MG F purchase

Cooling system and head gasket failure see: -

Or instead of listening to the doom and gloom mongers, look at

All the "MX-5"s available in my budget turned out to be imported Jap "Eunos" Roadsters. The MGs were proper MGs !

The Mazda may well be the "better" sports car - loads of people seem to think so but who cares ?

I decided to buy my new (1996 P reg 1.8i VVC) MGF as soon as I saw it - The wife was very releived - she was not keen at all on the Mazdas.

I've not owned a 2 seater before and after an hour or so playing with my MGF this evening in the dark and cold with the roof down I'm blown away. I've not felt in control of so much power since I rode motorbikes. When I came back home I was grinning from ear to ear and probably lucky to still have a clean licence !

I can only agree, I don't think I have ever enjoyed driving so much in my life. Roof down at all opportunities (it only takes 10 seconds to put up or down), it is fantastic!

Graham

Don't buy one! I bought a 2001 MGF Trophy 18 months ago and it has been nothing but trouble and has broken down numerous times. Get a Mazda, much more reliable.

shamblesforge wrote:

I know people who own these cars and absolutely love driving them.

However, the original poster asked if there were problems he should look out for. A quick search of Google shows that there are. If his daughter goes ahead and purchases one, then some of the advice on preventative measures in the threads turned up by following the url (for example, changing coolant pipes which tend to rust) would be well worth following.

As does

She could look at mine ;-)

I'm selling it after a short period, I bought it for my wife who never really got on with it. I think it's great, but there you go. I bought it from someone I know, and for that reason I knew it had been looked after. The most common fault is the head gasket, as has been pointed out - but that tends to occur if you go thrashing it when the engine hasn't warmed up properly. As others have said, they're great fun, superb to drive and quite easy to maintain.

Seriously, if you're anywhere near Stafford you're more than welcome to come and have a look at it, it's in great nick, 1996 registered and 47500 on the clock, full service history, loads of extras and accessories. If you want any more info or some pics you can email me at c h ris.w est o n@ g m a i l . com. (Lose the spaces, obviously).

Cheers Chris weston

I've owned both an F and a TF, I bought the TF in MG Rover bankrupt stock sale, an ex demonstrator with 2000 miles on the clock. I was planning to keep my 97 MGF for a long, long time but they made me an offer I couldn't refuse!

I put 84,000 miles on my first MGF and found it to be an extremely reliable car, it only let me down once and that was when the head gasket went at 73,000 miles. Servicing and parts are cheap, the mechanicals are all from other Rover cars.

There will always be good and bad examples of any car, I have a friend with a new top spec Renault Laguna company car and it is always letting him down. I know 8 or 9 MGFs well and all are trouble free!

Regarding the head gasket, it isn't really a case of if but when it will fail, driving style seems to have little to do with it. Once repaired the engine is an extremely reliable unit. Again there are always the exceptions, people who haven't had a failure. Mine failed at low speed, I saw the Temp gauge rise and stopped just before it went into the red.

My MG dealer quoted me £1500+ for the repair, as I knew they would, however, as soon as my cars are out of dealer warranty they are serviced by a trusted local independant garage. They did my head gasket for £490 including parts and labour.

The parts list is not big, a new gasket set that includes a pair of steel locating dowels to replace the plastic dowels that are the cause of the head gasket failure, about £70. A new cambelt £17, it would be stupid not to replace this at 73,000 miles while the head is off! A head skim in case it was warped, £66. A few other odds and ends, they changed the filter and oil etc., the rest was labour and VAT.

My car was off the road for three days, they removed the head and sent it for a skim on day one, this was returned late on day two. On day three they put it back together and I picked the car up just after lunch.

If the car you look at has had a replacement head gasket it should be fine. The only thing to remember is that on an MGF the temp gauge is a

The TF does not suffer from the same head gasket problem as the F.

I'll second or even Third that !

The feeling of being pushed rather than pulled and with such nible control as well.

In the summer my partner and I go out for about 2 hours every Sunday without fail, roof down, watching the world drift by.

Cannot think of a more pleasurable experience, but totally fun to drive too.

But, those that dont dare to try (or even take the risk) will never know.

Alex (MG TF160)