Well I was warned - failed head gasket.

The engine is that poor, that out of all the engines and manufacturers in the world, Lotus used it in their Elise because they wanted a big unreliable boat anchor ;)
 
-1

The labour alone is going to be around £400, its a good 8 hour job

£750 is probably the average price including a cambelt kit and water pump (which should be changed at the same time!), coolant system will have to be flushed as even a slight bit of oil contamination attacks the water pump seal.

your looking at about £850 for a full job on the VVC unit.

the last time i did a headgasket for £300-£400 was a a-series mini

Fair enough, the garage who do the work on my car only charge £400 for a headgasket replacement.
 
Fair enough, I've only used them for 5 years *shrug*

The bods on the MR2 forum didnt believe me either when I told them they only charged me £60 to fit my new alternator. Hey ho, I guess most people are happy to pay over the odds for stuff :o
 
Apart from the holocaust and attempt to invade the rest of Europe, Hitler was actually a very good man.

Lady at work had this happen to get MGF...... twice. I think she paid £1100 the first time and around £900 the second. Then they sold it.... for £800.

Happy days! :o
 
The bods on the MR2 forum didnt believe me either when I told them they only charged me £60 to fit my new alternator. Hey ho, I guess most people are happy to pay over the odds for stuff :o

Is the alternator in a really difficult place?
 
Requires dropping the rear subframe to remove the unit. When I asked on the forum people had been charged anywhere in the range of £120-£200 labour in the past.
 
price depends entirely on the car.

HDIs for example are a complete PITA to work on due to lack of room and therefore a 'proper' HGF repair can be anything from 500-1000. autodata has it down as a 20 hour job alone.
 
I hear that you can buy a sports car for almost the same price that doesn't suffer HGF?

Called an MX-5 i think?

You can get cars with more than 2 seats, or ones you can take off road for similar money as well, but that doesn't make it relevant.

[TW]Fox;12938384 said:
It really does amaze me that people still buy these terrible cars.

It really amazes me how certain people make uninformed opinions look like facts. IMO the TF is a good car (though clearly the new ones are hopelessly overpriced considering the competition). Even EVO rained praise on it in their reviews.
 
Water pump went on my K series, which in turn took out the head gasket.

From what I remember, that's quite a common problem

To fix mine, with a skim and a new water pump and a few other bits was just over £600 (crazy York countryside garage prices)
 
The MGTF isn't a bad car IMHO. Not brilliant but certainly holds charm for some. The K series isn't a bad engine. In fact the design is very good. VVC is continuously variable so a lovely flat torque curve and a very light weight engine hence the use in Caterhams, Elises and so forth. Also capable of 40+mpg even in a small family hatch.

Yes, the gasket issue is poor. It's a major flaw but the problems was always poor manufacturing hampering a really good design. With good engineering some K series are awesome engines like the VHPD (190bhp) in the Exige and such like.

Fox, not surprised at your reaction since the car in question isn't a 530 sport (ageing, underpowered executive barge ;) )

Scuzi.......come on mate, the BMW driving is starting to take effect. :)
 
Hardly, just crap gaskets.

Yes, the gasket issue is poor. It's a major flaw but the problems was always poor manufacturing hampering a really good design. With good engineering some K series are awesome engines like the VHPD (190bhp) in the Exige and such like.

Regardless of the amount/cost of components involved, it IS a major design flaw that was never categorically fixed.

It costs a fair amount of money to fix, and isn't exactly a rarity - so if thats not a major flaw then what is?

I don't think theres any dispute that aside from this flaw, the K series is a very capable engine.

Fox, not surprised at your reaction since the car in question isn't a 530 sport (ageing, underpowered executive barge ;) )

*yawn*
 
I picked the MG because I liked it. The steering an handling is very involving, the build quality is ok and I think the engine is quite strong throughout the rev range. Granted the engine is no VTEC sadly but for driving normally I find it way more responsive than my Prelude. The interior is a bit of a dive, the seats are comfortable but the rest of it is cheap, this matters not when it is raining and you have the roof down in fact hard water resistant plastic is a good thing! Against the MX I felt the MG was more fun, more practical and definitely more affordable to buy!

I knew the HGF problem would come due to the flaw with the engine or the sloppy manufacturing The replacement improved gasket and bits have been largely successful with solving the problem for other people combined with having the engine checked that it is all flat and I am hoping the HGF will be a one off repair. After some shopping about £600-700 is the going rate on the MGTF, with a lot of people needing to spend more if they have head damage etc. This is not an escort or something with a simple easy to access engine.

Every car has a flaw in some way and this is not a dig. My Metro rusted, my Prelude had some expensive parts being an import. Other cars are very expensive to buy and service, the MG is relatively cheap to buy and run apart from the obvious HGF thing
 
Look on the bright side...I've paid over a grand for repair on a K series. Couple of teeth stripped off the cam belt, valves got aquainted with pistons...it wasn't pretty.

Car felt fantastic after a the rebuild though :)

Why not post a pic of the TF? I think they look great with the hard top...
 
Fox, not surprised at your reaction since the car in question isn't a 530 sport (ageing, underpowered executive barge ;) )

Thats twice now you've reffered to my car as both 'ageing' and 'underpowered' and I'm not entirely sure why. What does any of that have to do with the Rovers head gasket? Firstly, every car 'ages' and it's only logical that if you buy a car and keep it for any length of time it will 'age' during that process. Yes, my 530i is what, 6 years old now. Infact it's not long until it's 7. So what. I've had it for more than 2 years. Next - underpowered? What? It's by no means an M5 but 230bhp is hardly 'underpowered'. It is not a 7 Series, it does not weigh 2 tonnes.

It's quite obvious you've picked those terms to descredit it - which is fair enough but is made hugely amusing by the fact we are discussing what, a 6-7 year old 160bhp MG. It's hardly a nearly new Aston Martin itself, is it?

Rather than focusing on a car not once mentioned in this thread until you decided to bring it up, can we not go back to talking about.... shock... Rover group products?

As if you needed confirmation that your comments were at best random and at worst entirely pointless you even bored Gajin, and he LOVES a justifiable attempt to have a go :p
 
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