Apropos of nothing really, but I was idly browsing the howmanyleft site last night; looking at the whopping total of Chinese MGs "sold" over the last year - less than 200 - then thought I'd take a look at CityRovers:-
www.howmanyleft.co.uk/combined/cityrover
So, despite the fact that some of them are approaching 10 years old, and the manufacturer is long gone, roughly 80% are still registered. I'd have expected a much lower figure personally.
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Mostly owned by old codgers who got conned into buying one, so likely to be plenty doing little miles and being well looked after. Makes sense theres a high survival rate.
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Yeah, good point, the ones I see round my way would fit that scenario.
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They fell apart as we delivered them, bonnet pulls broke in your hand and you needed to be able to open the bonnet to jump start 'em too often.
Horrible things.
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Wasn't it a 4 grand Tata with a Rover badge and a 100% markup? At its original price, it was probably acceptable.
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DP words failed me at the time, free they would still be a poor buy, they were carp, i really mean that about falling apart as we delivered them, not the odd car either, virtually every one broke.
Wasn't just a Rover badge they had the gall to put the Union flag on the back of the junk, tarred, feathered and publicly flogged would have been too good for whoever made that decision.
Mind you i once about 20 years ago almost bought a Belling microwave complete with Union flag on the front...upon further examination it sported a made in China label on the back, disgusted of Northants wouldn't have bought another Belling product to save his miserable life.
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from wikipedia:
MG Rover was reported to be paying Tata £3,000 for each car and, despite each model featuring a Rover corporate nose and revised suspension settings, the buying public was not impressed by the £6,495 starting price.
It was available here as the CityRover. I think i saw one. once.
the Tata indica is staggeringly popular though, purely on price. They are ofetn spotted doing 80km/h up the middle lane of the motorway (120km/h limit) with some idiot driving...
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There was a tidy looking 04 City Rover for sale at a small forecourt near me for £895.
It's now sold, unlike the 03 Focus next to it, which is marked up at £2,195.
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Sold for £895? Have we heard from Badwolf this evening?
};---)
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Ian how much is the Tata in South Africa compared to say a Hyundai i10?
I always remember this review from Top Gear
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d1hHI40oMY
It is amazing how much younger they all look.
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i10 in poverty spec (1.1 litre) comes in at R100K, same as the poverty spec Indica (1.4).
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I believe a person called Stu has bought it :D It has a proven Indian engine you know :).
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Probably a good buy at £895 (less haggling). Not many small, economical cars around of that age for that sort of money.
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I wouldn't touch it, parts would be too difficult to get old off and I imagine they would be expensive to insure. Long term that 2004 Panda at £1k more will probably work out much better value.
I wouldn't buy a 2003 Focus at £2k either!
Still the CityRover was at least a half decent looking cars, its Italian design shows through.
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Not my thing Rats, its stupidly heavy on fuel, something like 30 mpg average which id not tolerate unless it was 2.0 and auto.
I know of one which was sold locally and the main dealer which flogged it had to buy it back such was the frequency with which is was back at the dealer. There are few cars id not consider, a CityRover is one - they are cheap for very good reasons.
When you buy something obscure, look where the tech comes from rather than the badge.
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Really it is just a car which shows Rover deserved to go bust along with the Rover 45 of course!
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Rattle, the R45 was an old design but as a car it wasnt bad to drive and comfortable, it is not in the same vein as a CityRover which was a stupid marketing ploy.
I spent my formative working years around Rovers and I have no hesitation about owning one, usually the people who slag them off have never owned one.
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Agreed, Stu. I liked the 400 that became the 45, and the Civic it closely resembled. I might even have had a 416 as a company car in 1996, but Rover insisted on putting a sunroof in all but the henhouse models, which ruined the headroom. I paid more for a Saab instead and have chosen Swedish ever since.
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The 400 was a good car, the original 1989 one that is. The 1996 model was ok too but priced a little high, but by 2005 the 45 was very very dated. MG Rover would have carried on selling it until it was outlawed too.
The Rover 25 survived the constant refreshes but they were not kind to the 45 and it simply looked cynical and horrid by the end of its life.
www.netcarshow.com/rover/2004-45/800x600/wallpaper_05.htm
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The R45 may have been dated, nobody would deny that, but the base for the car was very sound and just because it wasnt of its time by 2005, that doesnt detract from its qualities as a car which translate much the same as they did back in 1995 when the 400 was launched.
