SMMT sales figures for June have been released, Rover sales are -42% and MG Sales are -19%.
Hyundai Group (Hyundai/Kia) sold more cars last month than MG-Rover. Kia has also overtaken the Hyundai brand for sales in the UK.
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I guess Hyundai/Kia will now just say thats enough market share now,best leave some sales for the others.
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Interesting to see how the Piccanto boosts Kia's sales. I went to have a look at one the other day - don't look too bad in the flesh.
At £6250 for the LX model, complete with air con, they are astonishing value compared to anything else available. Only thing that worries me (as a Toyota driver) is the reliability. Reports on US sites seem mixed. I'd be interested to hear from any Kia drivers about their experience.
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Are you getting your hands on a Cerato for a road test HJ ?
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The Kia Sedona is also astonishingly good value for money of you want that type of barge (which I may do when child no. 3 arrives and we have to visit the outlaws in London). No wonder sales are up.
Hyundai Trajets are also being sold off at good prices, so they appear to be far better value for the school run that any 4x4 or Sharalaxy clone.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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The Kia Sorento 4x4 is also selling very well.
The Sorento is a Discovery sized 'proper' 4x4 for the price of a Freelander. It has had very good reviews and recently won a '4x4 of the year' award.
Here in Leicestershire I have seen several Sorentos towing horseboxes, a job for which its 3 ton towing capacity and low-ratio gearbox make it ideally suited.
As anyone who went round the off-road course at the motor show in a Sorento will confirm, it is hard to beat at the price if you need a real off-roader.
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>>Interesting to see how the Piccanto boosts Kia's sales. I went to have a look at one the other day - don't look too bad in the flesh.
I've also been and had a good look at one. I'm impressed with the design, the build quality and the professional approach of the local dealer. IMO the front looks a bit heavy head-on (body coloured grill doesn't help here) but otherwise it looks every bit a quality supermini at a bargain price. Apart from the tiny boot there is quite a lot of room available with space behind me in the drivers seat (I'm 6') for my teenage son who thought the head off JVC unit with MP3 "cool" as he did with the rest of the car.
I also get the impression that if I did buy one, a greater percentage of my £6,495 would be in the car and not subsidising swanky dealer premises.
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last time i checked - there is no base 1.0 cars in the uk.
they seem to be in the sea somewhere?
good car, great upfront head room - miles better than clio and micra in such respect.
would be interestede in one but still not convinced by kia/hyundai ability to resist rust and quality of paint work - picanto seems better but still of the mark.
ALso not convinced the group have mastered the art of the gear box.
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I was reading a brief test of the Rover 75 1.8T today (Guardian?) and I think the best summary is 'damned with faint praise'. There was nothing particularly wrong, but nothing special either. No real USP other than cheaper than equivalent Audi.
I rented a Hyundai Getz a few months ago - can't remember the engine size but it was well built, spacious and pretty quick. Far better than a City Rover I'm sure.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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started to see a few city rovers about.
one caught me on m6 outside lane and i was doing around 90 - so they must have speed going for them.
they actually look quite good - accept for the ironic british badge on boot! maybe its to represent the commonwealth!
getz is a great litle car - with the exception of the gearbox which aint unto much. Hyundai are refusing to acknowledge problem with selecting reverse on their cars including the getz. Think kia have same problem.
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Kia and Hyundai share gearboxes made by Borg Warner.
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306 2.0 SE Cabriolet
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Do Rover really deserve such bad luck? They produce some really good cars except their last little effort (the City Rover isn't it called?) More bad news seems to attract more bad news. I believe that is what has happened. The press love to remind us that Rover is in decline and guess what the public seem to be believing it. Rover cars may have slightly dated models but their quality and reliability must be better than the French. The dealer service is generally very good. I'm not afraid to stick up for them. Mikey.
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I'm tempted to trade in a faithful K reg BMW 518 110,000m. for one of the one year old Rover 75s at £9995 advertised in Saturday's Telegraph (and there's loads of them on their website), but messages about poor sales and unavailability of parts put me right off.
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The model facelifts were publicised heavily in April/May especially the 75 and 45. Bearing in mind every car at Longbridge is made to order, no orders, no production.
Longbridge last week had to halt production due to the fact they had used up all their components also it has been operating a full day on Sunday at the moment offering workers overtime.
Expect sales of the facelifted models to pick up.
And Rover 75's don't need parts.
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If I was considering buying a Rover 75 with the Hi-power diesel and auto, what other cars does it complete against, and is it any good against them?
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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If I remember rightly Rover don't do a 75 Tourer diesel auto - maybe they do the saloon?
A bit off thread, but it's not at all easy to get a diesel auto estate. I didn't fancy a Mondeo (too large - I'm a "lifestyle estate" buyer!) but couldn't find diesel autos for Mazda6, Rover, Jag X type, Volvo V50.
That's why I ended with the A4 Avant multitronic - the good price helped.
