GrollySTI

Why would anyone in their right mind want to restart production of a failed business?

Personally I very much doubt Longbridge will re-open and suspect any production will be in china for the Chinese domestic market only.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Will people please stop feeding the Troll, it only makes the daft F*cker come back for more, you cant reason with it , I am not normally given to objecting to anyone on here but FFS do we need to listen to another few months of this Gibbon before he gets banned (AGAIN). What is the point of joining a community only to annoy is members, I think this kind of individual needs to take a look at their outlook and wonder why they do it, perhaps if you put more in, you get more out, even Chaos got the message and he is 4.

Maybe you are richer, more handome, fantastically intelligent and have a huge *****, I am not jealous, I am happy with my life and enjoy the community spirit on here that you try to destroy, I am also very glad I am not a mean spirited, bitter, antagonistic ***** !

GC8

If he had some friends; a girlfriend...or even a ticket for the local library the **** wouldnt be here trolling..........

logiclee

They wouldn't restart a failed business they would start there own new one.
They pick up the plant and tooling for next to nothing, have a skilled workforce with no tupee rights, no standing wage and working conditions and don't have to stand the current buisness's losses, debts or pension liabilities. They have the money to invest in new models while the old ones are sold in China in the mea time.

Foriegn run UK plants with the right technology, management and workforce are amongst the most productive in the world.
If SIAC cherry pick the staff, enforce their own working arangements and invest in new production lines and models there is no reason why Longbridge cant be another Toyota (Derby).

SIAC have a bigger market than any other European manufacturer.
Yes they could build in China but to build a plant and train the people would take around two years.

It is a very long shot I agree but to dismiss whithout having the full facts is wrong.

I hope something can be done for the Longbridge workers. The majority were hardworking men and women who loved the brand. Only a small minority were the vocal 1970's union types. Most of the deadwood were got ridd of after the BMW farce but Longbridge was still massively over staffed.

Cheers
Lee

nick wrx

I used to work there, and I know what these cars are like, all of the cars were designed and all the chassis development tweaks etc were done by Prodrive..............."yes our very own Prodrive" I was amazed along with others when I found out, the ZS handles like a dream really, and the (ZT Plus) is really nice due in no small part to the BMW Developed Z Chassis which in all honesty is quite old first appearing on the BMW Z1 back in 1990 that said the chassis is very nice and for a large car handles like a sports car really.

If you ask me would I buy one the answer would be yes IF your going to run it into the ground and never expect to resell it again and I had loose change to pay for it, you can get MGs and Rovers up here for peanuts every chav and his dogs got one, and NO if you want to at sometime resell for something better quality, or you have to get finance to pay for the thing.

as to who will buy the the whole plant I dont know really, its already ear marked for development as a Tech Park, I hope it gets re-developed all the parts manufacturers have moved on, the work force need to re train, and move on.............If they do start production there again I only hope to god they dont re employ all the HR Staff, the manufacturing managers or any of the execs as they were the route of the whole problem, MG would still be here today if it wasnt for the useless managment and useless unions, from the Floor up to exec level, they were all only out for themselves..............and nobody cared enough to say what the f***k are we doing?

DrunkenPikie

So says the man sat around at 8:30 in the evening posting on scoobynet........I only come on here when I'm at work, I suggest you need to get a friend, a girlfriend and try not to live your home life on some BBS with the other sad tossers.

Back on topic MG Rovers have a 'loser' image and aftermarket warranty wont help when your cars off the road due to a 8 week lead time on some obscure part and WHERE IS THE DEALER NETWORK GOING numpties.

So there you have it a car that makes you look like a loser, doesn't have full parts backup and dealers going bust or changing marque every other day. Like shopping at Matalan it's great if you can't afford anything decent, the rest of us will stick to the good stuff.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Durr, my uncle has two 1950's Jowetts (look it up) and can get any part he needs from the owners club, they only built 1500 of one of the models so I dont think a fairly recent mass produced car should proove to be a problem, especially given how you say they are so crap, there must be loads sat around ready to be plundered to keep the rest going.

