pompei Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 That sounds like a metaphor for my life Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pillock Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 The quality of the carpet and leather was a significantly worse on later cars. That said , it fell from a high starting point as the quality of the leather on the early 2000-2002 model years was superb. I think exactly this. Not just on the leather, but the Rovers of the early 2000s were genuinely good cars, that had been thoughtfully designed. Still using real wood, decent carpets, illuminated visors, nice touches all over them. A proper document wallet with embossed logos on. The dash on a 75 is lovely. It was a shame they decided to cost-reduce rather than build up people's perception of them..... after all, that's exactly what other manufacturers did. Back in 2000, the Mondeo was a default choice for reps, the car you chose when you didn't have time to choose properly. The 2018 Mondeo is a really nice place to be. 1990s Skodas were still built to a budget, but now the name is highly spoken of and the cars are seen as prestige models. In a parallel universe, someone pumped money into Rover and now they rival BMW and Merc as the choice for powerfully built company directors. RobT 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egg Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Averaged 27mpg on my last tankful - not brilliant, but then I have been commuting to Derby in it which inevitably involves sitting in traffic for friggin hours and hours every day watching your life, and those of thousands of other losers like you, ticking away in a brightly coloured tin box surrounded by litter, identikit retail parks and streets of dilapidated 1930's semis with odd tiles missing off the roofs Superb. Read in Alan Bennett accent for full effect! DeeJay and Vince70 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sierraman Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Not really, a Rover 75 cost considerably more than a Mondeo 1.8 LX. They were pitching it at 3 series and Audi A4 money. That was the other problem, it had no export appeal whatsoever. In Spain for example they aren't rushing out looking for wood and leather, they don't really 'get' it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holbeck Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 I wonder how many man-hours went into this sort of petty cost cutting, when the real efforts should have been going into designing a new generation of competitive motor cars. I'm a hanger on in a fb group for Longbridge people. One of the engineers was expressing exactly that point. The staff engineers were being given bollocks like this to do, and the work on RDX60 - the new mid size car - was farmed out to TWR much to their collective disgust. egg 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sierraman Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Again... Fannying around whilst Rome burns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieselnutjob Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Are these basically the same as the ZS 180?I recently found out that these are a nightmare to get onto the real Rover T4 diagnostic machine. The T4 will go into the four cylinder cars alright but it just will not connect with the V6 ZS.It has made it quite difficult to reverse engineer some of the diagnostic features onto our diagnostic tool, but we got there in the end cobblers 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuvvum Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 I have to say the quality of the leather (and everything else tbh) on my 52-plate 45 is miles better than on the 05-plate 25 I had. Hey DNJ, does your diagnostic machine talk to L-serieseses or is it Kettles only? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieselnutjob Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Hey DNJ, does your diagnostic machine talk to L-serieseses or is it Kettles only? Yes it does L series.This is the current list:-MEMS1.3MEMS1.6MEMS1.9MEMS2JMEMS3EMS2000 (V6)EDC1.3.1 (620D and 300TDI)EDC15M (45 diesel etc)EDC15C4 (75 and Freelander 1 BMW diesel)I forget whether the Freelander 1 L series is EDC1.3.1 or EDC15M but either way it worksTD5Jatco transmissionTemic V1 airbag (early 25/45/75)AB Autolive airbag (late 25/45/75)RC5/EC5 airbag (MGF)Siemens Airbag 1 (Freelander 1)ABS5.0/5.3 (MGF/25/45)ABS5.7 (75)Teves Mk25 ABS (late Freelander 1)5AS alarmPektron alarmMGF EPAS power steeringMGTF135/LE500 service light reset Currently I'm working on Teves Mk20 (Freelander 1 ) and Landrover GEMS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bub2006 Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Averaged 27mpg on my last tankful - not brilliant, but then I have been commuting to Derby in it which inevitably involves sitting in traffic for friggin hours and hours every day watching your life, and those of thousands of other losers like you, ticking away in a brightly coloured tin box surrounded by litter, identikit retail parks and streets of dilapidated 1930's semis with odd tiles missing off the roofsThat's not too bad. I was averaging 22 in a Kia carens1.8 automatic when I was working