What cars appeal to Rover owners

DaveHerns said:
Car Mechanics magazine has been running articles about rusty Mercedes C + E class cars for a few months .It has been said that Merc quality is not what it used to be
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Yes it was in the Telegraph a year or so ago and there was quite a lot on the internet. It seems Mercedes tried to save money by reducing the pixels in the paint. It was only a problem for the first few years when they switched to water based paint. At the time when I first saw very minor paint bubbling I took action before it got any worse. I did read at the time that mercedes had budgetted quite a lot per car to allow for the paint to be removed and new paint put on properly. Of course many did not claim or left it more than the statutory legal time to claim legally. I think 7 or 8 years from when the car was new. Although with mobilo Mercedes warranty it themselves fore 30 years but only if the car has been regularly serviced with them. Nice to meet you last night at the Goat.

Cheers

Tony Bunting
 
Some of the rust comes through from the inside which suggests M B may have been cutting costs on underseal or the wheel arch liners don't fit properly
 
I've always been a believer in hosing/pressure washing under the car and the wheel arch lips .Amazing how much mud builds up
Also hosing the radiator / air con radiator through the grille to remove road salt build up which I would think would corrode an aluminium radiator
For the last 20 years until Aug 09 I've had company cars so have no real proof if these measures work
 
1973 VW 1303S [Big]
1983 Audi 100 5E South African
1970 Rover P6B, South African S1, white, red inside
1982 VW Golf auto for scrap money
1983 Volvo 240 for scrap money
1973 Rover 3500S project car, sold
1974 Rover 3500 'S' clone, LT77
1996 BMW 325TDS[AT] E36
1973 Rover 3500S solid :mrgreen:

Besides being on my fourth P6B and loving it, I think my comment will address a couple of previous ones - a BMW is what you make of it. Mine is neither a hairdresser's car nor an advanced cold-air hair drier nor a pimped out boy racer's ride. It swallows miles frugally and quietly, the M-tech undercarriage is amazing 13 years on with near-lunar mileage and original bushings.

For me a high gear ratio and good torque [power/economy] are a winning combination in any car, making a stock-looking MGB with an MGC bonnet, an RPI 4.6 V8 or something, and an R380 with a reworked diff about as much fun as anything in my books... Stags are nice, P5B coupés lovely. A lot of cars have great potential, so there aren't single favourites...
 
I prefer most of the British marques,ie,Jag,Rover,Triumph, etc.
Not one for Fords or Vauxhalls,French cars are a real turn off,as is American tin.
 
My "other favorite car" has 2 wheels!

Honda "Dream"

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GW
 
with the passing of rover the question of which cars are liked is really interesting. I loved my rover 75 and the 800 and the 200.the common thing to these cars is they are comfortab.e and are generally comfort biased in suspension setup. They have brilliant interiors. German interiors are too barren for my taste. I like the wood veneers. Not like you get in tacky yank cars but nicely tastefully done. Makes the car feel special. Our other car is a ford focus and i regard it is entirely functional innature. Corners well and does 55 mpg but seats are poor and interior is horrid inside. I hate the fake aluminium plastic panel around the stereo. That said it's similar in quality to bmw audi etc. Just dont like the fashion.

Cars i think are good currently are jaguar xf, citroen c6( character in bucketloads in both of these....)

rich
 
An uncle of mine in Austria had a P6b when I was a kid and I always admired the car. It's the typical case of 'I always wanted one', but never had the right opportunity to buy one. Hence, after almost a quarter century of driving mainly yanks, I settled for a less than perfect P6B just to see what it is like. I was very impressed, but opted for yet another yank, when it came up for sale - a 1981 Chevrolet Caprice Classic. I didn't have it very long. Directly after having had a P6b, I realized that the ride is not significantly better, yet bought with a much higher petrol consumption. And yes, I do use my cars as daily drivers. So I sold the Chevy (no, not to the Levy) and got me another P6b, this time a better example than my last one, and with all the options I wanted.

Last week, I gave my wife this as a birthday gift:

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You see, we are an all Rover household now.

I know exactly that once my P6 is where I want it to be, I will be after a P4, and once that one is done, a P5b.
Modern cars have never appealed to me, at least not since the late Eighties. Imho the Ford Sierra kicked off the rapid destruction of car design, never to be resurrected. However, there is one exception: The Rover 75 4.6 V8. A massive yank V8, which has been around since the iron age, transplanted into Miss Marple's living room, is pretty much the essence of what my doctor ordered me to drive. You see, I have always been a Rover chappy at heart.

There are other long time dreams. A Jensen Interceptor, a Bristol, an Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire, a Hooper Empress bodied Daimler, an Aston Martin Lagonda, a 1971 Cadillac Eldorado and - don't laugh - a Triumph Mayflower, maybe a tad hot-rodded.