I know someone with an MG ZT V8 and it has an ECU problem (the Ford bits) being sorted at the moment, no drama.

Anyway who says the guy isnt at work, not everone one is a sad 9 to 5 desk driver, now get off your ****, you boss will probably need a brew before you take the post.

mn_angrybeats

I know they did the packaging for the ZT V8 but apart from that I don't think they got involved with the ZR / ZS / ZT chassis development

Diablo

LOL

What he said

Daniel-S

Also try www.xpowerforums.com

E48

Guys, don't be so blinkered. I have never owned a Scooby, I know they are fine cars. I have owned 3 EVO's VI - VII and a VIII.

Also numerous MG's and Rovers. The last being a ZT MG V8. Currently have an old Metro 6R4.

So I would recomend any of the avove models suggested - there are some genuine bargains out there. R25's can be bought for 7k.

Ask the guys at www.xpower-mg.com

GT-

In responce to the original post - Here is a long-time owners point of view. I'm not intending to start any arguments, flames or contraversy, but having come accross this thread and being someone who is in the position of owning a current and past variation of this car i thought my thoughts might help the original question.

The Rover 25 is a very understated car and is a cracking purchase, especially when you consider its value for money IMHO.

The mechanicals are tried and tested and now being on my 4th k-series powered MG or Rover product, I have never had any faults. These are usually driven fairly hard, and for fairly high mileage, with my personal examples of cars having gone well beyond the 100k mark. All MG-Rover engines were given a major update in 2000, vastly improving servicability and reliability.

Parts are in plentyful supply from X-Part, and I have been to and witnessed first hand the miles and miles of warehousing full of MG-Rover parts, dating back for models as old as the Allegro.

Failing that, as new parts are always more expensive, almost every part can still be obtained in good used or reconditioned form from either dealers, or breakers yards and costs are comparitivley low.

Many of the day-to-day servicing requirements are so simple, that it is capable of being completed either by yourself, or by any existing MG-Rover dealer. Unipart, who has a network of hundreds of workshops nationwide has also pledged their allegence to MG-Rover owners of past and present to continue with parts supply and servicing skills.

The 16v 1.4 engine would be my engine of choice if just looking for a runaround, as these are mroe than capable of giving a decent performance for around town and motorway sprints, especially in the 103Ps form. They are dirt cheap to insure, and 2003+ spec models are an insurance group cheaper due to improved Thatcham Cat1 alarm systems with a superlocking feature. The 2004MY cars also come with drive-away speed locking, and a 'panic button' which winds your windows, locks your doors and sounds your alarm, should you find yourself sat at some lights with an unfriendly visitor trying to take your car away.

Tax for the 1.4 is £120 per year on post 2001 models, putting it in the second lowest group for tax, a full tank of fuel will cost you between £35 and £40, and get you just over 350miles to a tank, unless you drive it hard, in which case it'll sink to about 320 miles.

Any car older than 3 years is out of warranty anyway (2002 and before), but any car purchased from a dealer is likley to come with a 12month warranty with the dealer / finance company, with optional schemes being available companies such as the RAC for a few hundred quid.

I have a mere 3dr version, but even that is more than capable of taking 4 adults and 5 3-point seatbelts are available.

From a practicality point of view, fold the seats down and its more than capable of taking a washing machine and still have space for lots of items to fit around it. With the seats up, the boot is still huge for a super-mini.

I have owned or driven almost every variation. Find a good one and you could have cd player with 4 speakers - MP3 in some cases with a CD changer or even steering wheel mounted controls. Electric windows, electric tilt/slide sunroof, electric heated wing mirrors, remote central door locking with alarm, immoboliser and internal motion sensors. You can also get full or part leather seats, alloy wheels, twin fog lights front and rear.

Many come with alloy wheels, particually the ZR's, but for the improved ride comfort, the 25 is smoother, and has a much better turning circle than the ZR as well - ideal for parking in tight spaces. Another option to consider for tight town scenarios's would be the Streetwise - also well specc'd and much better around town without the need to worry about paint scrapes

In short, its practical, cheap to run, cheap to buy, is functional and easy to use. Take one for a test drive, see if its suitable for what you want and if you like it, then buy it.

