RE: Shed of the Week: MG ZT
Discussion
I thought my brother in law was a bit mad when he bought a ZT estate a few years ago ,no idea how much he paid but he usually
pays about 10p for his cars ,drove it to and from Italy a few times ,I think he put petrol into the diesel tank once too and it still went on and on
and sold it fairly recently with a few faults to some MG fanboy.
They're not really my thing but they seem a robust old tank.....6/10
pays about 10p for his cars ,drove it to and from Italy a few times ,I think he put petrol into the diesel tank once too and it still went on and on
and sold it fairly recently with a few faults to some MG fanboy.
They're not really my thing but they seem a robust old tank.....6/10
iSore said:
I always find it amusing that the 75 is a more robust and vastly more rust resistant car than the E46 BMW that sired it.
Was it e46 derived? We love our e46 but it has the usual rusty wings which we'll sort when I finally get round / can be bothered (futile!). Unbelievable for such a "quality" car, yet others are absolutely horrendous! I've seen rotten back wings on many, and worse still: A pillars!! I've never seen a rusty 75 (though it's not unheard of apparently) and ones I've seen in scrap yards always look immaculate (and are obviously victims to our wanton, wasteful ways 
)I've always liked the 75/ZT, though never really did like the stupid dials and pastiche interior trim on the 75. In fact, I'd consider a 75 to replace our ageing 200k 600! Which to be fair, is still running beautifully and has had only one glitch over the years!!
Rover: underrated!
I've always liked the look of these MGs - but I'm not a fan of FWD.
But I still like the idea of one of the few 260s!
The diesels got the BMW engine - in some ways it's a shame the petrols didn't then you wouldn't need to replace rubber bands for the camshaft drive!
The Autocar Road Test on the previous page shows the MG took 22 seconds to reach 100 - the same magazine quoted 18 seconds to 100 for my 325ti.
But I still like the idea of one of the few 260s!
The diesels got the BMW engine - in some ways it's a shame the petrols didn't then you wouldn't need to replace rubber bands for the camshaft drive!
Rumblestripe said:
Many moons ago I had the V6 estate as a temporary company car. Nightfire red I think the colour was called? Boot was smaller than you might imagine. Performance was better than most realised. At the time I was working near Rotherham and the road from the motorway to the office was dual carriageway punctuated regularly by roundabouts. I used to have great fun watching BMWs (in particular), lining me up to overtake when exiting a roundabout and the look of befuddlement when this sedate looking barge picked up its skirts and left them marooned in the outside lane. Childish, I know, but I didn't break any speed limits (Unlike the Beemer warriors who would wind their trusted steeds up to silly mph to make sure they got past me...)
If you were picking on E46s they must have been 318is or 320ds! The Autocar Road Test on the previous page shows the MG took 22 seconds to reach 100 - the same magazine quoted 18 seconds to 100 for my 325ti.
My dad had an xpower grey 52 plate ZTT 190+ (previously owned by jim naughtie of radio 4) when I was at university. I managed to persuade him to let me take it on a tour round my European uni friends and down to his holiday home in Italy where I’d pick him up from Pisa airport. Such an amazing trip made better by a characterful car and my German friends loved it as they thought it was ‘super british’.
Top memories include thrashing it round the backroads of the Eiffel, a friends brother wanting to try a rhd car in their farmyard and him hooning off down the road uninsured 😮, maxing it out on the Slovenian Italian border trying to get close enough to a gallardo for the girl I was with to get a picture and finally what remains to this day my speediest drive through the “old”A1 south of Florence (now pretty much the route of the panoramica)
I really loved that car, definitely would have benefited from a 6th gear but it picked up speed beautifully and handled brilliantly for a fwd barge (admittedly my own car at the time was a midget 1500 so expectations may have been low...). Sadly it died after a cooling system failure and botched repair but remembered fondly by all and in honesty was almost certainly a sharper drive than my current f10 528i.
Top memories include thrashing it round the backroads of the Eiffel, a friends brother wanting to try a rhd car in their farmyard and him hooning off down the road uninsured 😮, maxing it out on the Slovenian Italian border trying to get close enough to a gallardo for the girl I was with to get a picture and finally what remains to this day my speediest drive through the “old”A1 south of Florence (now pretty much the route of the panoramica)
I really loved that car, definitely would have benefited from a 6th gear but it picked up speed beautifully and handled brilliantly for a fwd barge (admittedly my own car at the time was a midget 1500 so expectations may have been low...). Sadly it died after a cooling system failure and botched repair but remembered fondly by all and in honesty was almost certainly a sharper drive than my current f10 528i.
JimSuperSix said:
For some reason that I cannot fathom I have always wanted one of the more powerful Rover 75 variants, I've no idea why as I am sure they're terribly made, not fast and I don't own a flat cap or anything tweed, but there's just something about it that makes me want one.
