Rover 75

mcwhirter

Does anyone have one of these or owned one in the past. Were they reliable or not?

craichoe

mcwhirter wrote: »

Does anyone have one of these or owned one in the past. Were they reliable or not?

Diesel one was as it was BMW.

The Petrol one was a frikkin disaster ... blew head gaskets <SNIP>

Mailman

I do/did but downsizing at the moment.

1.8 litre petrol blew head gaskets, not V6 petrol or diesel.

Diesels can have niggly problems with engine but otherwise reliable. They attract a different type of customer to the petrols and will be harder worked.
V6 thermostats break. V6 have poor MPG
Autos are more reliable than the Manuals.
Electrics are excellent across the board.
Interiors and Exteriors are excellent. Suspension is good and shouldn't be an expense secondhand.
Radiator fans break and are expensive to replace.

unkel

We have had an '01 75 1.8 petrol manual for the past 2 years. We've had 3 issues:

1. Leaky boot (water coming in through air vent) - fixed it myself with duct tape

2. Dirty throttle body - main dealer spend several hours messing with it and then concluding he improved it a little bit, but we needed a new one, which he didn't have in stock anyway. Within an hour of driving away the problem was gone. He didn't charge me a cent

3. Airbag light coming up in dash. Main dealer diagnosed it as a faulty sensor caused by moving of the driver seat (yes both Mrs unkel and myself drive the car nearly every day and Mrs unkel isn't quite 6'2 ). Dealer charged €78 incl. VAT to rectify the problem

Revvy engine, good quality interior and electronics. Handles fairly well for a comfortable FWD car.

But I'm the first to state these cars are not for everyone. They are ridiculously cheap to buy (not even considering it is a car designed by and built by BMW) especially after some serious negotiation, but these are not for the faint of heart. The K-series rover petrol engine is excellent and light weight but it has a design flaw in that it doesn't hold enough coolant. A tiny leak and the engine overheats causing serious damage. Try and find one that had the head replaced with the stronger one in '05 or later after head gasket failure. If you want to play safe, get another car

mcwhirter

Cheers, I'm buying a tourer with the diesel engine, so hopefully engine problems will not exist

L-M

mcwhirter wrote: »

Cheers, I'm buying a tourer with the diesel engine, so hopefully engine problems will not exist

You should be ok with that, as long as u don't go near the petrol version. Being honest i would say u are more than likely going to find one of those cheaper in England. I can't say i have seen much of the tourers in Ireland, and any i have seen would of been English. Could be worth a bit of research.

Mailman

Enough of the disinformation. The V6 petrol is a good engine.

If you are looking for a diesel tourer from the UK inspect history carefully. Many of these come off lease and are clocked once they get auctioned off.
for this reason despite being the most reliable of the 75s they are the riskiest to buy.

bazz26

The Rover 75 is usually associated with the type mature driver.

Nothing wrong with the car itself though especially the diesels.

drver1

Petrol 75's are good if you buy one that already had a head gasket done,

the diesel 75's have a Bmw engine so parts and reliability sood be fine

Darragh29

Had one in recently for an ABS signal cable problem. Also previously did a head gasket on the same car at around 60K...

mcwhirter

Okay bought a rover 75 04 tourer cdti, the one with the bmw diesel engine. Goes great, only 30 thousand miles. All electric, heated leather seats, rear parking sensors, air con etc.


Don't care if it has a hat and slippers reputation, it was a bargain.

Zube

mcwhirter wrote: »

Don't care if it has a hat and slippers reputation, it was a bargain.

Does it have a wireless?

mcwhirter

Zube wrote: »

Does it have a wireless?

Yeah, a valve one;)

VH

unkel wrote: »

not even considering it is a car designed by and built by BMW

thats not true - BMW had virtually no input - apart from money

Mailman

Rover raided BMW's parts bin heavily for the Rover 75.
The suspension is a BMW design.
The engine is a BMW.
The electrics are more BMW than Rover.
The lock nut cap on my car has a BMW badge on it.
Get out of a BMW 3 series or 5 series and sit in a Rover 75 and a lot of stuff will look very familiar.

I figured out how to fix some of the issues with my car by visiting BMW forums, not rover forums.

VH

interesting read: http://www.aronline.co.uk/index.htm?r40storyf.htm

The cost of adapting the rear-wheel drive BMW’s floorpan for a front-wheel drive Rover would have been prohibitive - but BMW did force the z-axle on rover

unkel

VH wrote: »

interesting read: http://www.aronline.co.uk/index.htm?r40storyf.htm

Interesting indeed! Thanks for sharing.

Must read for anybody interested in Rover in general or the Rover 75 in particular

mcwhirter

Mailman wrote: »

Rover raided BMW's parts bin heavily for the Rover 75.
The suspension is a BMW design.
The engine is a BMW.
The electrics are more BMW than Rover.
The lock nut cap on my car has a BMW badge on it.
Get out of a BMW 3 series or 5 series and sit in a Rover 75 and a lot of stuff will look very familiar.

I figured out how to fix some of the issues with my car by visiting BMW forums, not rover forums.

See, it pays to not be a badge snob. Am I really driving a 'BMW' but for less than half the cost.
I couldn't afford a decent BMW anyway, well not one with all the toys I have in the 75.

gezas

Rover 75 is good car, off course it’s not a BMW but its fine enough, except orange panel lights. :D:D

mcwhirter

gezas wrote: »

Rover 75 is good car, off course it’s not a BMW but its fine enough, except orange panel lights. :D:D

The newer versions came with white dash lights, but I prefer the orange ones. It's like being in a sitting room in front of a warm log fire:D

Mailman

the sepia toned instrument cluster with soft orange illumination was one of the nicest things about the car.

gezas

Fare enough.

Esel

gezas wrote: »

Rover 75 is good car, off course it’s not a BMW but its fine enough, except orange panel lights. :D:D

Gezas, stick to the regular font colour - black is very hard to read on the Cloud skin, which a lot of people here use.

boredatwork82

would you be able to get replacement parts handy enough for a Rover 75, or is that a risk you will be taking?

Mailman

MG Rover dealers still can order most parts but are very expensive and there are loads of scrapped 75s around for other bits and bobs.
75s are getting written off by insurance with minimal damage so plenty of good cars out there to cannibalise.
Halfords carry loads of service parts for Rovers even though the 75 sold in small numbers here.
Getting parts is easy. Getting a good Rover mechanic is difficult but luckily they're reliable cars.

mickdw

A friend has one of the 1.8 petrols, bought fully aware of the head gasket problems.

Driving it about a year now and the problems so far have been:

Head gasket
airbag light - zero cost (shake wires under seat.)

Good car though

boredatwork82

Great, So it would be safe to buy a diesel one, and hope to drive it for a few years
I like big comfortable cars, as I myself am built for comfort not speed, and I read about the 75 on some other board thread. They look class, and are cheap.