I will never buy a bmw (a must read for the Rover bashers)

these days, a car is just a car, is just a car.

Few companies exceed the minimum requirements for longevity and safety.

I use mine as a tool, no more.

MG Rover didnt make anything interesting that didnt already exist elsewhere.
 
rosstheboss":61hd2sxk said:
The reality of it is there's no room for even slightly rubbish cars these days, or cars with rubbish reputations. Vauxhall and Ford have both improved there cars hugely in the last 15 years. Think of the difference between a Focus and the last Escorts or the latest Astras compared to their predecessors. Mediocre cheap cars (which are also fairly reliable or have very lengthy warranties) have been sewn up by the koreans

my mate is a recovery driver ,i quized him on reliability of todays cars
as wifey was about to buy a new car, buy a honda or a petrol focus was
his recomendation ,avoid renaults ,new vw passats Peugeot vvt toyotas
etcetcetc
cars are not built much better than they were 10 years ago and some a lot worse
 
i agree that there are good cars and bad cars in all models....its justmineinsisted on dumping all the water in the engine every day for no reason the aa could find till it blew up.it was a fast beast for a 1.4 tho and appily cruised t 95 with no problems at all.my volvo was worse ...kept going wrong all the time.dont get me startted on the lada rive se i had...(comfey p.o.s) sooo much wrong with that car.my 340 gle volvo was my fav...never had a prob with car...(it got trashed by some junkie looking for a fix.....)
 
I had a Rover 100.. was great to drive but just rotted away.. I replaced it with a Rover 214 which was a great car.. I was a massive fan of rover until..

THE CITI ROVER...

Thats what finally killed Rover. Yeah lets take the piss out of our loyal customers buy selling that hunk of sh...

Also.. how much money was spent developing the stupid MG super car thing.. money should have been directed at the cars that they were selling. Rovers where just face lifted far too much!

BMW didn't do rover any favours.. but they certainly didn't put the final nail in the coffin.

How was the 1 series BMW ever meant to be a Rover - its rear wheel drive? I'm not sure how I can see that one.
 
OrangeRetro":28jxjs6l said:
I had a Rover 100.. was great to drive but just rotted away.. I replaced it with a Rover 214 which was a great car.. I was a massive fan of rover until..

THE CITI ROVER...

Thats what finally killed Rover. Yeah lets take the piss out of our loyal customers buy selling that hunk of sh...

Also.. how much money was spent developing the stupid MG super car thing.. money should have been directed at the cars that they were selling. Rovers where just face lifted far too much!

BMW didn't do rover any favours.. but they certainly didn't put the final nail in the coffin.

How was the 1 series BMW ever meant to be a Rover - its rear wheel drive? I'm not sure how I can see that one.

I totally understand where you are coming from, but Rover didn't want to continue facelifting models but they had no choice. The MG supercar and the whole race series was meant to inflate the company status and therefore making joint ventures with other auto-manufacturers more likely. The below extract is from pìstonheads but it sums up why Rover didn't have many new products quite well.


I've read quite a few of your anti Rover rants now, and I still have no idea where you are coming to some of your conclusions.

Even a US study into the demise of Rover more or less put it at the feet of BMW:

1. The cessation of the Honda partnership cancelled its 200/400 replacements, BMW then decided to create a brand new platform from scratch for Rover, rather than use an existing platform like the 3 series for instance. Note the difference between BMW creating a new platform for Rover than the VAG method of giving VW an 18 month head start on the platform, eg the Golf getting a head start over the Leon for instance.

2. The 200/400 replacement was withheld by BMW in 2000, and miraculously turned into the hither unknown 1 Series. Check out the design pictures from the late 90s and they have a remarkable similarity to the 1 Series.

3. Rover, during its bad financial years paid for the MINI platform, the LR3 platform, the 75 platform and the 25/45 (200/400) platform, yet only ever saw the benefits of the 75 platform. Developing 4 platforms in such a short space of time is a huge achievement.

4. BMW asset strip Rover by taking the MINI and selling LR to Ford, not including an awful lot of LR technology being copied for the X5. Now which Rover product benefitted from BMW technology? I can't think of anything.

5. As has been said repeatedly, BMW were behind the K Series head gasket problem by penny pinching.

6. Rover, being stripped of anything of value by BMW was left with an aging platform in the 25/45 and for the 3RD time Rover were having to pay for its replacement platform!

All in all Rover were deprived of two rounds of new platforms, when the rest of the industry had moved on


The 45 replacement 2004

rd60_15.jpg

rd60_16.jpg

rd60_05.jpg


2005

news0205_12.jpg


The Saloon

rd60_22.jpg


The cross over using the 75 platform

rovtcv_04.jpg

rovtcv_06.jpg
 
very few carmakers can survive without Governments help .

if you look in france , most police cars are french , and it is the same in 99% of public services .

I am not saying it would have saved Rover , but it would have helped .
 
Another reason for me to dislike BMW's and not understand the sheep that buy them, they really aren't anything special.

On the subject of the 1 series and RWD the 75 was developed to use FWD or RWD (ZT260 etc) but BMW would not allow it at the time as it trod on the 5's toes. So it is conceivable that the 1 could have been a rover design.
The MG Maestro was not actually a bad car (I had one) and was praosed for it's torquey O-series 2.0i and handling and from my perspective and my wifes (who loved it) it didn't look bad at all.
I believe the K-series debacle started before BMW ownership though as the plastic dowels with in our 1993 Metro GTi which was built before the takeover.
The B-series (Honda) and the K-series cannot be compared though the B16A, B16B and B18C just dump on the K from a big height and were around since 1989.
IIRC the K is based on the older D16 which in turn was based on the earlier ZC these engines the K compares very favorably with.

Carl.
 
Here is an extract from ARonline about the Rover 75, it doesn't seem the 75 was ever made to have RWD.

"It's a BMW in drag"
The Rover 75 was the first product of the BMW/Rover alliance to hit the market, and was a giant step forward from the Rover 800. However, many people believe that the car's chassis is based upon the BMW 3 or 5-Series. This is certainly not the case, and its large transmission tunnel was set-up in order to give the car impressive torsional rigidity. There is no space for a rear differential without significant modification, as MG Rover/Prodrive has found during the development of the ZT V8. The basis of this story lies with the fact that during the months following the BMW takeover, a concept called "Flagship" was developed, as styled by Richard Woolley. It is Woolley himself that explains the situation: "The story originated from the fact that very early on during BMW ownership, we did look at 're-cycling' the then outgoing 5 -Series platform for Flagship. BMW were about to launch the new (current) car, and all the tooling for the old model's underpinnings were theoretically available, sourced from the South African BMW plant. It was an idea that BMW suggested we investigate." This large car (a kind of latter-day P5) would have sat on a modified BMW 5-Series platform, but was cancelled shortly after the styling proposal was completed
 

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