortable.
Before i baught the car my dad said keep way from them, now he is in love with it. Funny

IrishRover

I know of someone who bought a fully specced up MG ZS180 for £6,000 shortly after the Rover collapse.

As for whether Rovers are crap, well I often do put people straight about it, but you know, it actually quite suits me that they are so vastly underrated. I enjoy that little bit of exclusivity on Irish roads, and I also enjoy surprising the occasional person in what he thought was his superior car from time to time.

Regarding head gaskets on the K series engines:
I could go on about this for pages, but I'll try and put it as briefly as I can.
First, yes it is true to say that there is or was a higher incidence of HG failure (or damage) than would be expected. This could be down to several factors, one possibilty being the placement of the coolant thermostat, another being the use of plastic dowels to position the cylinder head (in pre '98 models as far as I remember). I'll dig out a lengthy article on it later if anyone's interested.

However... I have had two Rover 214s with the 1.4 K 16v, one from new in 1991 and one second hand. The first I ragged and ragged in every gear to the rev limiter for 3 years. All it got was its standard maintenance at regular intervals and it never skipped a beat. The second I bought from a fellow who never changed the oil or coolant or did any servicing on it. (Actually, maybe he tried once, because when I bought it the oil filler cap was missing). The engine was in a bad way then and it didn't last long. I wonder if the HG had failed on him would that be another "unreliable Rover HG story" to add to the list?? I got an engine from a crashed 214 and carried out standard regular maintenance on it for the 3 years that I owned it and the engine repayed me in kind. What I'm saying is that I believe many of the people who complain that they had "trouble" from their Rover were the cause of their own problems by not bothering to have basic maintenance done on their cars.

As for those mechanics who simply parrot the "unreliable Rover stories", I'm going to put my neck on the line here and bluntly say that they simply don't know what they're talking about. They're just passers on of the same misinformation I hear again and again. A lot of the time I don't bother setting them straight any more. They're usually just too blinkered anyway. I especially don't feel the need now seeing as there's no company left to support anyway.

I'm pretty sure there was always an element of anti English sentiment involved in many people's reasons for turning their noses up at Rovers. People would like to believe that anything good about their cars must be down to the Honda influence. I have owned and driven both Honda and Rover powered Rovers and although I have great respect for the Honda engines, I can still say hand on heart that my preference is for the Rover engines.

commuterised

I totally jinxed myself posting here about my rover, friday evening - cylinder head gasket goes. Looks like it's probably going to cost more to fix it that the overall worth of the car. tsk.

IrishRover

Sorry to hear that, not good news... disaster for my point above too
In fairness though, your engine does have 180K miles on it.

It needn't necessarily cost the earth to fix it though. It sounds like you caught it early, so depending on whether you drove it for a while with no coolant or not, the head may not have warped. A lot of places will skim the head whether it needs to be or not (or at least charge you for it!). It could be that all is needed is to clean the surfaces of the head and refit with a new gasket. I would also flush the coolant system and make sure there are no blockages or leaks in the system too. Even bearing in mind that we're living in rip-off Ireland I would hope that you could get a garage to do this for less than €200, but then I expect most places you bring it to will have all the mechanics do the old drawing in of air, shaking their heads, tut tutting and telling you it's probably not worth it seeing as it's a Rover. All just a preamble to holding you upside down and shaking the money out of your pockets IMO - and acting like they're doing you a favour while they're at it! :rolleyes:

And sure so what if the car's not worth much on the open market - if it runs again and you like the car (and they are nice to drive with quality interiors) then surely what it's worth doesn't matter if you like it and you're not planning on selling it anyway?

PM me if you need any help or advice. On the offchance that you might be interested, I saw a Rover 214SLi in one of the two scrapyards opposite the Red Cow about 3 weeks ago. There's also a scrapyard near the sewage treatment plant in Dunlaoghaire that might have some Rover parts.
There's always Devlins in NI (who say they specialise in Rover) and Traynors in NI aswell.

IrishRover

Here's a link to some articles relating to the K series and head gaskets that may be useful or interesting to some people.

http://www.mgf.ultimatemg.com/group2/common_problems/hgf_pages/HGF_contents.htm