Poll: The BIG Rover debate

[Lopéz]

Malt_Vinegar, he's not running increased boost is he, or constantly floors it in 1st? It's very unlikely for the PG1 box to go just like that.

2 friends of mine ran stock 220's at the same time, one coupe the other a 3 door GTi. One drove like a hooligan, the other drove like a homo. The diffs gave out on both - not sure about the hatch but the diff on the coupe sheared right through as if someone cleaved it in half with an axe.

 

[Malt_Vinegar]

2 friends of mine ran stock 220's at the same time, one coupe the other a 3 door GTi. One drove like a hooligan, the other drove like a homo. The diffs gave out on both - not sure about the hatch but the diff on the coupe sheared right through as if someone cleaved it in half with an axe.

You just reminded me, he has done the diff on at least one occaision too!

He does run completely uprated turbo, and its very rapid WHEN its working...

 

[M0T]

Whereas my 1.8vvc coupe is still on the original clutch after 108k

And even I can get the qouted 0-60 for it with my gmeter and plenty of wheelspin, so its running right

To be fair the cats knackered, but who cares about that

143bhp from 1.8l in a car that weighs 1100kg at 19 =

Although my old mk 2 214 (91) was constantly broken and felt like it was made of spit and polish, the coupe is a 97 and much better screwed together.

 

[NickXX]

Mate, Rover was liquidated for a very good reason - they simply could not make competive cars.

Granted they are very cheap now, but I would only buy one if I was very low on cash. They have a reputation based around this, and the fact that old people seem to find them hugely appealing.

The main problem is that you're flogging a dead horse. For £500, you can't do much better than a Rover 2xx, however, for £1,500 you can do so much better and that's where the problem lies. The demand for Rovers fits into a niche market now, after the recent turn of events, the mainstream market will not touch them with a bargepole. Let's face it, when someone buys a Rover now they're buying a throwaway car.

The most modern 'Rover' I've ever driven was a '54 MGTF. Let's just say, the less said about it the better - it was an absolute joke. Compare it to the MX-5/MR2 and it didn't stand a chance.

 

[NickXX]

To put it in context, I have a mate who worked for MG a couple of summers back on an internship. One of the manufacturing processes he observed was the finishing of MG bumpers.

An external supplier would pass the bumpers onto MG - HOWEVER, the paint colouring would rarely match. It was the case that only 1 in 5 would - so out of every 5 bumpers received, only 1 could be used, the rest being thrown away.

If this practice occured in a Japanese car company, heads would roll. For Rover, though, it was standard practice. It was scandalous that we kept the company afloat for so long.

 

[jpmonkey69]

I love my Rover 600

It's fast.

 

[Malachy]

Rover were good and bad.
for example the 600 and the 75.

they did not really make the 600 though did they?it was just a rebaged honda accord made in swindon. All had honda engines bar the turbo and for example i had to have the door card of my dads 600 last week, all the plastic mouldings have 'honda' printed on them.

 

[Malachy]

Do you have anything to back that up with? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just interested to know why you think that.

Also, you didn't answer my question on the first page.

i can back him up on that it was a well known fact in this area (living ten mins away from the big cowley rover plant) used to go to college and university with rover guys and they all said if the rover 75 did not sell they would go bust as rover pumped all its money into the design of it, they could not afford to redesign new cars often and usually had to have hand me downs from honda.

 

[Malachy]

In Germany, The cheapest way to buy & own a BMW or, Mercedes is to work for them.

same here, i knew people who just worked for rover (part time) for 1 year to get huge savings on new bmw's also people who done similar things up the road from me at Williams F1.
And the cowley car park used to contain more nearly new bmws than rovers
The problem with rover was the british workforce.
generally brits at work are lazy, they are trying to take an extra 5 mins on every break, work hard at trying to find a way to not work hard rather than actually getting on with the job, this led to lots of Monday morning and friday afternoon cars that were just Pants and hey just to through it on top of that we had the 'i hate my job and build this car with as much passion as if someone was stabbing me in the eye with pins' car that was often manufactured there too. Occasionally they made a decent car and yes they were good, the specs were good interior was quite nice and then you would just have to hope the k series and gbox would not fail on you.........
If i was in the manufacturing buisiness no way would i build a factory in the uk Europe for the win tbh
another problem with rover the british public too, the main US manufacturers make some awfull cars the build quality is disgusting yet still a huge amount of us citezins will only buy american cars due to supporting there own industry and keeping people in jobs. We did not do this so we lost rover and all our other manufacturers.



even though i say this i think rovers are good cars, I love the look of the tomcat and also really think the 75 is excellent value for money and is a great car. But really truthfully and honestly. The 75s retail price a 2.5 V6 Connoisseur cost £22,490 who would pay that for a rover?

