What do you think? Suitable reg number for a TVR?
Discussion
m4tti said:
Keep it away from mine, that's the number plate shape of those old rovers. It could curse it so badly the plastic body rusts 
Interesting comment that!!! So I doubt you know much if anything about the Rover 75 then! FYI my daily driver is an 02 Rover 75 CDT with the BMW M47C oil burner unit fitted. The 75 also has BMW E46 suspension complete with Z axle in the rear...................... yep they is a big space for the diff but of course the 75 is FWD using a jatco 5 speed auto box. Brakes are ATI .................... same as BMW as is the anti lock system and the alarm system all this because of course BMW owned Rover at the time of the 75's development.
Oddly enough most of the issues with the 75s are the Germanic bits like broken suspension springs, troublesome ABS sensors and alarm/immobilser. The Bosch ECU is not water proof especially on the diesel the crankshaft pulley dampener can fail. On the petrol V6 the variable inlet tract manifold made by Siemens fails as do the motors that control the flaps ........................................ so much for German quality engineering.
Now we bought this 75 CDT a few months back for the princely sum of £200 as a non runner even though I had told the vendor what the problem was he was not interested and £40 o get her transported home. It was the ECU drowned due to lack of maintenance. We got the ECU repaired by a specialist in Newcastle through the owners club which cost less than £200 I replaced the worn leather steering wheel for £13.82 and bought a new suspension bush we the local garage fitted as I could not get onto the bolts on axle stands but a ramp made it easy. That cost £48.62 I paid £80 for a set of Crowns with good tyres as three on her were border line legal and £80 to get new tow bar electrics supplied and fitted.
She is very good at towing and that is why we wanted a Diesel version. Comfortable and returning an average of 46mpg not bad on juice. But ours does not have the shaped 75 rear plate just a normal straight one.
To us 666 is just a number and nowt more but the beast reference I thought does suit the beasty reputation that the TVR's have. In fact i find a lot in parallel wiht the TVR's as many you mention the name to will right away say that they are unreliable funny thing is that they say the same thing about the MGF's too and of course I have a couple of those still at the moment. I on the other hand have not found the MGF's to be unreliable and I hope and in fact expect that the same will be true for the TVR when I get one. Maintenence and TLC should take car of it.
Edited by Brithunter on Monday 16th January 10:37
m4tti said:
Thankfully not a specialised subject of mine. How ever I do know post mid 70's Rover developed a miserable reputation hence why they are no longer with us.
I have no idea why someone would put a 1984 standard 7 character, "B" registered plate on it either,.. Poor thing. Perhaps 666 is the number of the banger.
It seems it was some Scots person who purchased the number and put it onto that Rover why???? well you would have to ask them that one! There is the retention certificate prior to it being put onto the Rover and that is how we know it was in Scotland the number was transfered to the Rover......I have no idea why someone would put a 1984 standard 7 character, "B" registered plate on it either,.. Poor thing. Perhaps 666 is the number of the banger.
Edited by m4tti on Sunday 15th January 23:01
Personally I have never "bought" a number have sold one "P33 MJB" that arrived on my first MGF before selling the car last year I sold the plate to a dealer for a quick sale and got more return on the car by doing so.
As for Rover reputation well dear Jezzer has a lot to answer for there doesn't he! Then perhaps the innovative K4 engine was a bit advanced for the average spanner monkey and the majority of those still have trouble working on them properly causing huge issues then blaming the engine design. Am still active on the MG forums and we still see problems caused by "so called mechanics" who cannot service and replace a simple head gasket, inlet gasket, water pump without messing it up.
Oddly enough it is are for HGF it seems on the KV6 engine maube because it's more difficult to work on and many spanner spinners do not want to work on them probably because they are incapable of doing so??? hence as they don't get their inept mitts on them they do not fail as after all they use the same design liners and polymer sealed gaskets as the K4 engines.
Of course many claim the Chinese have sorted it out but in fact they just picked up the completed but unreleased version from the shambles that dear labour and the Pheonix 4 left behind.
m4tti said:
I think you must all use a different alphabet to me, as John Player Special is abbreviated as "JPS".. not "JPL".. am i missing something 
Simple really the Ford JPS was done up in the Black and Gold John PLayer Lotus Colours. There is also the John Player League in football I believe. I remember Emerson in his JPS Lotus winning the world title when F1 was worth watching unlike today.Edited by m4tti on Monday 16th January 11:48
Edited by Brithunter on Monday 16th January 12:40
Andy_mr2sc said:
According to my Scalextric car it's JPS:
John Player Special was the sponsers Lotus was the team.Now as for your pathetic attempt at humour .......................................... well as my old school reports used to say :-
Must try harder!
