Attn. Rover 620ti owners past and present, Gearbox question.

Just wondering after reading about fishman and lordy recently having their gearboxes fail, what milage have peoples gone at? I'm sure I read somewhere that it's around 80,000 miles it goes, I've done 78,000, but asked the garage to check the box when they had it out at a clutch change around 66,000 they said it was still good but you never know.

I drive 'fairly' conservatively, don't ever crunch the box, will it run to 100,000+ or am I gonna find I'll need to be splashing out this year for a rebuild?

Cheers

Austin

Reply to
aust_powers
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Hello, I had an 820 Vitesse, which is the same engine and gearbox (T16 Turbo + PG1) combination. Mine was the non-torsen box with 180bhp engine, so although 17bhp less the non-torsen box is slightly weaker.

Anyway, the diff bearings went between 110 and 120 thousand miles, so if treated well yours could last that long. Wheel spinning starts and accelerating hard round bends will kill the bearings quicker. The reason is they are plastic-caged bearings. If you are worried, then get the diff bearings replaced with steel-caged bearings now, then the box should last as long as the rest of the car.

To help extend the existing bearings life, ensure the box is only filled with Rover MTF94 (i think that's the number) gear oil. On the 820, 10w40 engine oil was specified for top ups and sometimes it's been known for people to drain and fill the box with pure 10w40, this isn't suitable. If you don't know the car's history, it could be a wise precaution to drain and fill with MTF94 now, it isn't that expensive from a Rover dealer or from a Partco branch, around £15 for enough to fill the box.

Also, get the car going in first and quickly change to second, then you can floor it without too much risk of spinning the wheels, although with worn tires i bet you can spin the wheels in third on a wet road.

Hope this helps, Paul

Reply to
P A Latham

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