If its not to your tastes, then walk away and find another car. MG-Rover isnt everyones cup of tea - wouldnt it be boring if we were all the same. But for me, the car is a great bang for the buck.

Rincewind

Greeting Scoobynet, it has been a while since I've posted but I feel, there are some huge mis-conceptions going on here about MGR and it's products,and this is basically down to ignorance of the brands and products.

It has long been thought that MGR produced poor products and this has been emphasised by DrunkenPikie or what ever his name is, nothing could be further from the truth. I write this as an ex employee who worked in Product Engineering and worked as a homologation engineer for the company, so I know the cars pretty much inside and out. I have found one comment extremely offensive and that was the:

"An old design from a dead company owned and driven by some of the lowest in society"

Someone clearly doesn't have a clue. I'm not going to get into arguments as GT has said, I'm here to try and get people's blinkers off.

I, like my other colleagues have gone through an extremely stressful and difficult period over the last few months and to see the company that you've worked for and love go under is sole destroying. Knowing that you've put 150% effort into producing extremely good cars and to be hounded for 5 plus years by the press who are out to get you is awful and many will suffer for months nay, years becasue of this situation.

The 25/ZR platform is a good, tried and tested platform. No other car in it's class can offer as much space or boast the worlds most powerful production 1.4 engine: argue that if you will, but I have the facts to prove it.

The 45/ZS platform is again, tried and tested technology (thank you Honda). So much so that the BTCC car was often viewed by other manufacturers becasue they wanted to understand how the suspension was set up because it was so close to the production version. During the BMW ownership days, the 45 range was the most reliable and had the lowest warranty claims of any vehicle including 3, 5 and 7 series products with a customer retention and re-purchase rate of over 80%, better than the 3 series.

Anyone who owns the 75/ZT platform is driving the safest right hand drive in it's class. Better than Laguna, 3 series BMW, Jaguar X type, Mondeo and Vectra. Simply because it was designed as a right hand drive car from the outset unlike the other cars. Some manufacturers build the LHD cars stronger than the RHD to get higher NCAP test results. You've also got a car that has high repurchase rates and in it's ZT 190 guise, will stop from 60 to 0 mph faster that Subaru's, Lambos, TVR's, EVO VIII's, Porsche 911 GT3 and so on. It takes 2.5 seconds at over 1g. The car will actually do 0 - 60 - 0 faster than it takes a 2.0 Golf GTi to get to 60!

Bit of mis conception here, Prodrive had nothing to do with any of MGR's products apart from the MG ZT 260 V8. Originally they were contracted to produce a fully manufacturable V8 vehicle for us. They failed and we had to re-design the car from scratch with regards to chassis set up and body construction. I was leading the homologation rescue process because they made such a mess of it. It was a poor management decision to do this when our engineers turn the project around and produced a fine vehicle which the motoring press were bowled over by.

Yes, there were serious management problems,but this did not stop us trying to do our best and I know for a fact that one of the dealers I was good friends with can't move the cars fast enough and since April have moved over 350 cars without huge discounts, so to me it would suggest that now the press has left the company alone, people are buying the products without being blinkered or influenced by idiots who don't understand the first thing about the cars and the brands.

MGR was recognised as having some of the best engineers on the planet and given the right support, funds and good management, we could have been even better. Our development programmes looked at the competition from normal, family cars to sports cars and not wishing to upset people on here, the Impreza's we had from time to time, although very well engineered and performed well, were flawed and had some "features" not acceptable to our requirements. We owned one for months and I remember the lads from ProDrive commenting on how our ZT 190 and 260 V8 put the Subaru to shame in a number of areas with regards to balance and handling. it's the same for all manufacturers, not just Subaru and MGR.