as a driver on ascot drive from Ripley. Pride park to cockpit carpark road,a52 to Pentagon and down Frank whittle was terrible. I found going past football ground and into a52 then into spondon and over the back of Morley into heanor was a bit more miles but took a lot less time. I once made mistake of going round 5 lamps at ten past 5. Never again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sierraman Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 22mpg in a Kia Carens. Christ. What DID it have going for it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HH-R Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Are these basically the same as the ZS 180?I recently found out that these are a nightmare to get onto the real Rover T4 diagnostic machine. The T4 will go into the four cylinder cars alright but it just will not connect with the V6 ZS.It has made it quite difficult to reverse engineer some of the diagnostic features onto our diagnostic tool, but we got there in the end IIRC the V6s used Siemens injection/ECU rather than MEMS or the Pektrons so might need a later version of a T4 or something else entirely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuvvum Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Yes it does L series.This is the current list:-MEMS1.3MEMS1.6MEMS1.9MEMS2JMEMS3EMS2000 (V6)EDC1.3.1 (620D and 300TDI)EDC15M (45 diesel etc)EDC15C4 (75 and Freelander 1 BMW diesel)I forget whether the Freelander 1 L series is EDC1.3.1 or EDC15M but either way it worksTD5Jatco transmissionTemic V1 airbag (early 25/45/75)AB Autolive airbag (late 25/45/75)RC5/EC5 airbag (MGF)Siemens Airbag 1 (Freelander 1)ABS5.0/5.3 (MGF/25/45)ABS5.7 (75)Teves Mk25 ABS (late Freelander 1)5AS alarmPektron alarmMGF EPAS power steeringMGTF135/LE500 service light reset Currently I'm working on Teves Mk20 (Freelander 1 ) and Landrover GEMSQuailty. Would it be able to do a remap on a diesel 45? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieselnutjob Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 I'm afraid not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pillock Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Not really, a Rover 75 cost considerably more than a Mondeo 1.8 LX. They were pitching it at 3 series and Audi A4 money. That was the other problem, it had no export appeal whatsoever. In Spain for example they aren't rushing out looking for wood and leather, they don't really 'get' it. Yeah, I guess I worded my point badly. Both the Mondeo and Skoda have gone from "meh" to "oooooh" levels of desirability simply by getting better, letting people know they're better cars, and waiting. When the Rover desirability started waning, instead of making the cars better and keeping the prestige element so the customers would come back, they started chopping away at the nice bits. So they lost their traditional customers who like wood, leather and nice finishing touches but also were never going to get the Mondeo market because of a few bits of fake plastic wood. They were left in limbo with zero market. AMC Rebel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldcars Posted March 19, 2018 Share Posted March 19, 2018 Some of the stuff makes sense, like not having a Rover branded key when you're going to be making MG branded cars. But yeah, creating whole new cheaper things to replace stuff like sill plates, shaving 5mm off the width if bloody stingy. How did you replace the rear light bulbs once they'd removed the access hatch?You have to pull all the "quality" boot lining material out. Pest to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMC Rebel Posted March 19, 2018 Share Posted March 19, 2018 You can blame Bernard Pinchinstrider for that. They wanted to push Rover upmarket, over a cliff , and nab Mini and Land Rover as cheap as poss not actually knowing full well that the Rover brand wasn't worth a wank at that point. FTFY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMC Rebel Posted March 19, 2018 Share Posted March 19, 2018 They really ought to have fucked all this wood and leather stuff off in the seventies. But instead they knew better, as if it would have some sort of renaissance. I dunno why you think so - contemporary BMWs, Rangies, Jeeps, Mercedes and Saabs (just off the top of my head) all had it. Lacquer Peel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bub2006 Posted March 19, 2018 Share Posted March 19, 2018 22mpg in a Kia Carens. Christ. What DID it have going for it? Not that much in the grand scheme of things! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wuvvum Posted March 19, 2018 Share Posted March 19, 2018 I'm afraid not.Bumhats. Do you know if there's anyone still around who can? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dollywobbler Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 I'm collecting this vehicle in a week's time! That's pretty darned exciting. I've just enjoyed reading back, fist-pumping every time Mr Boll fixed something that was broken and scaring my cat. I'm most excited to discover it has cloth rather than leather seats. I hate leather. loserone, rml2345, Shonky and 6 others 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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