 

[Gaijin]

My experience of Rover isn't good. You see I learnt in a 25 and every car I've driven since has been better in almost every way. I'd even go so far to say it held me back in my tests. It was so sluggish and unresponsive, a complete barge with rubbish manouevrability. I hated and rejoiced when by some miracle i passed my test.

You say they went under because of their reputation - look at Skoda, I doubt a company could have had a worse rep than Skoda but VW have turned that on it's head by churning out decent reliable cars.

Heh, but not for the money they're asking for them now.

£6k for a ZT 190

Or £6k for an Integra Type R, arguably the best FWD handler ever with around 190bhp and a damn sight more reliable. I know where my money would go

I understand your passion my friend but I fear you are flogging a dead horse with this one.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Or £6k for an Integra Type R, arguably the best FWD handler ever with around 190bhp and a damn sight more reliable. I know where my money would go

I somehow doubt the sort of person prepared to spend £6k on a V6 powered luxury saloon would be swayed by an Integra Type R.

 

[MrM]

I had the fortune and then the misfortune of driving a new shape 216Si. Great car, felt like it weighed nothing. Few minor niggles, nice and nippy.... my pride and joy until the head gasket blew after I'd had it for 10 months and covered about 4,500 miles, total mileage was ~45k if I recall correctly. However it was a car I had as a student and I have fond memories of it; except the bills.

 

[jamoor]

one fo my friends stupidly bought a T reg rover 214 in bright red for 2k
I tried to stop him and now the car has become a money pit, stuff is going wrong on it constantly and he paid £45 for Rover to look at the car!
Toyota do that for free!

 

[Serj]

The problem with rover was the british workforce.
generally brits at work are lazy, they are trying to take an extra 5 mins on every break, work hard at trying to find a way to not work hard rather than actually getting on with the job

I'd like to point out that this is certainly NOT the case with many companies. The British workforce isn't as bad as you'd like to believe, hence why many Japanese companies invest in this country.

Fair enough, in some cases they receive government cash for moving to certain areas, but they wouldn't locate to the UK purely on the basis of a handout for employing people. The British workforce in general is quite hard working and desireable to foreign companies.

I'm not denying the workforce didn't have anything to do with Rover's demise, i'm just saying that Britons at work aren't "generally lazy".

 

[Dolph]

Thanks for the poll Dolph Oh look, I wonder who that kind person was who voted them as being good.

Hmm, could you comment on both the cars and the company?

Ok, I'll give my thoughts.

The cars.

As has already been said, the biggest problem is how outdated some of the designs are, and the general build quality and reliability issues.

I've owned both a Rover and a Honda, and the difference, to be honest, is like night and day. This was brought home even harder every time I've taken out an MG ZS of some sort (which is, ultimately, a very similar car to my 5 door civic.)

I've driven a couple of new ZS 180's now, and you know it's bad when you get into a supposedly new car and it has more rattles, squeaks, dodgy construction and gaps than my Honda does after 100k. Then there's the fact that despite having a much bigger and thirstier engine, it's producing about the same power and not really any quicker. (A 180 will just outdrag the VTi down the quarter mile due to the VTi's crappy gear ratios, but real world there is nothing in it). To make things worse where the civic is neutral, the ZS understeers, the car doesn't handle as well (IMO) and then there's the looks.

To me, a 5 year old VTi was a much better car all around than a new ZS, and that's without taking money into account. To make the problem worse, they were still producing the ZS as competition to the Civic Type R (among many others) and wondered why it didn't sell. It wasn't as good as the previous generation, let alone the current one, and the ZS wasn't born until over a year after the VTi had been discontinued.

The Rover 75 was a pretty good car, mostly. It suffered reliability and build quality niggles but no worse than something french, however it overshadowed in a big way by it's competition, and largely too little too late.

The less I say about some of the other cars (cityrover, streetrover etc) the better.

Now, onto the company.

I'll get my first statement out of the way.

The unions and the workers killed Rover.