There is still a big dealer network out there, servicing will never be a problem as will buying parts from company's like X Part and Catepillar etc have an abundance of them now and there will be parts around for years to come. Sure, warranties will be an issue, but there is nothing stopping people from buying an independant one should they choose to. I run a Rover 25 Diesel and it's my 7th one and touch wood, they've never missed a beat in a combined total of over 300'000 miles between them. I have an MG ZT-T lined up for purchase in the next few months, so I shall continue to buy the products for as long as I can get hold of them.

I work for the Vehicle Certification Agency now a Govt. Dept and people still comment on actually how surprised they are the overall quality and value for money they are. At the NEC motorshow, we did over 2500 test drives in 2 weeks and none of our cars broke down having done 1100 miles each on the NEC car park, Vauxhall's, Hyundai's, Nissans and even the Subaru's broke down and were pushed off the circuit. They even used ours to tow them off, so the public were extremely impressed and couldn't understand why we got so much bad press.

As GT and E48 say, ask those that know about the cars to understand what it's all about. Do not get blinkered and do not get sucked into the negativity that surrounded us at Longbridge because it's people like you that had a helping had in bringing down the company because you didn't know any better. Most of the time, people who comment have never sat in a car let alone driven one.

Sorry it's a bit long, but I gave my heart and sole to that place because I believed in the product and spent months out there helping dealers to sell them and I'm an engineer, so I know what they could do and when people seem hell bent on slagging us off because they have listened to others and therefore show a how weak minded they are, I get a bit upset and angry.

They are good value cars, fit for purpose with some fantastic engineering behind them, just because it's not wrapped up in the latest Euro-packaging (megane, Focus etc), doesn't meant that it is old. Golf is on it's 5th generation and is over 30 years old! What does that suggest. 3, 5 and 7 series BMW's are on their nth generation. It's a difficult world out there in automotive land and I was proud and am still proud to be a part of it. If you don't like them, then look elsewhere, that's why there's a market, just keep your half brained offensive comments to yourself before you start really upsetting people and their families who gave so much over many years.

Nic

DBY

Should soon be time for some new front lights and grill, with some Lexus style tail lamps.LOL

GT-

If thats all it takes, then why re-invent the wheel?

DBY

Because that's all they ever do and people will not fall for it anymore. That's why their sales figures have been in free fall for the last two years, you just can't keep tarting up old model platfortms.

Rincewind

It's what every other manufacturer does. I believe Subaru have been doing it for years. Look under the skin of a current Impreze and I be you will find similar bits and pieces to how it was when it was launched back in when ever it was, 1993/4? It's been facelifted just like everything else out there and then some.

Do you know how much it costs to develop a vehicle in todays market? 75 cost £1 billiion. Our new medium car's body alone was going to cost over £350 million and that was without colouring it on or decorating it.

Once you have a good platform, there is no point throwing it away just because it's a few years old. The Audi TT, Mk IV Golf, Seat range etc are all sitting on exactly the same platform and no one slags them off fo they? No, becuase its either got 4 rings or a VW badge on.

What do you class as "tarting old models up", simple face lifts or what? I can assure you that there are platforms out there much older than ours were and they NEVER came under fire the way we did. Unless you work in the industry, it is very difficult for people to comprehend what goes in within a design, development and manufacturing environment.

Over the last 4 months MGR sales have gone through the roof and I know for a fact that our on site MG Rover Direct sales point has been 4/5 times busier than ever before and they're selling cars faster than "hot cakes" as the saying goes. Perception, that's all it boils down to.

GT-

Sales figures have been dropping because everyone is too afraid of the perception of the models. People like yourself tell everyone its a bad idea to buy an MG or Rover, and they beleive it.

Many people have been sceptical about my purchase, telling me I am mad for doing it and that its an old design. I say 'so what'?

I've had people driving various other cars with dedication during my time as an MGR owner - always being told my car will break down etc... and I just sit and watch their cars fail whilst mine keeps going at full strength.

Like I said before, owning a product like that is not for everyone... but dont knock it until you've tried it. A quick 10mins test drive doesnt count, nor does "I have a friend who once knew someone who had a Rover that broke down back in 1993".

But that said, I could always trade my car in for Subaru's offerings to the Supermini segment... the Justy!

