Rovers - were they really that bad?
Discussion
I never read much about Rovers on PH, which suggests that either no-one owns them or they're not very good. The collapse of the company would tend to support this but were they really that bad?
I've never actually owned an MG or Rover but most of my experiences with them have been positive.
My uncle owned a series of Metros, Maestros and Montegos in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember the MG Metro he had was pretty nice and the Montego estates were quite a classy carriage in their day. I don't remember him having many problems with any of them and I always remember preferring the Montegos to my dad's POS Renault 21 that always had problems. My friend's dad also had a grey 1989 820 Saloon that I envied at the time.
I also remember the Rover 200 and Rover Metro being very highly rated for the driving experience and quality when they were launched in the early 90s.
During 6th form, me and my best friend aspired to owning a classy Rover 400 or 600 rather than the racy Fords and Vauxhalls that our classmates aspired to own.
So what went wrong? I sold new MGs and Rovers towards the end in 2003/2004 and the cars were actually really good value, nice to drive and economical (I'll conveniently forget the CityRover). It was also good that you could get an MG saloon that looked quite racy but with a more wallet-friendly engine. When MG Rover facelifted all the models, they invited us to a race track to test them and even the most mundane cars (Rover 45 diesel) presented themselves very well.
There were some issues though. I think Rover still saw themselves as a cut above Ford and Vauxhall and as a result didn't really compete head to head with them i.e. the 25 was bigger than the Fiesta/Corsa but not as big as the Escort/Astra, likewise the 45 and whereas the 75/ZT was a much nicer car than the Mondeo/Vectra IMHO, it wasn't really a 5-Series/E-Class competitor. In fact, I would still secretly like to own a 75 diesel or a ZT V6 one day, I just never really felt mature enough to drive one!
Other issues were:
1) Limited and dated model range i.e. no 4x4s, no competitive city car or no small estate (I guess at one time Land Rover had the 4x4 thing covered);
2) Patchy build quality - nothing major but things like poorly fitting trim, inoperative steering wheel-mounted audio controls and digital clocks;
3) Poor reputation of the K-Series engine (worse in certain applications MGF/TF), not sure how prolific HG failures were compared to the number of cars actually out there;
4) A slightly fuddy duddy image.
So, does anyone have any good experiences of MG and Rover cars or were they as terrible as their reputation suggests?
I've never actually owned an MG or Rover but most of my experiences with them have been positive.
My uncle owned a series of Metros, Maestros and Montegos in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember the MG Metro he had was pretty nice and the Montego estates were quite a classy carriage in their day. I don't remember him having many problems with any of them and I always remember preferring the Montegos to my dad's POS Renault 21 that always had problems. My friend's dad also had a grey 1989 820 Saloon that I envied at the time.
I also remember the Rover 200 and Rover Metro being very highly rated for the driving experience and quality when they were launched in the early 90s.
During 6th form, me and my best friend aspired to owning a classy Rover 400 or 600 rather than the racy Fords and Vauxhalls that our classmates aspired to own.
So what went wrong? I sold new MGs and Rovers towards the end in 2003/2004 and the cars were actually really good value, nice to drive and economical (I'll conveniently forget the CityRover). It was also good that you could get an MG saloon that looked quite racy but with a more wallet-friendly engine. When MG Rover facelifted all the models, they invited us to a race track to test them and even the most mundane cars (Rover 45 diesel) presented themselves very well.
There were some issues though. I think Rover still saw themselves as a cut above Ford and Vauxhall and as a result didn't really compete head to head with them i.e. the 25 was bigger than the Fiesta/Corsa but not as big as the Escort/Astra, likewise the 45 and whereas the 75/ZT was a much nicer car than the Mondeo/Vectra IMHO, it wasn't really a 5-Series/E-Class competitor. In fact, I would still secretly like to own a 75 diesel or a ZT V6 one day, I just never really felt mature enough to drive one!
Other issues were:
1) Limited and dated model range i.e. no 4x4s, no competitive city car or no small estate (I guess at one time Land Rover had the 4x4 thing covered);
2) Patchy build quality - nothing major but things like poorly fitting trim, inoperative steering wheel-mounted audio controls and digital clocks;
3) Poor reputation of the K-Series engine (worse in certain applications MGF/TF), not sure how prolific HG failures were compared to the number of cars actually out there;
4) A slightly fuddy duddy image.
So, does anyone have any good experiences of MG and Rover cars or were they as terrible as their reputation suggests?
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