Right, that's done, now onto the explaination. BMW should have been the company's saviour, they had plans, they invested huge amounts of money, and they knew how to make the company profitable again. They recognised Rover's biggest problem (that the factories were outdated, that too much manpower was being used per car and that this was making them cost a fortune.) The difference in cost per car between Longbridge and somewhere like Nissan's plant in sunderland could be measured in multiples (I can't find the figures at the moment, but I remember the difference was insane)

BMW proposed a modernisation and restructuring plan that would have seen substantial job losses (although less than happened due to the bankruptcy) along with changes in working practices that would have gone a long way to secure the company's future. The unions went mental, lied to the workers by claiming it was unnecessary and threatened to strike. It was this action that caused BMW to say "fine." and sell the lot to the Phoenix consortium (keeping back the BMW developed Mini and Landrover, which was always financially independant of Rover and consistantly profitable anyway).

The Phoenix consortium never had the money, the know-how or the will to correct the problems, the staff got what they thought they wanted, no changes, the same ineffienct, expensive and unsustainable working practices, right up until the point where the problems killed the company once and for all.

The quality of the workmanship on rover cars is shocking, although this is as much down to outdated working practices as the staff themselves.

It may seem like I'm doing a hatchet job on rover here, but I'm not. I'm being realistic.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

As so well said, the Honda tie up was clearly a good thing for Rover.
The old 200 series, 400/Civic and 600/Accord were at least class competitive, the 600 being a pretty good car. Unfortunately the 800 was a dog, and it was that car that killed Rover (Sterling) in the US. Just think of the potential market sales lost by having to pull out of the US because of a single dog of a car.

The K series issue is an interesting one. Clearly there are examples of people that have not had the issue, but why is it that they appear to be the minority. I know one person who owns a K series powered car and hasn't suffered HGF. The point is that it clearly is far more common than for other engines on the market. The fact that Rover denied it for years is even more unexcusable and says a lot about their management.
Personally I wouldn't touch a K series Rover with a bargepole, yet was happy to buy a 75 diesel. Wonder why that was...

With regard to the workforce, I don't think it's fair to blame the workers themselves. Honda, Toyota and Nissan all build good cars in England, how is that? If it's not the workers, the obvious finger points at the Unions. The Trade Unions are what killed Rover. When BMW arrived the Unions rejected some of the proposed changes, desperately trying to hold onto additional jobs that really shouldn't have been kept when it was obvious that the group couldn't sell the cars that could be made with the workforce at hand. Do that for a few years and you end up with massive debts.
I was amazed that no one pointed the finger at the Unions for killing Rover.

 

[Third Opinion]

I had a Rover 800 briefly. It was total load of unreliable rubbish. It was comfortable however had the sloppiest suspension I ever had on a car. MPG was appauling and the power was nothing to write home about. The tappets (think they were hydraulic or something) failed costing me a bomb. Truly rubbish vehicle.

My wife's first car was a Rover 200 which was another piece of carp. In six months the battery blew up, alternator failed, water pump failed and sprung oil leaks from about every joint in the engine. A stroke of luck happened one day as it failed to start. The AA were called and replaced a fuse. When they tried to turn the car over it caught fire burning out the complete wiring loom and severly damaging the interior. Thankfully it was a write and we were able to claim on the insurance for it.

 

[One More Solo]

For 3k I picked up a 4 year old 25 in minty condition, no interior or exterior marks, new HU, air con and electric windows and having driven comparable cars (especially the Clio and Corsa), I wouldn't change for them.

 

[Matmulder]

Clearly there are examples of people that have not had the issue, but why is it that they appear to be the minority. I know one person who owns a K series powered car and hasn't suffered HGF.

I'd say it was the other way around. Post on the various Lotus Forums, Caterham Forums and Rover forums and I'd be willing to bet that the amount of people that have suffered HGF on the K-series is less than 10%

I used to visit SELOC, thousands of members with practically everyone having K-series engined Elises, from 120bhp right upto 200bhp plus the VVC's. HGF was *rare*.

 

[Dolph]

I'd say it was the other way around. Post on the various Lotus Forums, Caterham Forums and Rover forums and I'd be willing to bet that the amount of people that have suffered HGF on the K-series is less than 10%

I used to visit SELOC, thousands of members with practically everyone having K-series engined Elises, from 120bhp right upto 200bhp plus the VVC's. HGF was *rare*.

10% is still a significant proportion compared to many other engines. Especially given the attendant repair costs.