Dieseldog

Driving a Rover 416 as a company car a few years ago, I always felt that, somewhere along the line I'd taken a wrong turning in life - that at 26 I'd failed. I don't recall it going wrong, don't remember it being dangerous, but I hated it like I've never hated any other car. It was a 'nothing' car and I despised it completely; at the wheel I always felt my life was just slipping by.

DBY

New Audi TT 2006 will sit on new platform with new body
New Mark V Golf sits on new platform new body with with irs
New Seat Leon on new platform with new body with irs
New Mini 2006 new engines revised body work, re worked interior
If it was still in Rovers hands it would soldier on for the next 10 years without change !!
The list goes on and on

Thats why Rover Fails No new Money for New Models
Just up dated hub caps tail lights and front grill and lights

logiclee

Ricewind
As much as I would love MGR to survive and I have said on this thread that MGR's are a good buy at the present time and I have owned many MGR products including a 75 it's just I can't agree with the 25 and 45 comments.
The 25's driving position is firmly 1980's, the steering wheel comes at you at an angle from the low dash, the seats are set high even at the lowest setting and the wheel is heavily offset to the left.
If I drive my dads for more than a short drive I get back and neck ache and my knees bang on the steering wheel even with the seat on the lowest setting and the steering wheel on the highest setting. The switchgear in the 25 is dotted all over the place. It's an ergonomic nightmare. The old 200 was soft and soggy and the later 25's are hard and giggly.
Jump out of the 25 and into a modern small hatch like the Fabia and it's like getting a breath of fresh air. The driving position is spot on, the switchgear falls easily to hand and the ride is compliant and smooth with little roll in the corners.
It's these reasons why the 25 failed to sell not some anti-britishness or Jeremy Clarkson.

It's a similar issue with the 45, the 400 held it's head high when competing with the Escort but it was priced at nearly Mondeo level at that time. The price of the 45 tumbled but by that time the 45 had to compete with the last Focus and the Civic which was two generations on. Against the new Focus the 45 is nearly laughable, who in their right mind would pay list on say a 45 Diesel with a chassis and packaging three generations behind and a diesel engine that pre-dates common rail and vnt turbo's when for similar money you can get a state of the art Focus/Golf/Civic/Octavia/Leon.

MGR just ran out of time and money.

Cheers
Lee

Rincewind

Couldn't agree with you more to be honest and that's a fairly major thing that killed us off.

I think your comments on 25 are a bit off. I'm 6'2" and I've never had a problem with the driving postiiton of the 25, I don't know what the problem is with it is to be honest and as for being off set, well,you want off set, go and drive a BMW 3 series, that's off set.

Would also agree with the diesel thing, but we had a new common rail diesel arriving in October that made the BMW unit in 75 look and sound old. Common rail, variable vane series 3 Garret turbo, full Euro IV compliant and amazingly quiet, quieter than the BMW unit! So, we were developoing things as time progressed, but as you say, money stopped us for a lot of the time.

I will also agree that some of the pacaking needed to be improved, but the chassis set up is still up there with the newer vehicles on the road. The setting on my car give a supple, compliant ride which handles extremely well and I managed to shake off a Focus 170 the other night in my diesel round some of the twisty bits where I live so I know what it will do and it's limitations.

DBY, I hear what you're saying, but note that your comments on the TT show the changes NEXT year, not now. Yes the MINI is changing, but I wouldn't get too excited about it, I see the new car every day of the week and, well, I can't say, you can make your own minds up when you see it. MINI is 5 years old and this is it's first facelift so be careful.

Money was always going to be a problem, but MGR were the first to fall, just watch, Chrysler could be next when Merc spit them out, GM is struggling and Fuji Heavy industries (Subaru) is held up by heavy engineering.

All arguments are valid, just I see it very differently because I delt with everything on a daily basis.

logiclee

Ricewind,

Heard anything about the take over or job offers etc?

Cheers
Lee

mn_angrybeats

The 25 seat postion has always been a problem from day one and Rover engineering have been trying to improve it with each model year..mainly the height of the cushion which meant you sit on the car and not in it... On the ZS's they did reduce the foam thickness and alter the bolster profile, but the problem has never really gone away.

