RFU rescues a Rover 620ti - Road trip!

7,683 · August 26, 2025

I should have spent more timing taking a closer look at this when it was at Brands. I had forgotten how much work you had put into it.

22,802 · November 22, 2025

It's been a while since my last update but there's been very little to mention recently - tomorrow will be 1 year since it arrived to me in a rather sorry state on a trailer!

Obligatory jet wash photo from last month

And here with it's new stablemate

It's recently clicked over 123,000 miles so that's around 5000 miles covered so far in my ownership

Reliability has been on point, however there are a few jobs I'd like to tackle which will mean its probably going to spend a bit of time off road

- Oil and coolant leaks - it appears the sump gasket I fitted last year has failed already - as I previously mentioned when fitting it there's an annoying design flaw where there are captive washers within the gasket for the diesel models which aren't needed for the petrol engine - I'm not surprised that over time this has compromised the sealing properties of the gasket. I think I'll just remove it and refit the sump with a decent RTV sealer instead.

- Coolant is leaking from the radiator (very slowly, I'm having to top-up every 500 miles or so) - there is also a leak from the front metal coolant rail which I replaced previously - caused by the hardened rubber hoses going to the turbo. This is a job I was dreading because I'll have to take it apart and find a solution which was inconvenient as I was using the car quite a bit. Now I have the 45 I'll be able to delve into this and get it sorted.

- The front anti roll bar links I fitted for last year's MOT have started to perish already - I'll likely source the Honda accord polybush links that are available for about £50 to rectify this once and for all before the next MOT.

- Engine mounts - I've noticed that the car can be quite "jerky" on and off the throttle - I suspect this may not be helped by the polybush engine mounts it has fitted which I appreciate were fitted in crisis by @fatharris when doing the clutch. I've seen some bushes listed by DMGRS stating they're for the upper tie bar and lower steady bar - I'm tempted to try these but I'm not sure how much difference they'll make if any. I wondered if @fatharris you can recall whether there was any noticeable change when the polybushes were fitted?

- The cold running issue that has plagued this car for a while doesn't seem to have been too bad lately - it almost always seems a bit hesitant for the first 30 seconds when cold but I can get around that by letting it warm up a bit for 5 minutes while demisting the car anyway on these colder mornings. My current suspicion could be something relating to the injectors and/or pre-cat lambda sensor. I've considered sending the injectors off to be tested on a rig - I wouldn't be surprised if they've deteriorated given their age and miles covered. It probably wouldn't be too much hassle to back probe the lambda sensor with a scope and see what it's doing either.

I'd love to be able to get my hands on a suitable diagnostic tool for this car. I believe there's someone local to me with a dealer T4 tool but I'd much prefer to have a PScan or something so that I can play with it at my own leisure

There's been no improvement to the occasional fast idle when starting where it will hold the revs at 2k RPM - restarting the engine cures it without fail. I've tried the stepper motor reset to no avail.

Lastly, I've noticed some water ingress into the boot so I would like to strip everything out to investigate and hopefully rectify this

9,150 · November 22, 2025

The poly bushes made it feel a bit tighter but I didn't notice any undue harshness.

I still miss this bloody car! One that got under my skin for sure.

I found a lot of the boot moisture was condensation on the inside of the boot lid as Rover in their infinite wisdom didn't do a bootlid lining on these! There's also a well known failing of the lower rear screen seal clips if I recall correctly.

22,802 · November 22, 2025

24 minutes ago, fatharris said:

The poly bushes made it feel a bit tighter but I didn't notice any undue harshness.

I still miss this bloody car! One that got under my skin for sure.

I found a lot of the boot moisture was condensation on the inside of the boot lid as Rover in their infinite wisdom didn't do a bootlid lining on these! There's also a well known failing of the lower rear screen seal clips if I recall correctly.

Ah cheers, I didn't know that about the seal clips. From what I've seen there's quite a bit coming through on the nearside below the boot hinge in the cubby area - it might also be coming via the aerial which I've disturbed recently

22,802 · December 22, 2025

Blimey, time has flown and it's just occurred to me that MOT time is in 6 weeks!

I bought suitable USB-OBD cable from eBay and used some freeware to try and read the ECU for faults-

Reassuringly everything checked out ok, all the self tests appear to have passed and it wasn't reporting any faults for anything other than "coolant temperature fault" - I'm not sure if this is historical because the MEMS ECUs do not have any self clearing capabilities but I cleared the fault and will recheck soon to see if it's returned.