Get a pre facelift ( or better still a pre PP so before mid 2001 ) and in fact they are brilliantly build, with top quality materials, proper carpet, proper leather etc.I've done about 120k miles in V6's over the two versions and the difference is chalk an cheese.
This was my very car, as driven by Tiff here ...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cZRm3KbHxNY
I have it off camera that it was his favourite of the three .!!
LordSvetly said:
My dad had an xpower grey 52 plate ZTT 190+ (previously owned by jim naughtie of radio 4) when I was at university. I managed to persuade him to let me take it on a tour round my European uni friends and down to his holiday home in Italy where I’d pick him up from Pisa airport. Such an amazing trip made better by a characterful car and my German friends loved it as they thought it was ‘super british’.
Top memories include thrashing it round the backroads of the Eiffel, a friends brother wanting to try a rhd car in their farmyard and him hooning off down the road uninsured ??, maxing it out on the Slovenian Italian border trying to get close enough to a gallardo for the girl I was with to get a picture and finally what remains to this day my speediest drive through the “old”A1 south of Florence (now pretty much the route of the panoramica)
I really loved that car, definitely would have benefited from a 6th gear but it picked up speed beautifully and handled brilliantly for a fwd barge (admittedly my own car at the time was a midget 1500 so expectations may have been low...). Sadly it died after a cooling system failure and botched repair but remembered fondly by all and in honesty was almost certainly a sharper drive than my current f10 528i.
Small world... I was the trader that sold it to your dad!Top memories include thrashing it round the backroads of the Eiffel, a friends brother wanting to try a rhd car in their farmyard and him hooning off down the road uninsured ??, maxing it out on the Slovenian Italian border trying to get close enough to a gallardo for the girl I was with to get a picture and finally what remains to this day my speediest drive through the “old”A1 south of Florence (now pretty much the route of the panoramica)
I really loved that car, definitely would have benefited from a 6th gear but it picked up speed beautifully and handled brilliantly for a fwd barge (admittedly my own car at the time was a midget 1500 so expectations may have been low...). Sadly it died after a cooling system failure and botched repair but remembered fondly by all and in honesty was almost certainly a sharper drive than my current f10 528i.
Unloved by the masses, appreciated by those in the know. I loved Trophy Blue 180+, even with the rattly VIS. Build quality was surprisingly good and I had relatively trouble free motoring for a few years. That ended when I gave it to my dad, he never got on with driving an auto, didn't look after it and it's now been sat feeling sorry for itself the past two years.
This one seems like a good buy, going by it's MOT history.
This one seems like a good buy, going by it's MOT history.
ruprechtmonkeyboy said:
Watch the head gasket like all Rovers I guess!
Nice to see the ill-informed are still alive and well. Didn't even bother to read the article by the look of it. The KV6 has never had an issue with head gaskets. The K-series had an issue which was easily fixed if maintained correctly. They are totally unrelated engines. alorotom said:
njw1 said:
Interestingly, I drive an e39, driving a Renault would be my idea of hell.....
To be fair, my missus father had a Laguna that drove very well indeed, a lot better than I was expecting to be honest. It got scrapped due to many silly little electrical faults in the end. It was a shame as it had only covered just over 100k and was in very good nick.
Edited by njw1 on Saturday 23 September 17:50
tannhauser said:
Was it e46 derived?
Sort of. It was developed side by side with the E46 and it used the same rear suspension and the floorpan is quite similar. I don't think much actually interchanges though. The 75 has a few issues - the 1.8 K Series was never really up to much, great when new but so bloody fragile. I think there are ways around it how.The E46 had more problems though - the dreaded rust plus that abortion of an engine, the N42 Craptronic.
A V6 MG ZTT in black with the alcantara trim is indeed a very nice thing.
Hmmmmmm..............
Proper colour, proper engine, proper gearbox.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MG-ROVER-MGZT-2-5-V6-BLU...
Proper colour, proper engine, proper gearbox.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MG-ROVER-MGZT-2-5-V6-BLU...
iSore said:
Sort of. It was developed side by side with the E46 and it used the same rear suspension and the floorpan is quite similar. I don't think much actually interchanges though. The 75 has a few issues - the 1.8 K Series was never really up to much, great when new but so bloody fragile. I think there are ways around it how.
The E46 had more problems though - the dreaded rust plus that abortion of an engine, the N42 Craptronic.
A V6 MG ZTT in black with the alcantara trim is indeed a very nice thing.
Sort of - but rubber bands to drive the camshafts on the V6. The E46 had more problems though - the dreaded rust plus that abortion of an engine, the N42 Craptronic.
A V6 MG ZTT in black with the alcantara trim is indeed a very nice thing.
A BMW M54 straight 6 with a cam-chain and RWD seems like a much better idea IMO!The N42 may have been a BMW weak point, but is it really any more dismal that a poxy K Series hand grenade?
