Rovers - were they really that bad?

[welshpete]

For TA14, I can categorically and definately state they WERE used in stags, the original stag engine was terrible, and the Rover V8 was the preffered transplant lump, and the last models of the stag WERE fitted with them as standard. I know this to be factual as my father was a Triumph dealer back in the day, and STILL has one of the last stags produced, fitted with the Rover V8 direct from the factory.
However, your statement that the stags had their own V8 is correct in a few cases, most of them were straight sixes, the vast majority of which went very well, although many were converted to the Rover V8 in their later years.
Sadly, very few left on the road these days, my fathers included, it just sits in his barn looking lost and forlorn, but he refuses to part with it...........

[TA14]

welshpete said:

I know this to be factual as my father was a Triumph dealer back in the day, and STILL has one of the last stags produced, fitted with the Rover V8 direct from the factory.
However, your statement that the stags had their own V8 is correct in a few cases, most of them were straight sixes, the vast majority of which went very well,

Well, well, well. So most Stags had a S6 and only a few had V8s, some of which were the RV8. I guess that the Triumph engineers must have done a big u-turn regarding all aspects of engines for this car at the end of it's development. You learn something new every day.

[PoleDriver]

[blueg33]

welshpete said:

For TA14, I can categorically and definately state they WERE used in stags, the original stag engine was terrible, and the Rover V8 was the preffered transplant lump, and the last models of the stag WERE fitted with them as standard. I know this to be factual as my father was a Triumph dealer back in the day, and STILL has one of the last stags produced, fitted with the Rover V8 direct from the factory.
However, your statement that the stags had their own V8 is correct in a few cases, most of them were straight sixes, the vast majority of which went very well, although many were converted to the Rover V8 in their later years.
Sadly, very few left on the road these days, my fathers included, it just sits in his barn looking lost and forlorn, but he refuses to part with it...........

Not convinced. Dont think any Stags had RV* directly from the factory. My Dad was in charge of the production and ordering computer systems for Triumph based at the Triumph plant on the Fletcheamstead Highway in Cov, I will ask him if he knows. All my Dads mates who had Stags had the Triumph engine.

[Vince70]

That's news to me..
I always thought the that the rover V8 was a conversion the same as triumph straight 6 and the ford 3 litre Essex were all favoured conversions...

[Limpet]

The Honda era stuff was very decent indeed. Well made, reliable and very nicely designed. Honda engineering with British trimming and tweaks. It worked well.

Everything else seemed to either be launched before it was ready, kept in service years past its sell by date, or very "optimistically" priced. As others have said, it's like Rover marketeers genuinely believed their own hype that it was a premium brand.

[TA14]

blueg33 said:

welshpete said:

For TA14, I can categorically and definately state they WERE used in stags, the original stag engine was terrible, and the Rover V8 was the preffered transplant lump, and the last models of the stag WERE fitted with them as standard. I know this to be factual as my father was a Triumph dealer back in the day, and STILL has one of the last stags produced, fitted with the Rover V8 direct from the factory.
However, your statement that the stags had their own V8 is correct in a few cases, most of them were straight sixes, the vast majority of which went very well, although many were converted to the Rover V8 in their later years.
Sadly, very few left on the road these days, my fathers included, it just sits in his barn looking lost and forlorn, but he refuses to part with it...........

Not convinced. Dont think any Stags had RV8 directly from the factory. My Dad was in charge of the production and ordering computer systems for Triumph based at the Triumph plant on the Fletcheamstead Highway in Cov, I will ask him if he knows. All my Dads mates who had Stags had the Triumph engine.

As an aside you can see some of the problems in the 'my little empire' mentality at BL. In the early seventies at Triumph alone there were two sports cars, TR6 and Stag, with 2.5 and 3.0 engines that were completely different and had the engineers had their way the capacities would have been the same at 2.5l each.

[sjc]

Vince70 said:

That's news to me..
I always thought the that the rover V8 was a conversion the same as triumph straight 6 and the ford 3 litre Essex were all favoured conversions...

Yep,it was.
The Stag (IIRC correctly) was intended to have a straight six with the V8 later, but it never turned out that way. The V8 got tagged with the "two dolly Sprint engines bolted together tag" with the associated problems.

[M3DGE]

sjc said:

KTF said:

All well and good until someone pushed the button on Project Drive:

http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/facts-and-figures/...

http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/forum/showthread.p...

Yep, I mentioned Project Drive a few posts back.