I was able to see the O2 sensor working as it should so that at least saves me from a failed parts cannon attempt.

Also; what's the unspoken rule?

See another Rover, park next to it

14,860 · December 22, 2025

14 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Also; what's the unspoken rule?

1. why fix, just buy another

2. never meet your heros

3. cable ties fix everything

4. park next too a similer car

5.1 car is never enough

22,802 · January 4

Time to get this ready for an MOT - I gave it a pre-MOT and the only failures I could find were disappointingly the TRW branded anti roll bar links which I only replaced last year! - I spotted a few things which may be worthy of an advisory tester dependant.

I attempted to fit the new radiator -

But was very pissed off to find they'd sent me a 420 diesel rad which is nothing like the one on the advert and won't fit the 620.

Annoyingly I ordered it on eBay about 4 months ago and stupidly didn't check it when it arrived. Hopefully they'll take it back.

In the mean time I've ordered another one from Autodoc (couldn't find any others in the UK) as well as the anti roll bar links from them, £6 each for Lemforder ones. Hopefully they might last more than a year!

Structurally the car seems solid so I don't expect any more welding marathons for the foreseeable

Once I've got the radiator and anti roll bar links fitted I'll book it in for an MOT.

22,802 · January 25

Couldn't help but park next to and snap a photo of this superbly shonky Pug 205 "Trio" today

22,802 · January 26

This time a pair of new Lemforder front anti roll bar links, let's hope these last more than the year the previous set lasted 😅

MOT is booked for this coming Saturday 🤞

9,150 · January 26

Fingers crossed the old girl does you proud!

12,121 · January 26

Great work! I would love to try a Ti one day.

I've got a 'is it a ti m8' 620Si with the Honda 2.0 engine. Absolutely brilliant car. It's never really set a foot wrong in 5 years of daily driving.

One thing I have recently noticed is it's feeling a bit wayward over bumps, it sort of sways from side to side when you go over them. The roads around me aren't great but this is new, it never used to do it. Any ideas where I could focus my attention on? Tyres are pretty new. The MoT is coming up soon so I'm hoping to get the jobs it needs sorted beforehand.

22,802 · January 26

17 minutes ago, Angrydicky said:

Great work! I would love to try a Ti one day.

I've got a 'is it a ti m8' 620Si with the Honda 2.0 engine. Absolutely brilliant car. It's never really set a foot wrong in 5 years of daily driving.

One thing I have recently noticed is it's feeling a bit wayward over bumps, it sort of sways from side to side when you go over them. The roads around me aren't great but this is new, it never used to do it. Any ideas where I could focus my attention on? Tyres are pretty new. The MoT is coming up soon so I'm hoping to get the jobs it needs sorted beforehand.

It could well be like mine where it turned out 2 diagonally opposed (nearside rear and offside front IIRC) shock absorbers had jammed almost solid 😅

A bounce test on each corner is how I deduced this was my issue. It took me by surprise because it's not often that shock absorbers go stiff, they usually just lose their dampening effect.

https://streamable.com/bulpuf

Hopefully you can see the difference between the 2 sides on this video. The offside is the bad one.

What did it for me was on the first real drive I had in this car after all the work last year, there was a dip in a national speed limit road and the rebound felt through the car took me by surprise which is what prompted me to check the shock absorbers, @fatharris always said the ride seemed harsh - it's noticeably smoother now. What happened was that you'd go over a speed bump and the entire car would bounce over it rather than the suspension soak it up. The fact it was the opposite shock across each axle made it quite wayward at times 😅

I got all 4 shocks for around £120 which I thought was very reasonable, rears Monroe from eBay and fronts TRW from Autodoc if I remember correctly.

22,802 · January 30

Gave it a wash ready for the MOT in the morning

18,286 · January 30

Saturday MOT? Fingers X

22,802 · January 30

Just now, High Jetter said:

Saturday MOT? Fingers X

Yes, shite friendly tester

22,802 · January 31

Clean bill of health giving another year on the road for the old girl

Tester was chuffed with it's condition, no advisories this year (the only one from last year I immediately repaired)

22,802 · April 21

The 620Ti has just swallowed up a 550 mile weekend trip with ease, visiting the Rustival pre-meet on Friday, Rustival itself on Saturday, Longships and Octagons and a visit to the Longbridge plant on Sunday and then finally on the way back home a visit to the Cowley mini plant (where I believe it would have rolled off the production line some 29 years ago?)

Averaged 36.2mpg which I think is remarkably good for what it is.

As always, it cleans up really well.