Rover 45. Sell it to me

[Guest bangerfan101]

My daily shitter ford ka is just about had it due to tin worm and been ragged day in day out to building sites. Locally I've seen a 1.4 rover 45 for not too much money.

 

What do I need to look out for with this poor man civic?

[rantingYoof]

K-series engine, although the phear shouldn't be too strong as weren't they getting a little better by the late 1990s/early 2000s?

 

The main niggly issues with the 45 will be the door handles, which can break off from the outside and are a nightmare to put right, and the electric windows are quite content to fall down inside the doors if you so much as glance at them sternly.

 

Other bits, like the heater control switches, feel quite flimsy, but otherwise everything was okay.

 

Body work should be quite straight - my X-plated one had no rust on it at all - and generally speaking the lower spec models don't have much to actually go wrong. Seats are very comfy and I imagine the top spec ones with leather and leccy seats may benefit* from more electrical issues if the door-handles/windows are a sign of overall fitting quality.

 

In two years mine never did anything other than go where I pointed it, and it handled well, although I had the purely agricultural L-series 2.0TD version which was fucking marvellous from the point of view that it never did less than 50mpg and was only 30Nm short of a 3.0 V6 Omega in terms of torque (and it weighed oh-so-much less).

 

If you can find a 2.0TD then go for it, but generally speaking I'd recommend them.

[egg]

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201602100903690/usedcars?logcode=visc

 

Alternatively...get a 4 door Civic! (£395)

 

 

[Shandylegs]

Interior and boot leaks are more or less standard features. If that isn't a worry then great to smoke around in and v cheap, mainly because nobody wants them

 

How do i know? (Got one  sat here from Christmas that nobody shows the slight interest in buying!)

[Asimo]

On ours (0 to 145,000 miles K Series 1.4)

Radiator was very fragile, holed by stone and then just by corrosion.

Clutch failure because the slave cylinder bracket broke.

Front brakes seized on after someone - not me - fitted the pads incorrectly.

 

Very comfy for a small car. Hatchback lock makes painfull dents in your head if you are tall.

Gear change is light and quick. Steering pretty good for a FWD, massively better than the Civic that came after it. Made me a K series fan. No HGF, No engine aggro at all really until it died of big ends and then catastrophic seize due to "I was going to tell you about the orange light when I got home"

[sierraman]

Hard shoulder, M5, steam, acrid smell from under bonnet... Down £500...

 

No seriously, could be worth a punt esp if the HG has been done. Any car at this money could've a gamble. I've know people buy 'bulletproof' Mercs, BMW's etc and they've collapsed in a heap of shit so you never can tell.

[Jollyfckr]

I had a 2004 one as a London - Madrid commuter over two years, never a moment's bother, gave it to a friend who still uses it as a daily. I've never had HGF on any of my K series thankfully and all having well over 150k when I parted with them

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Mine has a broken door handle and shonky winder mech. Still a great car though. I was told the front end metalwork was totally re-engineered from the Rover 400 so they could get the V6 in, they are much more different under the skin than they look.

[HH-R]

Not a great deal goes wrong, other than as said the K series HGF. I never had leaks or handles break even at 10+ years old but they're common faults.

 

1.4 pulls it along well enough, the one I had was pretty poor to drive IMO. Body roll that gave absolutely no confidence on roundabouts, though I never actually lost traction. Maybe mine was knackered in some way? They can have driveline shunt in low speed traffic too, apparently the design of the engine mounts. The Rover 75 seats rob space inside the cabin and I could never get a comfortable driving position, the passenger seat will forever be back and forth depending on if you have more than one passenger and as a result the SRS light often came on, though the connectors just need pushing together under the seat.

 

Boot is nice and big.

 

Rear trailing arm bushes can go and is a pig of a job.

 

Cost cutting began in 2001 and by 02 plates lots of stuff had been taken out. The interiors were still decent quality though. Post 53 plate ish they got a mild facelift inside with two tone interiors and different wood inserts, not sure if anything was removed or cheapened - knowing MGR it will have been a certainty. The 2004 facelifts had a completely different interior and presumably lots of changes under the bonnet like using the Ford IB5 gearbox, Lucas control units replaced with Pektron like in 25.

[rantingYoof]

My 2.0TD lost traction in fourth gear on a particularly greasy bit of road. Well impressed woz I.

 

If I am correct the hatchbacks had spec levels denoted by Ls and Xs (mine was an iXL or something obscure), and the saloons had the Classic/Coinesseur/Pantalons style spec system.

 

My hatchback happily took two people on holiday to the Welsh mountains - two people who go OMG PACK ALL THE THINGS - and during that holiday it blatted around the Brecons very nicely and tackled one in five gradient hills and did a hill-start on such a hill after suddenly encountering the largest tractor ever made without so much as a whimper and STILL did the trip from the east Midlands, around the Brecons, and back on less than half a bloody tank of fuel.

 

It does have a soft-spot in my heart, it does.

 

[HH-R]

My dad had a diseasel iXL in the same colour, velour interior. It was a great car. He had it for nearly 10 years and other than the turbo pipe blowing and a battery dying, it needed nothing from 30 to 120k or whatever he had it to.

 

Only car he's not had to replace out of being knackered, the signum and Bravo he's had since have been epic fails reliability wise.

[rantingYoof]

£500 dizzler for shale here.

 

The 2014 advisories will make you wince, but the work done for the 2015-2016 MOT should make you feel reassured*.

 

 

 

 

 

*

[23rdian]

Got one here. They are a nice comfy car but it's had HGF plus clutch and gearbox failure.

 

Quite fun to drive though I have to say esp on the fairly skinny standard tyres.