Wow, that is an eye opener. So many of the touches that made the 75 originally a very nice place to be and had also made the 600 a decent car. The 'fake wood' is the worst, the replacement really does look terrible.
I'm afraid in general I would concur that many of the company's products were inferior to the opposition from the early 70s onwards - but I think there are some honourable exceptions. The original Metro was the blueprint for the modern City Car, and only let down by not being replaced (ever - it was just dropped in the end!); the early 213/4 was indeed a better car than the equivilent Escort (which was terrible) and the 600 was a great repmobile, I used one for monster miles in the late 90s and loved it. The Maestro/ Montego were absolutely grim though.

[jamieduff1981]

Limpet said:

The Honda era stuff was very decent indeed. Well made, reliable and very nicely designed. Honda engineering with British trimming and tweaks. It worked well.

Everything else seemed to either be launched before it was ready, kept in service years past its sell by date, or very "optimistically" priced. As others have said, it's like Rover marketeers genuinely believed their own hype that it was a premium brand.

I had a few 620s. I was very happy with them. Reliable, very comfortable, so-so to drive but fine for the job, and the Rover engined ones were very economical too - the L series diesel and T16 petrol. I also had a Honda engined one which was also reliable but used more fuel than the T16 which being only marginally quicker than the diesel.

All in all, I liked them.

My father was impressed with them too and bought a new ZT with a hefty discount as a result. There were a few niggles with that but basically it was a good car too. Cracking to drive and also very comfortable.

[mjb1]

TA14 said:

As an aside you can see some of the problems in the 'my little empire' mentality at BL. In the early seventies at Triumph alone there were two sports cars, TR6 and Stag, with 2.5 and 3.0 engines that were completely different and had the engineers had their way the capacities would have been the same at 2.5l each.

That's because the Triumph v8 was supposed to be the start of the next generation engines, but that was stopped in it's tracks as the BL group was consolidated. I've never heard of the stag having anything other than the Triumph v8 factory fitted. Some interesting info about it on wikipedia (to be taken with a pinch of salt): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Stag

I think Rover's biggest problem was it's public image/perception by the late 90's. The cars were blasted my the motoring press, and (somewhat unfairly, given the pricing differentials) compared to BMWs. They weren't that unreliable generally, but generally the people with problems shout louder than the happy owners. Nowadays, many of the people that lambast them have never owned one, they just perpetuate Clarkson's brand bashing.

If you take them (the mid/late 90's cars) for what they were intended to be, they weren't bad cars at all. Think budget executive/luxury, nicer than a Ford/Vauxhall, but not quite up to German standards of engineering (in most respects). In many ways they were well engineered cars though - my dad's Rover 800's were some of the rare cars where the heating system actually piped sufficient ventilation to rear passengers.

We just aren't patriotic enough in this country. Look the French - they mostly buy their own cars (Pugeot, Citroen, Renault), despite them mainly being a load of ste. A frenchman seen driving a Rover in France would be lucky not to get lynched! Over here, all we could do was poke fun at our failing motor industry, whilst stabbing it in the back by buying foreign stuff.

BMW's asset stripping just finished it all off. Rover invested everything in the MINI, and did a blindingly good job of it, only to have it poached from them when it was finished. If the revenues from the MINI sales had gone back into Rover's funds, it should have been able to fund the next products in the development cycle.

[Steffan]

TA14 said:

blueg33 said:

welshpete said:

For TA14, I can categorically and definately state they WERE used in stags, the original stag engine was terrible, and the Rover V8 was the preffered transplant lump, and the last models of the stag WERE fitted with them as standard. I know this to be factual as my father was a Triumph dealer back in the day, and STILL has one of the last stags produced, fitted with the Rover V8 direct from the factory.
However, your statement that the stags had their own V8 is correct in a few cases, most of them were straight sixes, the vast majority of which went very well, although many were converted to the Rover V8 in their later years.
Sadly, very few left on the road these days, my fathers included, it just sits in his barn looking lost and forlorn, but he refuses to part with it...........

Not convinced. Dont think any Stags had RV8 directly from the factory. My Dad was in charge of the production and ordering computer systems for Triumph based at the Triumph plant on the Fletcheamstead Highway in Cov, I will ask him if he knows. All my Dads mates who had Stags had the Triumph engine.

As an aside you can see some of the problems in the 'my little empire' mentality at BL. In the early seventies at Triumph alone there were two sports cars, TR6 and Stag, with 2.5 and 3.0 engines that were completely different and had the engineers had their way the capacities would have been the same at 2.5l each.

Absolutely spot on IMO. The number of daft decisions at Rover was legendary. Ego trips by engineers without the slightest concern for the growth of the company, streamlining production or quality control at all. The Stag engine was never affordable at Rover built on the cheap inadequately tested, badly design and should never have been attempted. Triumph engineers wanted their own V8 and sod the cost and quality. When the Buick V8 was already being used in Rover. Classic ego trip but there were so many at Rover.