Sit in a MINI for example and then sit in a 25 / ZS and see how poor it really is

mn_angrybeats

I'm sure it's only the bulkhead panel and sometimes the floor which is drivehanded more or less mirrored about the centreline of the car then many of the crossmembers etc have mtg points for both LHD and RHD cars...So why would the drive hand determine the strength of a car I'm confused...?

Swen6

To be honest, if it's a bargin your after then you probably can't go wrong, spec wise they're really good, it's pure luck of the draw, you could get a good one that never goes wrong, or you can get one that'll spend more time at the garage then in your possension.

My brother for some reason brought a MG-ZF just over 2 years ago, and he's had nothing but problems, he uses it for work and a few weeks back it broke down. The dealership would not stand by the warranty, so we had people look at it, mechanic friends etc., one being from the AA, he plugged the laptop in to the diag plug, but from factory the wires had been switched in this plug so the laptop could not communicate with the ecu, so Rover had him over a barrel, you either take it to them or it doesn't get fixed, he had to bite the bullet and pay for rover to look.
It turned out to be the fuel pump, part and fitting just over £300, so on the prices that people are saying the cars are available for, it's about 8% of the value of the car!!!!]

Rincewind

Logiclee, it's Rincewind not Ricewind! Small point I know but.....

it's too early to know what's going on with the Nanjing deal, I think there's something else ion the agenda for them as I can't quite see the logic behind PWC selling onto them. I was speaking to my old Product Development Director yesterday and he says that it's too early to know what's going on and he's not sure how the technical side is going to build up so it's a suck it and see exercise at the moment.

mm-angrybeats, sorting a seating position out on a car is not that simple as many area of the car are can be affected. The seat "R" points and "H" points are declared by the manufacture, this means that the "envelope" that the seat is in is "fixed" and this is used to determine crash test seating positions, forward and reward vision requirements, interior fitting and impact criteria and many more so changing the position is very costly and difficult. You've basically got a 50mm square box to work in for the H point, if you go outsode the box, there are many re-certificaiton needs and when a crash test can cost upwards of £50k a pop, it's not cheap. I know what you're getting at and the cushion was the area that concerned us and things were being worked on.

Hand of drive plays a major role in the impact critera vehicle manufacture. You would think that it would be easy to change the drive position and it would just be a bulkhead change. Well, that's one part. You've got to have "handed" peadal boxes, wiring looms, brake pipe systems, heating/ventialtion packs, external mirrors and so on. When you lift the bonnet of an in-line 4 cyl engine, the engine is to one side and the gearbox is on the other side. When you strike a RHD car in the "offset" frontal crash, the first thing that you hit is the longditudional (as the bumper is mearly a cosmetic thing) rapidly followed by the engine and so on. This means that the engine rotates towards the driver and the gearbox moves away, so there is not very much crush space for things to collapse. If you strike a left hand drive car, there is only the gearbox to move and the eninge rotates away from the driver. There is also more space above the gearbox with parts that are not exactly crush resistant like air cleaners etc, so the driver of a LHD car is safer. Some manufacturers make the logditudionals and crush structures better on the "home" market side because that is what sells the most. If you make a RHD car safe for the driver and passenger, the LHD car will be even safer.

It's a hugely difficult area to sort and the FEA guys and BIW guys did a fantastic job with the 75/ZT and that's why it performs so well in front and side impacts. Making the body strong across the car is the easy bit, it's the crush cans, logditudionals and other areas that determine the strength of the car and how it performs.

Swen6, by law a manufacturer has to make a vehicle communicate with diagnostic equipment for OBD emissions requirements (On Board Diagnostics) so it stands a chance that the AA guy was not "speaking" to the car correctly. The car will always display it's health and then it depends on what is wrong with it that requires other systems to talk to the car. In out case it is a piece of equipment callled TestBook. It's the smae with other manufacturers, they all have their own software to communicate other than the high level emissions OBD requirements.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Seeing we're starting to get owner reviews and people who have alot of pride and love for Rovers popping up (which forum are you guys from? ), I think I should digress my experience of Rovers in more detail to balance things out as an EX-rover owner - running 5 cars in the same company car fleet (one Concerto shape 216, two bubble shape 216s and one 25 plus an equally troublesome Freelander).

