416 si

A comfortable and economical car to drive

I bought my Rover 400 for only £400 a couple years ago and have travelled 16000 miles in it.
It's a lovely car to drive with good acceleration from its 1600 engine.
Smooth road holding and very comfortable seats.
I've driven many cars made in recent years but none have seats that you can feel you can sit in forever like the Rover ones.
The seller told me he'd replaced the head gasket with a stronger one, so I haven't had ti worry about that.
I had to replace the whole exhaust (4 sections including catalytic converter), at a cost of about £300 and also the plastic throttle body to a metal one, but now it runs fine.
The trim inside the car is a let down , as the ceiling material is sagging, but after 23 years, the body still has little rust.
The engine is robust, even suffering the loss of over 3 litres of oil and being driven at 100 mph after I failed to tighten the oil filter properly, but still runs fine.
I have replaced the cassette player with a cd player for only £30 and didn't need to rewire it.
17 litres of fuel generally gets me about 130 miles around town, or up to 200 miles on longer journeys.
For me having a car that doesn't ping at you whenever you forget to fasten your safety belt is a bonus.
And likewise this car doesn't have all the fancy electronics of modern cars, which for me is a relief.
The headlights are good and it has plenty of boot space with the option to fold down the rear seat.
I had a rover 100 with a 1.1 litre engine before, but this car is a big improvement in almost every way.
I think a hatchback might have been a bit more practical than this saloon.

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