Its all very well saying a car is dated, but a good car is a good car. The R45 had new seats similar to the R75 and they were beautifully comfortable, it handled well and all models were better than average on fuel.
At the time, back in 1999-2003, Rovers sold very well, especially to small fleet buyers such as local estate agencies, we sold many hundreds that way and discounting was rife so the high sticker price was rather immaterial, few people paid it.
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Agreed; definitely under rated/ mis marketed cars throughout the '90s. I'm not sure Rattle is old enough to realise how bad some of the competion at the time was!!
Strange really; for years one of Audi's USPs has been interiors that have been ahead of the competiton in style and (perceived) quality, and that undoubtedly has helped them get to the position they're now in - list prices higher than BMW/MB in many cases! Yet the same was true of Rover in its class, if anything starting almost 10 years earlier, and with fundementally good (Japanese...) underpinnings. But for some reason they didn't/couldn't capitalise on it. Too much baggage attached to the brand perhaps?
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Brother had a 45 Steptronic auto.
Nice car, I recall the interior was more classy than Fords and Vauxhalls of the time.
The only thing that went wrong with brother's car was the clever gearbox.
It was sourced from BMW.
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>> BMW.
Thats what finished them off, whilst working with Honda the quality and good design increased in leaps and bounds, 620 especially 623 one of the nicest saloons of its time IMO.
If Honda had stayed the partner for another few years i wonder if all petrol engines would have been Honda sourced.
I liked Rovers of 80s and 90s, there was a feeling of comfort and quality inside which other mass produced makes lacked, nice to drive too.
Still look decent now if looked after, they were not of current fashion when new so never aged as badly as other makes affected by fad of the day styling, bit like a good Harris tweed jacket.
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I had an 827 auto back in the early 90s. Fairly unreliable but when it was behaving itself it was actually a very pleasing car for long journeys. At that time I had a regular reason to drive from the UK to Paris and back and it would have been difficult to criticise its suitability for that. Fast-ish armchair basically.
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Fast-ish armchair basically.
>>
I had one too, rare manual box, ex police driving school, totally reliable and very quick whilst as you point out very comfortable, handled perfectly well (very stable at speed) for a big heavy car without the need for concrete springs, rock hard seats and elastic band tyres.
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The driver's side wiper arm flew off mine once while I was stopped at lights and hit a policeman in the chest. He very kindly picked it up and handed it back to me through the window. I was expecting trouble but he just grinned and muttered something about it being ok, he understood how it was and that they had those cars on their fleet...
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>> Fast-ish armchair basically.
>> >>
>>
>> I had one too, rare manual box,
I had an early 820.
it too was like an armchair that rain on rails.
It had had a hard life before I got it though - wasn't the most reliable car I've ever had.
Oh, and it was an 820 not an 820i or 820e... had an argument with the parts guy at the local dealer over that, he swore blind it was either an i or an e......
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That's yet another version Clk ?
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No the Clk was a Merc wasn't it?
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>> Somerset man was he?
>>
No... lol
My car was neither an e or i because it had a carb on it!
'rubbish, it can't be, they NEVER built an 820with a carb......' said he.
'they did' said I 'It's parked outside......'
If memory serves me right, the e was monopoint injection, and the i was properly injected (could be the other way round....)
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>> the e was monopoint injection, and the i was properly injected (could be the other way round....)
The e stands for einspritzung, which translates as... single-point injection!
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Agreed FoR; back in 95 I had a string of the new Rover 400s as hire cars after managing to offload my dire Escort LX on an unsuspecting new grad! It was streets ahead to drive and, in nightfire red, I thought it looked great.
As usual though, Rover didn't/couldn't afford to update it quickly enough - I can't believe the designers/engineers expected it to be still on sale in 2005 or whenever Rover finally went to the wall
Mind you, Rover's whole range at that time was an odd (or was that bold...) bit of product planning IMO. The 200 was bigger than superminis of the time, but smaller than an Astra/Escort. The 400 was bigger than the Astra/Escort, but smaller than the Cavalier, and the 600 was biger than a Cavalier but smaller than a Carlton. All that would have been fine if they'd been priced as the smaller cars, but inevitably they weren't. The move upmarket happened quicker in Rovers eyes than in the eyes of the car buying public I think!!
Peter
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I believe the marketing people at Rover liked to insult the British public. They thought we would pay over the top for average cars with a bit of wood glued on. However the pubic saw through them and they could no longer sell their out dated Hondas.
