Shall I buy this Rover?

C

Classicus

New Member
A year or two ago, my neighbours purchased a second car, a 2000 Rover 216. I always liked the look of the vehicle and it seemed nicely finished. They usually kept it in their drive, along with their other vehicles and then I noticed it was permanently out on the street. They told me that the vehicle had developed cooling problems and I believe a new head gasket was involved at a cost of over $3000. Shortly afterwards, a similar problem and they now want to get rid of it and have purchased another car. I had a look at Rover 216s on auction site Trademe and they usually make mention of head gaskets being replaced, even if they are low mileage. I presume the engine is the K series one which seems to mean head gasket problems. If I could get it at alow price, is it worth considering getting the job done properly here in NZ if you can get the parts or am I wasting my time and money?
I believe they also left it on the street in the hope it would be stolen. No such luck.
 
Purchasing the vehicle will probably make your local Rover repairer a happy person, the head gasket problem is a design fault and no amount of "proper repair" will help, the same also applies to the MG convertibles, maybe if you re-engined it with a reliable Japanese car engine.

Graeme
 
Absolutely agree with Graeme, a lot of P6 enthusiasts seem to buy themselves a modern Rover out of some sort of brand loyalty and I really can't understand why. They are almost all complete crap. The best ones are the Honda powered versions but anything with the K series should never have been inflicted on the poor unsuspecting public. Basically, the last decent Rover was the P6 and even that started going downhill once BL got involved. The SD1 should have (and can be) a great car but was let down by crappy details, appalling build quality and rubbish engines except for the V8. Everything after that was either some unhappy Honda hybrid or lumbered with atrocious engines. Even the 'M' and 'T' series motors have a reputation (in NZ at least) for cylinder head failure and difficult parts supply.
Basically, don't buy it. It will only cause you heartache and grief because it's not only the engines that go wrong. If you are looking for a modern runabout and you must have a Rover, find something Honda powered but don't expect it to be trouble free. If you just want reliable transport, buy yourself a Nissan Sunny or Toyota Corolla and you'll never have to think about it.
 
In theory there are now well established "fixes" for the K series problems, however are you ever going to really confident ?

My wife has a 216 cabriolet, and AA membership !!! To put it into context, this car has 60k miles and has had 3 engines.
 
I've had 2 k series rover 200s. The second one blew a head gasket at 85000, but had a better gasket put back on and it did another 25k before it got written off by my father!
 
ghce said:
Purchasing the vehicle will probably make your local Rover repairer a happy person, the head gasket problem is a design fault and no amount of "proper repair" will help,
Click to expand...

Well that's not entirely true is it. There are several well documented modifications (fitting a Land Rover Freelander head gasket, etc) that do actually help a great deal. The K-series has its share of fans who ignore the myths and prejudices and actually find them to be great little engines.
 
Add to that, very few garages really know how to fix them, they generally just skim the head and put it back together. As stated there are uprated components available, plus things like liner heights and head porosity need to be checked, not to mention water pumps and thermostat problems, which could have caused the original failure.

For power-to-weight they are virtually unmatched this side of a motorbike engine, but in a road car what you generally want is reliability.
 
Sounds like these head gaskits are a bit like the flex plate on the 4 pot autos. If fitted without care they will fail within a couple of years, as mind had. If fitted by someone who knows what they are doing may will last longer than the car. I would consider getting the car for peanuts and doing the work your self. Then it's just pride and the cost of parts if it don't work and I would say that will be worth a shot. With labour costs for a long job like this makes it too much of a risk.
 
My advice would be to do some research and see if anyone within range sounds as if they know how to do the permanent fix with modded components. If so then buy, if not wave it on its way to the great scrapyard in the sky! From memory the upgrade involves a different type of head gasket plus a different type of through bolt (ie a complete engine strip to change) at the minimum. Other coolant problems on the engine include losing collant out of the inlet manifold, especially if a plastic one. Try looking at people who look after Lotus's or MGF's - they are most likely to know about the mods.

