RE: The worst used car in Britain

RE: The worst used car in Britain

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300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

189 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
yonex said:
Mr2Mike said:
Yes they do. You are either supremely ignorant or in denial if you think every car ever made apart apart from LR products don't have problem areas.
Some of the cars I have owned and their issues. 'nothing' denotes outside of service items.

Mini - rust killed the car
Mini - clutch/rust
Metro - Gearbox failure
Rover 800 - HGF
Caterham K - HGF
Honda NSX - Thermostat
Honda DC2 - nothing
Nova 1.2 - nothing
Nova 1.4 - nothing
Volvo V40 - nothing
Volvo s60 - nothing
Toyota Corrolla - nothing
Audi A3 - nothing
Escort mk3 - nothing
Escort mk4 - nothing
Gold tdi - nothing

A short list but do you see a pattern? The K series is a great engine but it's a st installation in the Freelander simple as that. This Rover love in is quite frankly hilarious.
K-Series wasn't used in the Rover 800, that would either be a Honda lump or maybe an S or T Series which is a completely different engine and one not known for HG issues of any sort.

You were also doing rather well if neither of the Nova's or Escorts had rust. Certainly not the norm, not unless you had them from new/newish that is.


BTW - I'm not claiming Rover/LR vehicles don't have some issues. And certainly we've experienced some of them. But overall they have been durable and dependable vehicles for the most part. Your typical niggles that most British vehicles suffer, but overall some of the best vehicles we've owned.

To supplement the list there have also been 5 or so Series Land Rovers and a V8 110.

Conversely myself and immediate family have also had:

-Nissan 200SX, drank lots of oil, heater didn't work properly and had top half engine rebuild
-Celica 2.0 GT had to have a replacement engine
-Nova 1.2 that really didn't run very well and had a misfire we could trace
-106 1.4 diesel with HG failure
-106 1.5 diesel with loads of things wrong with it
-Nissan 100NX x 2. First one ok'ish, 2nd was cheap but suffered rust, exhaust and eventual clutch failure. Electric window broke and jammed down
-BMW e30 318, central locking fault that resulted in taking the door cards off with the doors shut to open them
-BMW e36 318i, rusty, and dodgy handbrake
-Legacy, something wrong with engine and AWD system
-Impreza turbo, knocking engine requiring a rebuild
-Honda HRV, clutch, cat and other minor issues
-Jeep Cherokee, nothing
-Volvo 900 Series, nothing
-MG Maestro, rust and electric fan failed, very heavily abused and brilliant
-Ford Orion Ghia, exhaust nothing else
-Ford Mondeo 2.0, few niggles, engine issues, spark plugs


And a few more I can't even think of at the mo. We've certainly had more Rover/LR products than anything else, but even accounting for this, the number of failures still tally less than many of the other brands and they certainly have one of the best ratios for reliability. I'd say old school Volvo's are probably the only vehicles we've had that have been less trouble than the Rover products.

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
You were also doing rather well if neither of the Nova's or Escorts had rust. Certainly not the norm, not unless you had them from new/newish that is.
My dad had a Nova 1.2 merit.

Bought it at about 4 years old and 40k and put another 70k on it. It has some surface rust on it when he got rid but nothing more than a cosmetic issue. No different to many other cars made in the 1980s.

powerstroke

10,283 posts

159 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
Land rovers are for people who want a 4x4
If you need one they buy Toyota's or Nissan etc
People are always banging on about how many problems they
Have then telling you how wonderfull the heaps are!! Range rovers are quite nice
I suppose but why would you want to look like a drug dealer or footballer ok in the Home Counties
But you wouldn't want to be anywhere remote in one ,

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
K-Series wasn't used in the Rover 800, that would either be a Honda lump or maybe an S or T Series which is a completely different engine and one not known for HG issues of any sort.
I think you'll find it was the M-Series. From what I was told at the time it wasn't that uncommon. It always seemed to be Rover products that suffered. QC, production....all could have played a part. The net result was shoddy products.

300bhp/ton said:
You were also doing rather well if neither of the Nova's or Escorts had rust. Certainly not the norm, not unless you had them from new/newish that is.
The battery tray wasn't brilliant but it held out on the Escort. Neither were new and all were abused. The Nova's were probably about 8 years old, the arches were fine at that point. I remember the Nova coming out in 1983'ish and it was unbelievably sophisticated compared to the Metro, didn't leak or break either. Talking of rust the Metro was new (1986) and was rusty from the showroom. It went back twice for paint and was never right. Terrible things.

300bhp/ton said:
BTW - I'm not claiming Rover/LR vehicles don't have some issues. And certainly we've experienced some of them. But overall they have been durable and dependable vehicles for the most part. Your typical niggles that most British vehicles suffer, but overall some of the best vehicles we've owned.
Conversely, every Rover product I have had the misfortune to own has let me down and only Rover products (to date) have suffered HGF. That's not coincidence in my book.

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

189 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
yonex said:
I think you'll find it was the M-Series. From what I was told at the time it wasn't that uncommon.
You are correct it is M Series, my mistake, although that is the engine I was thinking of. A development of the O-Series, which later became the T-Series. It was also Turbocharged in all 3 series too.