We had a Rover 100 as a hire car in 2000 when the Punto was rear ended, it was worse than the Punto in just about every aspect. We all felt very unsafe on it.
In the later years the Rover 75 was probably the only really decent car they had which is a shame because in 1990 everything looked so promising.
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I thought the Rover 100 was withdrawn from sale in 1997? In my experience of hire car companies in the UK, their cars are almost always less than a year old. Dread to think what sort of hire company was using three year old Rover 100s!!
I'm not surprised it was poor though; it launched as a Metro in 1980...long before I could drive, but I do recall my Mum borrowing one from our lcoal garage in 1983 and being very unimpressed.
I'd disagree that the 200/400 were average cars on launch though - they made the Escort feel like the cynically cost-engineered, ill handling and riding car that it was. Hateful thing - a real let down; I've never owned a Ford since :-) Shame really, I had an earlier XR3i and an RS1600i that were (or so it seemed at the time...) great to drive. That has given me an idea for another thread though...
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It was a bodyshop car, think it was an N reg so was a good four-five years old at the time and a complete wreck. It had 30k on the clock but felt more like 300k.
In 1989/1990 they would have been really good cars no doubt, but the replacement 400 in 1995 was based on a 1991 Honda not sold in the UK and the old design showed by then.
In fact in 1990 I don't think they had much competition at all as it was the first of new breed of cars in this sector, and of course the 1990 Escort was crap in every way.
The saddest thing about Rover is they had some wonderfully talented engineers and designers, they just had no money to anything with the talent.
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>> In 1989/1990 they would have been really good cars no doubt, but the replacement 400
>> in 1995 was based on a 1991 Honda not sold in the UK and the
>> old design showed by then.
Having actually driven a fair few '95 Rover 400s, I can comfortably say that, regardless of what it was based on, it was streets ahead of the Escort of the time, and arguably better than the Astra too. It was not a bad car at all. If it had been replaced in 2000 instead of being left to soldier on until 2005 then who knows :-)
>> In fact in 1990 I don't think they had much competition at all as it
>> was the first of new breed of cars in this sector, and of course the
>> 1990 Escort was crap in every way.
The Astra F was lauched around then, and I preferred that to the rather boxy Rover 200/400 of the time. Of course Rover saw the Audi 80 and the BMW 3 series as its competition, and so failed miserably. Had they actually targetted it at Astra/Escort buyers they might well have cleaned up!!
>> The saddest thing about Rover is they had some wonderfully talented engineers and designers, they
>> just had no money to anything with the talent.
Let's be honest, since the mid eighties most of what they churned out was lightly facelifted/tweaked Japanese designs, with more aesthetically pleasing interiors. Was the Montego the last car fully designed/engineered by the Rover group?
They had no money because they didn't sell cars people wanted to buy. It's a dubious talent that results in a company with a product range that doesn't sell!! Though I'm sure that the companies strategy of driving upmarket at a rate of knots and 'apirational' pricing approach didn't help...
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The Astra F wasn't launched till about 18 months later, never driven one but as a passenger always felt more twitchy and cheap compared to the Rover 200/400 (1990 model) but the Astra was far better value.
The 1995 Escort wasn't too bad, was actually a refined car and very under rated, much much much better than the 1990 model. Still it is hopelessly out dated now in terms of handling and safety.
I Am not sure the model but the 80's 3 series was probably be a bit of competition for the 1990 400 but by the time new 3 series came out in 1991 it left the Rover for dead, but then it was more expensive than the already expensive Rover.
I have fond memories of my uncles 400 GSI (or was that GTI?) had leather seats and electric everything and went like stink, think it had the 1.8 16v K series engine.
I suppose the last car Rover fully engineered was the Montego, as the rest were too heavily based on Hondas. The 1995 Rover 200 although based loosely on Honda technology was mostly Rovers own design and probably a good car at the time, just a shame they miss priced it. I believe the Rover 25 was much better priced and was actually one of the best selling cars in around 2000.
I think Rover had a lot of input on the Ronda designs though, the 600 for example had many Rover touches.
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Rats, I've driven all of those cars pretty extensively (and hard; they were mainly hire cars and I was young...). No one has ever called a '95 Escort refined!! They improved it's dire handling, gave it a facelift that smartened it up and threw some kit at it, but it was hopelessly outdated compared to its competitors. It's one of the few cars I've driven that I'd call truly crap - there's usually some redeeming features, but the '90s Escorts had none, even after the facelift. The contemporary Astras were far better IME
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We had a 92 Rover 216GTi in the family - an exceptionally nice car with the sohc Honda sourced engine which was a real 16v gem. Plenty of revs. Nicely made motor.