As for rust my E46 has now had it's 15th birthday and is still going strong (yet my P6 Rover had rotted to a wreck before it was 10 years old).
Move over Rover.
My friend and I have bought and sold a number of these in the past 3yrs.
I'll agree with the comments on the handling, it being so much better than I'd expected from an MG Rover group bolide.
Likewise the VIS issue, although the only one we bought that exhibited the issue was quickly fixed by removing the old unit and replacing it with a salvaged, and perfectly good one.
The worst thing for me was the build quality. In fact those two words don't belong together, every single car we had had more creaks, rattles and groans than Mrs Shed when she attempts to pour her size 28 frame into a size 20 body stocking.
Every piece of the interior felt like it had been built down to a price, and then that price had been cut by 50% again. Switchgear felt like it would snap clean off, centre console panels felt like they had been assembled by an under-enthusiastic 11 year old who had asked for an Airfix Lancaster bomber and got a Revell Fairy Swordfish.
The door trim panels all seemed to want to deposit themselves on unwitting passengers, although that was perhaps a corollary of hem being removed by previous owners in an attempt to cure electric window / central locking maladies and the trim clips having snapped off.
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but didn't the Germans vote the ZT as one of the best looking cars ever? Bet they never rode in one before they voted...
One can only wonder on how the car could have, nay, should have been if time and money had been ploughed into raising the quality of the finished product to BMW/Audi standards rather than that of a Moskvich.
And yes, I bought a V8 and was disappointed in that too. Lazy power, very lazy in fact, with the all-pervading poor build quality to remind you that this was an act of desperation by the guys running the company at that time.
I'll agree with the comments on the handling, it being so much better than I'd expected from an MG Rover group bolide.
Likewise the VIS issue, although the only one we bought that exhibited the issue was quickly fixed by removing the old unit and replacing it with a salvaged, and perfectly good one.
The worst thing for me was the build quality. In fact those two words don't belong together, every single car we had had more creaks, rattles and groans than Mrs Shed when she attempts to pour her size 28 frame into a size 20 body stocking.
Every piece of the interior felt like it had been built down to a price, and then that price had been cut by 50% again. Switchgear felt like it would snap clean off, centre console panels felt like they had been assembled by an under-enthusiastic 11 year old who had asked for an Airfix Lancaster bomber and got a Revell Fairy Swordfish.
The door trim panels all seemed to want to deposit themselves on unwitting passengers, although that was perhaps a corollary of hem being removed by previous owners in an attempt to cure electric window / central locking maladies and the trim clips having snapped off.
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but didn't the Germans vote the ZT as one of the best looking cars ever? Bet they never rode in one before they voted...
One can only wonder on how the car could have, nay, should have been if time and money had been ploughed into raising the quality of the finished product to BMW/Audi standards rather than that of a Moskvich.
And yes, I bought a V8 and was disappointed in that too. Lazy power, very lazy in fact, with the all-pervading poor build quality to remind you that this was an act of desperation by the guys running the company at that time.
iSore said:
Hmmmmmm..............
Proper colour, proper engine, proper gearbox.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MG-ROVER-MGZT-2-5-V6-BLU...
That does look really nice Proper colour, proper engine, proper gearbox.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MG-ROVER-MGZT-2-5-V6-BLU...
Wonder what it will end up selling for...Literally bought one last night, funny it's shed of the week. We got a Trophy Blue 190 saloon, extremely limited history, for 600 quid off a chap in South London under a street light (what can go wrong?).
Tyres are a bit tired, the rims are blistering, and the car is a bit damp and smelly thanks to the four different air fresheners (all as horrid as each other). Rest seems to work, incl. air con.
Car drove fine on the way back, incl. motorway and busy London traffic. Taking it to the South Downs today for a good shakedown, let's see if we make it back
Tyres are a bit tired, the rims are blistering, and the car is a bit damp and smelly thanks to the four different air fresheners (all as horrid as each other). Rest seems to work, incl. air con.
Car drove fine on the way back, incl. motorway and busy London traffic. Taking it to the South Downs today for a good shakedown, let's see if we make it back
I had a 2003 cdti ZT back in 2011 to 2013. Was quite good on a run, mine was remapped and had a tuning box that took it from 114bhp to a guestimate of 160bhp. Was reasonably quick but not shatteringly so. It had the m47r engine which had common rail injection but not the swirl flaps fitted to the BMW version, so was a lot more reliable.
Mine was royal blue with alcantara seat centres also in blue and blue dash inserts.
I sold it as it developed a fault with the braking system which seemed difficult to fix and seemed to be well known at the time.
I fancied a 1.8t a while ago but the head gasket issues really do put me off. Shame really.
Mine was royal blue with alcantara seat centres also in blue and blue dash inserts.
I sold it as it developed a fault with the braking system which seemed difficult to fix and seemed to be well known at the time.
I fancied a 1.8t a while ago but the head gasket issues really do put me off. Shame really.
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