[lescombes]

Sadly the British car industry as a whole suffered from the "Little Empire" created by the old boys class system.
Post World War 2 we ended up relying on the British Empire to flog our cars to and that worked until the 60's when the greed got more and industrial relations started to get dodgy.
While this was going on of course our Germanic friends were getting themselves sorted with the likes of VW et al having trade unions as members of the company boards and all agreeing working practices and future goals,where as in Blighty the old boy network continued to treat trade unions and their members as enemies of the state
Sadly that with greed and poor investment (sounds like Privatised Utilites & rail doesn't it) Rover et al slowly went up st creek without a paddle.... and the Unions got the blame and the Phoenix 4 trousered millions.... sound familiar

As for Rover Cars... never had one after a Morris 1100 in 1976.... that was st then so I went Italian and then French before settling on superb Japanese cars

[Auntieroll]

When I was selling them the Stag was powered by the infamous V8,3L IIRC.
There were never any 6 cylinder or Rover V8 engine cars sold/produced on a PRODUCTION basis, there probably were all sorts of things tried out by the development dept. Right at the death some of these cars may have escaped and been sold to favoured dealers, as were the ex BMC rally cars.

[Vince70]

blueg33 said:

welshpete said:

For TA14, I can categorically and definately state they WERE used in stags, the original stag engine was terrible, and the Rover V8 was the preffered transplant lump, and the last models of the stag WERE fitted with them as standard. I know this to be factual as my father was a Triumph dealer back in the day, and STILL has one of the last stags produced, fitted with the Rover V8 direct from the factory.
However, your statement that the stags had their own V8 is correct in a few cases, most of them were straight sixes, the vast majority of which went very well, although many were converted to the Rover V8 in their later years.
Sadly, very few left on the road these days, my fathers included, it just sits in his barn looking lost and forlorn, but he refuses to part with it...........

Not convinced. Dont think any Stags had RV* directly from the factory. My Dad was in charge of the production and ordering computer systems for Triumph based at the Triumph plant on the Fletcheamstead Highway in Cov, I will ask him if he knows. All my Dads mates who had Stags had the Triumph engine.

Even the stag owners club know nothing about this revision and its seems to go into in depth detail on this link about the changes in stag production..
http://www.stag.org.uk/index.aspx?pid=179
But some conversions were better than others so its possible your fathers stag was I very good conversion which looked like a factory fit.

[PaulJ37]

Jawaman said:

Shame SAIC are likely to just fill hyundai's old position as budget motoring provider

Dont fully agree with that.

The new SAIC MGs maybe cheap but have been largely praised for their dynamic capability - which seems in keeping with the MG ethos.

[mjb1]

This is quite an interesting read about the economic/business/political stuff that went on towards Rover's demise: http://www.coventry.ac.uk/Global/05%20Research%20s...

It's a bit dry reading though, and it highlights the just how stupid executive management and governments can be.

If I'm reading it right, BMW bought the whole of Rover group for £800m, ran the Rover side into the ground, and then managed to sell Land Rover by itself for £1.8b!

[davepoth]

Jawaman said:

Chris71 said:

Sure I can't tempt you with a post-2001 example? It has its issues, but for the sort of money it's on for I honestly think mine's a steal: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161166492639?ssPageName=...

You are right, there's not much (in fact anything) at the same £ that seems to come close. I had full leather in my 414 and have to say the quality of leather used by rover seems to be a level above what the Germans were using at the same time.

Also - the touring boot is huge!

The saloon boot is hardly small. I was distinctly impressed about managing to get a full sized front door for a house in, once the back seat was down. For the earlier poster, yes, there are three 3-point belts in the back. Also a little air vent for the rear passengers in the centre console, and a separate reading light too. Really rather plush.

If you're going for a Rover 75, especially one with the V6, I think the auto would be very nice if the car is going to be mostly for commuting in stop start traffic.

[Jawaman]

davepoth said:

The saloon boot is hardly small. I was distinctly impressed about managing to get a full sized front door for a house in, once the back seat was down. For the earlier poster, yes, there are three 3-point belts in the back. Also a little air vent for the rear passengers in the centre console, and a separate reading light too. Really rather plush.

If you're going for a Rover 75, especially one with the V6, I think the auto would be very nice if the car is going to be mostly for commuting in stop start traffic.

Thanks, after christmas I might start seriously looking at these. Seems I could "upgrade" my current shed to something more pleasant without having to spend much.

also I don't recall saying the saloon has a small boot, just thought the estate looked rather cavernous in the chap's advert. I think I prefer the look of the saloon having said that

[sjc]

Jawaman, get in early and but the one I posted a link to. you won't do better for 1200 quid, belts done as well.
Got two xmas trees in my saloon today with the back seat down.Got a ski hatch as well!