Chris
 
The key is probably how much you pay for the car. If it's a couple of hundred pounds then maybe it's reasonable, otherwise it's more heartache than it's worth. That'd be my take anyway... and if you want the same car but reliable the 220D/420D/620 is a good economical engine ( although you have to put up with diesel...)
 
The "answer" seems to be a revised gasket, new bolts and a new oil rail that they screw into
But if the gasket has gone twice the block and head are likely to be warped
I was reading you have to change the radiator as a service item to keep the engine cool

I had a 1990 214 SI from new that went to 75K miles followed by a 1993 214Si that lost all it's oil on the M20 the day before it was due to be changed at 70K miles ,.Head gaskets didn't seem to be a weakness in the early days .Maybe they lasted 3 years before the cooling system became ineffective ?
 
Note the gasket has only gone once and been changed. The fact that there is a problem so quickly suggests to me it isn't the gasket. More likely to be a fractured plastic inlet manifold (presuming they didn't cook it after the loss of coolant!).

Depends how much hassle you are prepared for to achieve a cheap run about. I'd have thought it could be financially viable with a reliable car as outcome.

Chris
 
I was not drawn to the vehicle by the Rover name but rather it seemed an attractive little vehicle. I shall now confine my attention to my 1973 3500s. I greatly appreciate the helpfull ( and sometimes forthright) advice I have received from enthusiasts not only here in NZ but the UK and possibly elsewhere. Thank you all!
Footnote: Meanwhile the little Rover sits alone on the roadside in a suburb of a city in NZ, little realising that its fate was being decided by Rover enthusiasts from around the world.
 
ghce said:
Purchasing the vehicle will probably make your local Rover repairer a happy person, the head gasket problem is a design fault and no amount of "proper repair" will help, the same also applies to the MG convertibles, maybe if you re-engined it with a reliable Japanese car engine.

Graeme
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Hi,

I can’t possibly disagree more with the statement about the K Series, you might guess from my user name I’m a fan. It’s a real engineers engine, beautifully thought through and lovely to work on. Once built right it's just about un-burst-able, I’ve race, rallied and road driven on them almost since they came out. Without doubt the execution wasn’t perfect and the bean counters certainly didn’t help but a fantastic piece of engineering nonetheless.

http://kengine.dvapower.com/

Tim
 
Basically though it wasn't designed to cope with neglect and bad maintenance , was it .
Probably why my two 214Si 's went well for 3 years / 70K miles each
They really used to go when taken up to 6000rpm in 2nd ............
 
KiwiRover said:
The SD1 should have (and can be) a great car but was let down by crappy details, appalling build quality and rubbish engines except for the V8.
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'Scuse me, the inline sixes were pretty good too... and the O-series 2.0L 4-cylinder petrol wasn't bad, albeit very much underpowered for the SD1's weight and bulk. It was developed into the M and later the much-loved T series, so it couldn't have been THAT bad!
 
The 'O' series suffered from a weak head gasket, and the list of cylinder head problems with with SD1 sixes is well documented. The M and T series motors also have a rep for weak and porous heads and valve problems. I'm sure all of these motors can be made to work really well with the right fixes but... YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO!!!
If they had been built properly in the first place, it wouldn't be left up to the aftermarket to make them work.
Especially in the case of the K series where its problems must have been apparent fairly quickly, and how many years did it take Rover to do anything about it? This isn't new of course, the Stag V8 cooling system problems came to light after a couple of years in production so BL fitted a smaller radiator and a downgraded waterpump!
 
Yes, you are right you shouldn't have to, but the fix is available. If you can
pick the car up cheap and do the repair then all good! If you can get 2 or 3
years out of it for a few hundred and then it goes wrong you can walk away
from it. It is cheaper than the depreciation on a new car.
 
EccentricRichard said:
KiwiRover said:
The SD1 should have (and can be) a great car but was let down by crappy details, appalling build quality and rubbish engines except for the V8.
Click to expand...

'Scuse me, the inline sixes were pretty good too...
Click to expand...

We loved 'em, kept us in work for years :LOL:
 
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