Every single one was trouble, the company soaked up the costs of running these cars - thankfully, (fuel consumption wasn't good for a 1.6 either ). Even the Freelander, being the newest car of the lot still suffers from the same costly (K-series)engine problems that dogged the original 1.4. That being the head gasket - and no, it was NOT O-rings (they had already been fixed) or bad cooling system priming or leaks- it blew by itself, just like the other 2 rovers (the third blew it's gasket possibly due to a slight water pump leak which may have introduced some air into the system - but it never ran low on coolant). That is the tip of the iceburg really - all cars were sold or traded in with less than 70K on the clock. With faults and bills listing things like Gearbox repairs, ECU failures, catalyst failures, countless numbers of brake pads (lucky they were cheap), not to mention the interior trim problems - rattles, uncomfortable front seats, one had a whistle at 60mph+ on hot days - changed every rubber seal on the car and never cure it. Every single one had a broken parcel shelf clip so it fell into the boot everytime you opened it.

I won't deny that the cars were "well used" but it is proof that they weren't up to it. Funny though, another Rover we had was a old shape k-reg 216gsi (Honda Concerto shape) was 95% reliable apart from the distributor (common on early 90's Honda engines), a fuel pump relay and some suspension bushes in its later life. That one is still on the road, being driven by a happy old codger who bought it for £500 ). Now running a fleet of BMWs (how apt considering their past links ). Which barring one with dodgy reversing sensors (due to be rear ended though) have been perfect and only have needed to vist the dealers every 18months/15Kmiles for a service.

So it's a gamble plain a simple. As I know other Rover owner who are chuffed to bits (but they are also over 50 and drive 25 miles a week ) IMO the 75 or MG equivelent is far better car and probably the best car they have ever manufactured since 1989 (previously the Concerto based 216 or 827 ), but I have still seen a few 75s with head gasket failure, and one 3 month old 75 with a very alarming bottom end knock on the engine that Rover dealers were adament to the owner was "normal" (yeah normal for a for a failed big-end )- an independent engineers report told differently.

So just make sure the warrantee is bullet proof and for as long a duration as you can afford.

I personally would not worry about parts, especially essentials (suspension/drivetrain etc), even if you can't get genuine there will be equivelent pattern parts available. And don't forget the 25 has been about since 1996, so you can always raid the local scrap yard - although that would screw up the warrantee

ForesterBoy

Rover = avoid

If you can't find something better for your money you are not looking hard enough.

GT-

Ali-B, was a single one of those cars built during the Pheonix rule, or were they all during the BMW (1994-2000) era?

I think you'll find a lot has changed in the last 5 years.

However, I will applaud you for putting a personal account and reasoned owners point of view instead of some of the other 'comments' that have been made.

As advice above all else, I would say do not buy the car unless you are 100% happy with wanting one. If you purchase one, or indeed any other car, that you are not happy with before you buy it - you will find faults with it and ways to hate it, regardless of whether there is a problem with the car or not.

Ask yourself this though, whenever there is a discussion about buying or owning an MG-Rover product, there is always a dedicated enthusisasts at hand who will respond. If the cars are so bad, then why are so many so passionate about owning them? (Thats a rhetorical question, and not one to be answered with childish remarks!)

I've been driving the R3 platform for years, I am 5ft 10, and do some quite considerably long journeys and have never felt the driving position to be awkward. In fact I think it makes a nice change to be able to see out of the windows as the all-round visibility is brilliant.

Yes there is switchgear from the past, but to say it is unergonomic is a little harsh, here is how a Rover25 dash looks :



When compared with many of todays offerings, the layouts are almost identical. Round air vents, 3 dials for heater control and a selection of centre console mounted buttons that include the hazzard lights, fogs lights, a/c, window heaters and the panic button.