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I had a 214 Si - it was a cracking car, and everybody who rode in it refused to believe it was only a 1.4. Those K series engines were good units - just a shame the inherent problems were never fixed through some continuous development.
Back in the early 90's they had a decent market share and decent product range. I think their biggest route cause to failiure stems back to their ownership under british aerospace. They neither wanted it, or invested in it, and then BMW just raped the company for its own ends
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>> have fond memories of my uncles 400 GSI (or was that GTI?) had leather seats and electric everything and went like stink, think it had the 1.8 16v K series engine.
I had a 2000 5-dr Civic with the 169hp 1.8 VTEC engine for around 70k miles and 4 years.
On a near daily basis it would have been revved to 8k rpm (once warm).
No engine issues ever.
Rover should have killed the K-series once the HGF issues came to light (at least in 1.8+ litre guise) and licensed the VTEC badboys.
Or fixed the K-series right away, but that'd never have happened.....
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We had a '92 214Si which had a very decent amount of go for a 1.4 (at least, until it did a K-series special on the M4 in the summer of '95).
Mate's Dad had a '92 216GTi 5-door, which had the DOHC Honda 1.6 (think it produced something like 130 bhp?) and went like nothing with an engine that size had any right to. Painted fire-engine red and we all loved it to bits.
Replaced in '96 with a 416 Sport (I think it was) which went OK when it was working properly - sadly that wasn't very often.
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How many Mini Metro's are still on the road? Now this was a poo of a car.
Even the MG Metro with it's 1.3 engine and that turbo shed in black and red ones utter old sheds.
Come on who owned one????
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Borrowed a mate's Metro GTi 16v (103bhp?) a few times - was a nippy little dirtbox.
Own one? Good Lord no!
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The weeks we had of the Rover 100 was bad enough! My mate did have one though, paid £75 for it due to an over heating problem (he solved it by over riding the fan!) although in the end even with the van running constantly he admitted defeat when the engine nearly burst into flames.
It had a PSA 1.4 diesel engine in it, was actually quite nippy but made of rust. I remember him winding all the windows down and blasting out Dolly Parton 9 to 5 on top volume on Deansgate on a Saturday night. My most embarrassing night ever.
Still he paid £75 for it and he had 2 months use out of it.
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One friend had a 1.0L in pale yellow - it died after he did a handbrake turn in an empty carpark and put a back wheel into a pothole almost snapping it off.
Another mate had an orange one (I think the colour was officially 'vermillion') which was held together underneath with MIG welded plates and strips - the rear suspension subframe eventually distorted and I remember following behind him once watching the car driving along with both rear wheels 3 or 4 inches to the left of the corresponding front ones.
It died soon afterwards.
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>>Come on who owned one????
Daughter had a VDP Metro as her first car, despite me not wanting her to buy it and I then spent the next year mending numerous bits of it.
The VDP was supposed to have the same big-valve engine as the MG, but I think this one had a head replacement, presumably with a smaller valve head, that made it very easy for a learner to drive.
Just before her test, the instructor's car became unavailable so she took it in the Metro. The examiner seemed uncertain about the 'crock-of-crap', but passed her and remarked that it was a better car than initial appearances, so not all bad.
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>> How many Mini Metro's are still on the road? Now this was a poo of
>> a car.
>> Even the MG Metro with it's 1.3 engine and that turbo shed in black and
>> red ones utter old sheds.
>> Come on who owned one????
He likes them: www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/2012/03/01/blog-joy-is-metro-shaped/
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>> Sold for £895? Have we heard from Badwolf this evening? };---)>>
He lives in the same town as me - still see the occasional City Rover knocking around...:-((
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It might be fairer to look at the Metro in the context of 1980 when cars like the Fiesta and Fiat 127 were hardly rust-free, modern alternatives. It does atleast handle well if the suspension is set-up properly ( hydragas ).
Sure the Rover 100 was way behind the times, but cheap aswell and little old ladies loved them, the number who still lovingly had their old ones serviced at silly main dealer prices was remarkable. Diesels were rare, most were the 1.1, the last of the line Ascot SE model was very popular and always sold quickly.