Does nobody want diesel autos?
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Does nobody want diesel autos?
Most of the market growth is driven by company car drivers looking for low CO2 outputs (=lower tax). As the auto gearbox tends to put the CO2 level back up, and/or dent the performance they haven't been selling.
The notable exception is the VAG DSG, which I understand now accounts for 50% of Audi A4 sales - they've been stealing market share from the other prestige brands at a huge rate.
Some of the Audi forums are commenting on a high level of DSG failures. I think that Audi are prepared to accept a number of these in return for the sales they're making. The interesting time will come when the DSGs are out of warranty - if the failure rate remains high when people have to pay for their own repairs we could see the residuals go flat.
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They do do 75 Tourer diesel autos. I had a go in one at the Motorshow and thought it a lovely car. OK, I know we were only driving through cones around the carpark, and it was a very high-spec version, but gearchange was smooth and engine quiet.
Anyway, wanting to be as patriotic as possible this time, I have just bought a nearly new ZT-T (petrol - diesel was out of my price range) from a local MG Rover dealer who also has franchises for various other makes, and so far so good.
Fly the flag!!
I also agree that bad news seems to breed bad news. What a shame it is.
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I'd better take a look at these forums (fora? did Latin at school too).
When you say DSG,do your mean multitronic belt/chain/variable diamter pulley system? Or the "manual" gearbox worked electrically? It all gets a bit confusing.
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No luck finding anything about auto failures in any Audi forum. Probably best as I've bought one now.
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DSG is the clever electronically controlled manual which VAG have. It has two clutches and seems fiendishly clever - as far as I can see, all the advantages of an auto, but the responsiveness of a manual. In some models they even have launch control!
(Marlot, I changed a word to the word I thought you meant to have typed. If it\'s wrong, scream and I\'ll change it back. HJ)
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The talk I heard was that VAG were replacing about 1 DSG gearbox a day at the moment. I'm sure that some of that is backlog, but there seems lots of talk about the cars hesitating, cars going into 'limp home' mode, dealers being told to fill the boxes to a quarter of a litre higher than the 'full' mark, etc. Despite that, if I were taking a company Audi, I'd choose the DSG for the driving and tax advantages.
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Although sales are down for Rover, in fairness last June (which is what sales are being compared to) had a "blip" with a large fleet sale which meant they were highly unlikely to repeat June 2003 figures.
There's also the issue of facelifted 25 & 45's just coming online which may have made some odd complete month figures.
It is bad news for Rover, but not as bad as it may appear at first sight.
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I've had my MG ZT for approaching 18 months now and not one single, little thing has gone wrong. There are no creaks or rattles ala Passat, no electrical problems (Passat again) and the service cost £105. The car is a joy to drive and sounds great.
The only downside I'm about to experience is two new tyres at nearly £180 each.
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Midlife, I've had my CDTi coming up for 15 months, nothing, nada, not a thing go or a peep from the car in way of a rattle or squeak.
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We are on our 3rd 75, well to be precise we had two 75's and now a MG ZT. The first one unfortunately got written off at only 14 months old so we didn't put many miles on it but we had no problems.
Our second one, a 2.5 V6 did over 100K in three years with no big problems. There was the odd little thing but nothing much. Far more trouble-free than some German makes we have had.
Third one is our new rather nice MG ZT... enjoying it very much, she's great.
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Agree Mikey - the media in this country seems to take great delight from knocking what's left of our car industry and many other things too. I'm not quite sure what their agenda is and what they hope to achieve but I wish they'd stop. It seems they want Rover to fail so they've got something else to whine about. Can't imagine this sort of thing happens in many other countries. Does the French media have a crusade against Renault or the German press against VW? I doubt it. This is one reason I no longer buy newspapers.
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I think the recent Rover facelifts don't work. I drove a 75 recently, not very far, but it semed a lovely car. But Rover haven't kept up the momentum.
Here's my formula:
I'd be pitching Rover cars at VW in terms of image, quality and price.
I'd make the MG and Rover cars more different, sharing floorpans and some mechanicals but with distinctive bodyshells (a la VW/SEAT/Skoda).
I'd revive the Morris name as a budget brand. Each time a new generation Rover model is introduced, the outgoing model could be handed over to the Morris team. They would rework and update the old design at a fraction of the cost of developing a new model. This would enable a shorter model replacement cycle. Instead of a ten year production run, a design could do, say, six years as a Rover and six more reincarnated as a Morris.
I'd get back into the car-derived van market.
I'd revive the Riley name for an upmarket luxury brand (assuming that's permissible).
There'd be the matter of money, of course.
Cheers, Sofa Spud
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I might be wrong but didn't BMW retain the right to many Austin/Rover names, eg. Riley... about to be shot down in flames.
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Not only did BMW retain Riley & Triumph, I also think they retained Rover. The Rover name was only licensed to MG Rover. This was a condition Ford put on the purchase of Land Rover to prevent MGR using the Rover name on 4x4 vehicles and confusing the brands.
