Eight Years With A Rover

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Here's my experience

 

I've had this li'l beauty from new, cracking on 8 years now:

 

 

Not without a few issues, though. At 8 weeks old, this bugger JAMMED WIDE OPEN in Belfast rush hour traffic. New trousers required:

 

 

Shite metal throttle body. Replaced with an plastic one. I know that's arrse about face from the conventional wisdom, but it's been GR16:

 

 

 

Shite Eberspacher catalytic converter shat itself @ 14 k miles, collapsed.

 

 

Replacement £80=WIN

 

Smoky startup - an missing mesh breather filter - Thanks Powertrain!

 

 

An leaking camshaft cover gasket too. Fixxored by getting another from a WELL crashed almost new ZR 105.

 

 

CKP went boogaloo cheap cheap ten dorrar replacement (motor factors had no price list so he guessed)

 

 

Blower stopped working on all but full blast. This is the resistor pack. Pish of the lowest/highest order:

 

 

I made an replacement from ceramic resistors out of Maplins. Cost £1.30.

 

 

Rear screenwasher pipe split @ the NS tailgate grommet. New pipe aquired (Merc), surprisingly easy to feed through the tailgate and down into the rear quarter:

 

 

Joined inside rear quarter, anti return valve from a pet shop specialising in tropical fish!

 

 

Water pump replaced with timing belt and tensioner. Nothing up with the old ones, but while you're in there:

 

 

Wheel bearing phailed @22k miles. Harldy CLASSy:

 

 

Anyway, too many negative waves - the good stuff:

 

 

Replaced that shite mock-carbonfibre trim with proper wood. It's a Rover FFS, it should have WOOD. I couldn't decide which shade I liked, so I bought three sets, light, medium and dark. This is medium. MGZR leather steering wheel (not shown yet) (£5) and "Rover" sill strips (£0) as opposed to those plain ones. Passenger airbag (instead of that SILLY SHELF) £0. Electronic reprogramming of SRS to accept new airbag £0 as I fixed the blokes laptop. Since that photo was taken I have obtained proper tailored CLASS mats from eBay. £10, 80/20 wool mix too. I also got proper CLASS mudflaps fron an rolled, grass and mud on roof 25 XSESELLIEI. Or something.

 

 

Teh shininess, courtesy of Meguiars Wax of Rome (yes, I don't know either, my motor factor is a NUTTER)

 

 

 

Since I didn't introduce myself properly, here's a few moody shots (for moody read "crap") shots of where I'm from. If you're looking for photos of Carrickfergus Castle, you'll be disappointed, as it's generally surrounded by pikeys and dubious fairground rides these days. Or coachloads of Krauts.

 

Beautiful eastern County Antrim:

 

 

The Knockagh War Memorial (locally known as "the Needle in the Sky")

 

 

Close up

 

 

Humbling.

 

To the CLASS. I had to get shot of the fancy number plates, as ANPR can't see them. The copper who stopped me at a static VCP was cool about it, he said he thought the plates looked GR64, but I'd have to think about changing them. Pretty good, as some cnuts would give you a FPN for that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there you go. I didn't mention the leaking steering rack, the piston in the NS brake caliper going oval or the ignition switch needing replaced.

 

I have been offered, on a regular basis, to sell this car. My other car, also a Brummie, is a Jaguar S Type 3.0 V6. No-one's ever offered to buy my Jag, nice as it is.

 

I'm keeping my CLASS. Let's face it, it's worth neither half of jack sh1t money wise but it was the first and only brand new car I ever had. And it's BRILLIANT. I learned to drive in a Rover (mk1 216S) but I didn't buy the 25 for sentimental reasons. I bought it because of a quality you can't buy - CLASS.

 

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for looking.