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I was used to cars becoming better built and increasingly reliable over the decades until I was forced to drive Rover 800s as company cars.
They were unreliable rubbish.. all three of them - and were a step back 2 decades in build quality. (I could count issues in double digits on each including HG , air con, boiling,failed turbos and innumerable switches)
Any company selling such rubbish deserved to fail. They made Lada look well built.
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Back in the early 90s I was in the market for a hot hatch and considered a Rover 216GTi. I remember the interior was classy compared to other midsized hatchbacks and the car appeared nicely made, especially compared to the dross Ford and Vauxhall were peddling at the time.
Unfortunately I also remember handling dominated by torque steer every time you pressed the hot pedal.
I eventually went for a Golf GTI 16V. Interior wasn't as nice as the Rover, but it was in a different class on the road.
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Lightweight. If you think the GTi had torque steer, you should have tried the rare 2.0 Turbo Rover 220 GSi- now that was a squirmer.
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>> 2.0 Turbo Rover 220 GSi>>
Was that known as the Tomcat?
Last edited by: nice but dim on Mon 5 Mar 12 at 14:33
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Pretty sure the Tomcat was the 200 Coupe variants.
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You're right it was the internal code for the car !
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The 197bhp Turbo engine, also found in the 620ti and the 820 Vitesse Sport was fitted to both the 200 Coupe ( Tomcat ) and the 3dr hatch and 4dr Rover 420 aswell.
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A friend of mine chopped his 2.8i Capri for a 420 - it looked bland in a sort of mid blue - but my goodness it was fast....!
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He did WHAT????
Dear Lord.
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He was a poor family man.
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Yeah but no but yeah but no but....sheesh !
Didn't anyone mention tow bars or roof racks to the poor devil ?
2.8i Capri for a Rover 420. Heard it all now.
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He owned that Capri twice, a bloke he sold it to died, he bought it back from his widow....he was a strange lad (still is actually)
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>> Lightweight. If you think the GTi had torque steer, you should have tried the rare
>> 2.0 Turbo Rover 220 GSi- now that was a squirmer.
Actually, the contemporary Astra GTE was just as bad. Worst torque steerer I've ever driven was a Chrysler Pacifica 4.0litre. 260hp, front wheel drive and a very heavy car. Borderline driveable in the wet.
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My first contact with SWMBO was me pushing her dead Renault 5 (very early one with gearstick in the dash a la 4) off a roundabout in Northampton. By the time we were 'going out' she had a turd brown (in various shades) 1.0L Metro. Economical and roomy, but bits kept falling off, it ate its own gearbox, and was rotten underneath by the time it was 6 years old. Thankfully my only dealing with BL products.
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I was doing some work for East Midlands Gas in about 1982, and they had a couple of basic Metros as pool cars. It says a lot for them that I ended up using a clapped-out Sherpa for preference as it was more reliable and nicer to drive.
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MG Maestro Turbo.
Apply loud pedal, turn left. Waaaay too much torque from that blown, long-stroke "O" series for the chassis.
Then again, any FWD car that can hold its own from 0-60 with everything bar three exotic supercars of its time is going to have problems in this area.
According to an insider at Austin Rovers that I knew, the original plan for the Montego variant (which came out first) was to blow the injected unit as it's a simpler job. The reason they reverted to a carb was that their test driver soiled himself in the prototype. Too dangerously quick to make apparently, being quite capable of going significantly faster than the chassis was good for without trying.
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>>being quite capable of going significantly faster than the chassis was good for without trying.
That didn't stop them releasing the Marina.
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>> That didn't stop them releasing the Marina.
I remember being very envious of someone in my class at school who was learning to drive in a mighty 1.8 Marina.
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Maybe a confession is due - My family had a 1976 1.8 Marina - which I was allowed to drive now and again, of an evening so to speak....Green it was with a brown vinyl roof, 2 door coupe. It actually looked quite good in the sun. It drove surprisingly well, plenty of grunt from that 1.8 engine.......one evening I was returning home in the beast, taking a short cut home through a supermarket car park - which had a standard width single vehicle lane between rows of terraced houses, no problem.... decided to hoof the said beast in second, it started fish-tailing madly, how the hell I ever controlled it and my backside at once I'll never know. That car, crap as it was, taught me a lesson about RWD I'll never forget.....respect to the beast.
Last edited by: R.P. on Tue 6 Mar 12 at 12:13
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Rover CityRover - Amazed how many cityrovers left. - Stuu