Whether the Rover name was later handed over I do not know.
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Sad that I remembered seeing this but there's a nice table of all the names and the current owners at www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?namesf.htm
It seems that MGR own most of the names but only acquired them at the end of last year. BMW does still own the Rover name. What they'd want with the rights to Riley or Triumph now is beyond me.
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No fools, are they, BMW? Apart from buying the wretched company in the first place, that is... They seem to have left most of the naff, silly names with MGR and taken the best for themselves.
MGR should die, and quickly. This company can't compete now with the major car industry players, and I wouldn't buy something sub-standard for reasons of "patriotism". It's embarrassing watching them crassly trying to peddle outdated, poorly finished, overpriced cars. Looking at their products, it's obvious MGR is run by people with no more commercial or stylistic sense than the management of 30 years ago. The demise of MGR would give British people one fewer thing to feel ashamed of.
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To AN Other.
I would wait for RDX/60, penned by Peter Stevens and now with SAIC's money it's going to come out as a saloon, hatchback, estate, MPV derivative and 'other' variants . The saloon should be available end 2005 and it is thought SAIC have signed off the saloon for joint Sino-Anglo manufacture. Knowing what John Towers did with project R8 in the 1980s and 90s, it does look like a very encouraging prospect.
It's thought pending Chinese government approval, SAIC are about to step in a inject £400m into MGR to develop RDX/60. Of course, is this reported in the press? Don't be silly, one month of bad sales figure during a model changeover is a much better news story.
Or how about the factory currently working weekends on full shifts to meet orders? So many orders that the suppliers can't supply components quick enough. Nah, don't be ridiculous, MGR enjoying a sales boom for its new facelifts, how silly.
MGR have a deal with a Chinese car maker (No.2 in China) to make modern cars, not GM or VW 20-year old hand-me-downs. They have India's largest conglomerate on side (TATA) and it looks as if they are very close to getting a platform deal with Proton for Gen2 which as its developed by Lotus seems to be a very capable platform. These are proper partnerships, not licensing deals, sharing technology and design expertise. MGR are building alliances that other manufacturers do not want to do preferring to keep them at arms length. This mean MGR gets economies of scale on components, they are getting platforms, they are in joint development for new engines, especially diesels.
As for a 75 being 'outdated, poorly finished and overpriced' it beats the Passat and Laguna hands down in customer surveys. The 75 is more reliable, offers better equipment, is finished better and is priced more competitively than the Passat and Laguna.
As for the current management having 'no commerical or stylistic sense'. Well they've kept the company running 10 times longer than many of the so-called 'experts' said they would. No only that but the MG Z-range has been met with very positive reviews.
As for the ZR, it's competing very nicely as the UK's biggest selling hot hatch, the 75 is the No.2 seller in its segment behind only the BMW 3-series. The TF is still the No.1 selling sports car in the UK also.
Incidentally 30 years ago, Rover had the Land Rover, Range Rover and P6 all doing very, very well indeed in terms of sales.
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As for a 75 being 'outdated, poorly finished and overpriced' it beats the Passat and Laguna hands down in customer surveys.
So you're saying it's not as bad as cars which aren't very good? Wow, that's an achievement....
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But is Rover going to be the major partner or will it be swallowed up by the others?
I've seen very little in the motoring press recently about any future direction for Rover beyond high powered developments of its existing range.
Re names - Riley was a big name in pre-war British sports cars, long before it got swallowed up into the BMC soup of badge engineering on its way via to British Leyland to oblivion.
Cheers, Sofa Spud
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I saw my first CityRover yesterday. If you value exclusivity above all else its got to be THE car to buy. Far less common than a BMW 318i.
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Maybe it would be better if Phoenix Venture Holdings were to be made to drop the names it uses for the vehicles it sells, to start out with a completely fresh identity and see whether it can really hack it in a fiercely competitive market.
Let's face it, these cars may be many things, good or bad, but they are NOT Rovers or MGs. Rovers were made at Solihull, MGs at Abingdon - end of story.
The venture capital company that now produces cars at the old Austin plant at Longbridge and in conjunction with what is fast becoming a ragbag of Far Eastern businesses should be made to stop using the names of famous former British makes in what is no more than a cynical marketing exercise aimed at lame-brained potential buyers.
A few years ago one guy I worked with told me he had picked a 'Rover' 400 as his company car because it was made by BMW and the closest he would ever get to owning a BMW! Can you credit that someone could be so deluded? Being, at that time, a real Rover (P6 Three Thousand Five) owner, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
No, call them b-st-rdised BMWs, b-str-dised Hondas, Tatas or Shanghais or whatever from now on and let's see how the market reacts when potential buyers have to face the truth!
BTW, Honda seems to be able to supply, without drama, parts for the cars it made in conjunction with 'Rover', so where's 'Rover's' problem?
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