I think whoever told you HG issues on them was common was pulling your leg. They sometimes leak oil over the cam cover and down the block, but that is about as bad as their vices get.

yonex said:
I remember the Nova coming out in 1983'ish and it was unbelievably sophisticated compared to the Metro
I loved to see you back this up. In what area exactly and what components was the Nova "unbelievably sophisticated" compared to anything, let alone the Metro with it's modular subframe construction and hydrogas suspension rolleyes

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
I loved to see you back this up. In what area exactly and what components was the Nova "unbelievably sophisticated" compared to anything, let alone the Metro with it's modular subframe construction and hydrogas suspension rolleyes
In what area, several. The 1.2 in the Nova was way more refined than the wheezy A+. The ride was better, the seats were better, controls were nicer, better ventilation (most importantly for a youth) it was faster, way faster and all over it just felt like a larger/better made car. It would cruise at 80 without complaining and was pretty decent on fuel. I don't even know what the Metro's performance figures were but can still remember it being dog slow and like sitting in a tumble drier at 80! It was an unrefined, noisy, slow, rusty and in this case a gearbox shredding unreliable piece of poo. Albeit one with 'modular subframes' and 'hydrogas suspension' rofl

Wort car I have ever owned /end


thejudderman

71 posts

170 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
I loved to see you back this up. In what area exactly and what components was the Nova "unbelievably sophisticated" compared to anything, let alone the Metro with it's modular subframe construction and hydrogas suspension rolleyes
Hydragas/Hydrolastic suspension, whichever is the correct term (both might be)... While its creditable in being able to give short wheelbase cars a half decent ride fairly easily, its probably more telling that no other manufacturers bothered to really jump on board with it as a solution to springing and damping.
I think the MGF was the last car to use it (debut in 1995?), but I suspect that's because MG had to use the old Metro parts bin rather than out of choice.
Doesn't really strike me as a sophistication, more of an unpopular method of achieving the same results as 99% of the rest of the vehicles on the road.

peak1

21 posts

210 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
I ran a 1999 1.8 Petrol for 6 years and after the first 2 years of great ownership had the following:

HGF @ 52000 (LR paid half)
Clutch failure @ 65000
Heater Matrix failure @ 68000
Alternator failure @ 70000
Uneven rear tyre wear - persistant stepping of tread on goodyear tyres - better with Michelin
Persistant issue with brakes knocking after hard use despite changing disks and pads
Weak air-con
Always wondered why the wing mirrors didn't fold and there was no low fuel indicator.

However, the Hill Descent Control/TC was very effective and we even did some green laning. Ended up trading it in for a Subaru Impreza GX Sport.

Silverbullet767

10,680 posts

205 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
Silverbullet767 said:
I remember I got a loan of one while my car was in the garage, dayinsured it and drove it back home.

The first roundabout I came across I nearly fell off the seat, huge bodyroll, no support, I had to wrestle myself back onto the seat (note: not 'into' the seat) using the steering wheel, it's a good job nothing else was on the roundabout, I was all over the place.

Noisy, slow, thirsty, unsafe pile of ste.
What a load of misguided and inaccurate info. I'm guessing you don't actually drive any other 4x4's then?
Nope, hate them.

deltashad

6,731 posts

196 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
'By delving into the DVLA statistics, the website reckons that just 60 percent of petrol Freelanders sold before 2006 remain'

Pre 2006 UK registered petrol engined Freelanders are a common sight in Romania, probably also many parts of the EEC.

They don't all disappear into the great scrapyards in the sky. Same with many, many cars.
They're so cheap to buy second hand in the UK they end up outside the UK.

Norbury90

6,897 posts

205 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
My car got 4.55 out of 5 for 'great to drive'... it's a 1.2 Fiat Panda. I don't think i'm going to trust this website.

New POD

3,851 posts

149 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
Dapster said:
In any case, whoever wrote a bad review of a Freelander has clearly never owned a mark 1 Citroen AX.1.4D echo...
Edited for comic accuracy. It was so reliable, but fk I hated that car, because I had no 'sensible' reason to sell it, apart from hate.

cptsideways

13,535 posts

251 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
thejudderman said:
300bhp/ton said:
I loved to see you back this up. In what area exactly and what components was the Nova "unbelievably sophisticated" compared to anything, let alone the Metro with it's modular subframe construction and hydrogas suspension rolleyes
Hydragas/Hydrolastic suspension, whichever is the correct term (both might be)... While its creditable in being able to give short wheelbase cars a half decent ride fairly easily, its probably more telling that no other manufacturers bothered to really jump on board with it as a solution to springing and damping.
I think the MGF was the last car to use it (debut in 1995?), but I suspect that's because MG had to use the old Metro parts bin rather than out of choice.
Doesn't really strike me as a sophistication, more of an unpopular method of achieving the same results as 99% of the rest of the vehicles on the road.
The MGF was a "Metro in reverse" parts bin special, they even have the CV knuckles in the front hubs!

thejudderman

71 posts

170 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
cptsideways said:
The MGF was a "Metro in reverse" parts bin special, they even have the CV knuckles in the front hubs!
Deary me! That really is a parts bin special then. I'm surprised you couldn't get an MGF Kensington SE version!

Steffan

10,362 posts

227 months

Thursday 7th November 2013
quotequote all
thejudderman said:
cptsideways said:
The MGF was a "Metro in reverse" parts bin special, they even have the CV knuckles in the front hubs!
Deary me! That really is a parts bin special then. I'm surprised you couldn't get an MGF Kensington SE version!
I am sure I have seen these in scrap yards. En masse. frown