Funnily enough when driving that recovery truck the most make most often recovered was ............................. BMW and mainly new ones. I did recover a number of Land Rover Freelanders but thier numbers were small compared to BMW's oddly enough I never recovered a Rover 75 and not many Rovers at that. The only MGF I recall was due to the idot behind the wheel not being able to drive and after exceeding his capabilities stuffed the poor red MGF into something hard on a bend totaling the front end. of course this means that MGF's are unreliable.......................................... as after all it needed recovery!
I also recall recovering 3 TVR's:-
1x electrical fault draining the battery
1x Clutch failure
1x collision .......................... no I don't know who was at fault.
Suppose the most dramatic recovery was the car balanced and rocking on the railing on the A25 bridge over the M23. The car would have tipped over and fallen about 100 feet onto the motorway but the hand brake cable snagged. 2 occupents in car. never figured out how they managed to get the car up onto the railign like that. Some things just stick in the ole memory.
Andy_mr2sc said:
Rovers are renowned for their poor build quality, sub standard parts and their reliability issues. I'm sure some are better than others but as mentioned above there's a good reason they're no longer made. Having owned three tvrs in the last eight years I have had my fair share of pxxs taking from others about the same three issues mentioned above about rovers. Over those eight years I have had two break downs. One of these was battery failure and the other a Bosch (German) fuel pump relay. Thankfully I have a sense of humor and take the banter in the light hearted manner in which it is meant. If you own a Rover and are seriously looking at buying a tvr as well I really would get yourself prepared for a double whammy of grief and mickey taking from others, rightly or not. Incidentally my o/h had a freelander with 'a fantastic' bmw engine in it and that was the biggest pile of poo we've had the misfortune of owning. I also often get ridiculed for owning an 'unreliable' Defender 90 but through my rose tinted glasses it is the best vehicle on the planet (after my tuscan. Oh and the supercharged vantage I went in last Thursday.)
Just as an aside if you google JPS you get John Player Special. If you google JPL you get NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Yes I discovered that on Google. JPS of course was just one brand of fags from John Player and the one used for the F1 sponsership deal with Lotus. Fag advertising was big business in the 70's with Rothmans using the Pilot image to flog their cancer sticks.Just as an aside if you google JPS you get John Player Special. If you google JPL you get NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Ahhh the issue with the BMW M47C in the Freelander and the 75/ZT is that BMW wanted them to be problems. They had already decided that they were dropping Rover just before the launch and tried their best to scupper it. They made sure the the 75/ZT has less leg room in the back than their 5 series so it would compete well as BMW saw the 75/ZT as a serious threat to 5 Series sales. There was no mention of the PCV filter from BMW's service stuff for the M47C and oddly enough the M47 engine in the 3 and 5 series suffered with ancillery problems that funnily enough missed the Rover/MG 75/ZT as being a tranverse FWB fitment used different ones. BMW also restricted the power of the engines supplied to Mg-Rover and when MG-Rover began to map them to be better BMW set a cap on this and threatened to cut off unit supply if MG-Rover did not abide by this. This is why they looked at fitting an Italian diesel engine and built one test vehicle with one so equiped. This escaped destruction and has I believe been recently sold. The 75/ZT diesel have several remaps available and one of the most popular being the 160 developed by some of those who did the originals and I understand the torque figure of 359nm is produced by this remap.
Being the owner of not only the Rover 75 but 3 MGF's am quite familar with the attempts at being snidy or cleaver by those who are just ignorant about the true facts so pretty much ingore them. If one tries to educate them it is usually a waste of time and breathe so I just let them carry on in their ignorane and let them feel superior. The attitude does keep the prices down which is why basically we got this 02 Rover 75 CDT so cheap. People who won't listen and who just believe the lies from the uniformed trade get told silly things and prices. The CDT came with 2 new fuel pumps fitted and a new battery as the "expert" technician the previous owner employed told hit it was the Under Bonnet Pump when that didn't fix it it was the in tank pump and then the battery. The engine span over fine but pumps would not run due to the ECU sititng in over 3" of water and the pump drivers were submerged and shorting out. The amount I paid for the car was less than the new parts and battery he had fitted.
The thing that I find most odd for a make that was so poorly built using such sub standard parts there are so many left still doing thier job in getting people and what ever the owners wish to carry about.
m4tti said:
You didn't star in Keeping Up appearances did you ?
As for BMW scuppering Rover.. I'll get my Tin foil Hat.. although rover had scuppered them selves for decades before.
You might find this odd but I don't watch much tv and that show wasdreadful really ............................. really pathetic. Mother liked it if she has it on, freesat does loads of old repeats, I go in the back and shot BOTH doors between me and the front room so I do not ahve to even here it.As for BMW scuppering Rover.. I'll get my Tin foil Hat.. although rover had scuppered them selves for decades before.
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