But when it comes to two-wheeled motoring, I can't disavow my teutonic genes - it must be a German flat-twin.
 
Modern cars?

Well, the nearest thing to a P6 that I can think of is the E39-generation BMW 5-series. Lovely straight-six and V8 engines - even the diesels are as smooth as glass. Well-equipped, comfortable, ride and handle like a P6 that's been lowered a bit (there's nowhere near as much body roll as a P6). Also, it looks fantastic, it just exudes quality and class... parents have an Oxford Green metallic 520i Touring, 2001Y reg. Very rare colour. Washed and polished, in golden evening sunlight, it looks the dog's bo11ocks. It's RWD - of course! - so the handling really is fantastic, it's pretty economical - managed a calculated 41mpg at an average of 92mph on a run up to Oxford! - and, when you rev the nuts off it, it howls like a wounded animal. What's not to like?

I'm not so keen on the Jag XF. Bog-awful visibility, slabby doors and nowhere near enough glass, cheap-looking styling, horrid rising beltline, falling roofline means no rear headroom, the front overhang is too long, mostly nasty paint colours, engines mounted too far forward, six-pots are V6s (boo hiss!), diesels are made of iron (BMW's are aluminium), no estate option, no manual gearbox option...
 
I'm not a BMW fan but I think the pre 2000 cars are much better looking than the new ones
Does anyone like the look of the 1 series ?
 
DaveHerns said:
I'm not a BMW fan but I think the pre 2000 cars are much better looking than the new ones
Does anyone like the look of the 1 series ?
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Me. I think it looks absolutely gorgeous from every angle. Mind you, I don't like the fake diffuser you now get on the M-sport models. Otherwise, it's a desperately pretty little car. A real modern classic. 130i? Yes please! Lovely straight-six engine, still with that creamy low-end growl, rising to a hair-raising howl at full chat... and a fantastic, easy but precise gearchange on the six-speed ZF manual 'box... if only someone would make a bellhousing for that 'box to go onto the back of a Rover V8! Mind you, if a 4-speed ZF auto will fit... oh, wait, that's a torque converter, won't work. Bugger.

I also very much like the look of the E60 5-series - not such a fan of the E65 7-series, nor the modern 6 series (lovely from the side, awful from either end, or a 3/4 view), nor the very bland E9x 3-series (mind you, visually, it's very overtly RWD, no front overhang, quite a distance from the front axle to the A-pillar, just as I like it). The new F01 7-series is very bland - same goes for the new F10 5-series. Don't even get me going on the X-cars, or the 5-series GT. Or the new Z4 - nowhere near as pretty as the original Z4, nor as nice to drive.
 
A stable of current production cars? Three will do me. For the daily run around, a 5 cyl Volvo C30 - stylish eccentricity. For the long distance grand tourer a BMW 535D estate - is last model acceptable - I haven't made my mind up on the new one. I could possibly be swayed to an A6 3.0D Quattro estate. Avoiding the M5 and S6 versions in favour of somewhat softer suspension and the mile swallowing gait of the diesels. For wind in the hair blasts an Aeriel Atom.

Chris
 
DaveHerns said:
I'm not a BMW fan but I think the pre 2000 cars are much better looking than the new ones
Does anyone like the look of the 1 series ?
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I do! Totally love them as cars. I bought one back in 2005 and ran it until I picked up my new 3-series coupe the other year. It was a 116i Sport, so 1.6 petrol engine, five-speed box, fitted with the M-sport suspension and steering package. It was a great little car, brilliant for going in and out of traffic or long distance driving, and with the back seats down you could get a lot in.

Now I'm driving a 58-plate 320d coupe. I do 600+ miles a week to and from work, and get over 50MPG from her even with my heavy foot. £90 a year road tax as well, on a 2 litre diesel with the Efficient Dynamics option. The replacement 2 litre engine is tax free with ED.. lucky sods :)

If I didn't do the mileage that I do, I couldn't justify having a new car.. but I do enjoy driving them. I gave the 1-series back to BMW with just under 100,000 on the clock, and it never missed a beat. I looked at a 130i coupe, but the 3 series was practically the same price and a bigger car.
 
chrisyork said:
A stable of current production cars? Three will do me. For the daily run around, a 5 cyl Volvo C30 - stylish eccentricity. For the long distance grand tourer a BMW 535D estate - is last model acceptable - I haven't made my mind up on the new one. I could possibly be swayed to an A6 3.0D Quattro estate. Avoiding the M5 and S6 versions in favour of somewhat softer suspension and the mile swallowing gait of the diesels. For wind in the hair blasts an Aeriel Atom.

Chris
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Did you know that the Ariel Atom's front suspension design is copied from that of the P6? Look at an Atom, you can see the horizontal longitudinal coil springs, mounted on the front bulkhead...
 
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