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Having just had my much loved Rover 214is written off for me on the delightful M25 am faced with having to find something else. Have just test driven a Rover 25 1.8 GTi W reg and wonder whether anyone out there could comment on this model. Its got 16500 on the clock and apart from being in a boring blue seems not too bad. Thanks Maz
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Very underrated car. Good engine, but not sure about its reliability. I'd have one.
I saw one go through Blackbushe Auction (in a job lot MG Rover sale) on a Y Plate with 26,000 miles for £4700. That was the only one i saw go through, but i understand that there were more there. Most dealers charge about £6k +, so i would advise going to the auction.
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Check for full service history, this is the VVC engine from the MGF, and needs proper servicing to avoid problems later on. Otherwise it's a good 'un, some like them more than the MG ZR.
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Thought Thursdays was commercials only?
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Keep your eyeballs on the coolant and oil levels, warm the engine up before 'progress' and keep it properly serviced and it won't give you any grief. My neighbour has had her 25 1.4 for four years, likes it and hasn't had any grief.
If I remember right, the 1.8 GTi is a bit of sleeper, I don't think it carries a GTi badge.
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Isn't this basically the same K Series engine fitted to the Freelander? And wasn't the Freelander on Watchdog the other day for headgasket problems?
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Ta for the info. Had to keep an eye on the levels with my poor little 200. You're right about it being a sleeper as there is nothing on the car at all to say it is a GTi - nice wheels tho!
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The Watchdog programme was a catalogue of complaints from owners with K-series problems going back over three years. In fact, Watchdog had to put an addendum to the programme the following week to say that Powertrain had made a number of modifications to the 1.8 K in 2000 and the number of reported HGF had subsequently fallen. The programme wasn't helped by a 'technical' expert that not only had the wrong gasket on the show but also didn't know what MGR had done to resolve these failures.
The list includes:
Redesigned gaskets.
New metal locator dowels in the head and upper block.
New revised tolerance stretch bolts.
Of course, Land Rover said any problems and they wouldn't argue with customers and do any rectification work free of charge. They didn't say that the engine had a problem, that was Watchdog's deduction. But then, this is the Discovery we are talking about, not the most reliable of cars.
The K-series engine is one of the most proven and successful car engines of all time. Used in racing and a range of cars from 1.1L to 2.5L, almost two million of them have been manufactured. It is still one of the highest-tech engines around, the casting techniques are patented by MGR and licensed to companies like Jaguar and Aston Martin for their engine manufacture.
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