Yes, I know they're powered by the head gasket muncher of the century, but... anyone had one / been in one?
On paper, they look quite good in terms of poke vs economy, and I'm thinking of getting one, so any experiences / opinions (other than the usual 'but it's a Rover, and it has a K series as well') etc., would be gratefully received.
-- JackH
In news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net, JackH decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows
Yup
They've got the VVC lump in, which doesn't seem to be anywhere near as bad, gasket wise.
I think they're ok, in a mid 80's hot hatch kind of way.
Shame they nearly all have bright red leather.
And that God-awful orange mouth?!
Mate had a vi from Yes car credit. ate 4 headgaskets. They gave him a Rover 400 in the end.
Been in one. Weird seating position and no headroom.
Only the BRMs, the Vi is subtley different from a normal 200 that's all.
But the same engine and running gear? Cool...
The one I'm interested in, has nice dark grey leather :-)
-- JackH
I dunno so much - if you hang around any of the Rover groups for a while, you soon become aware of various people posting up about head gasket failure on these, be it sitting in a 200 or 200 Tomcat.
Anyway... the one I'm considering had the head all done about 13k ago.
I bloody loved my 216 GTi Twin Cams, and my Nova GTE, so this could be a
*good* thing. ;-)
The one that currently has caught my eye, has lovely dark grey leather. :-)
-- JackH
Mid 80s but produced in the mid 90s?
*ding*
Surprisingly quick and nimble, driving position is a bit high but you can get used to it. BRM has ugly front mouth. 200vi with ordinairy alloys in a non metallic colour makes the ultimate in traffic light surprise for the corsa brigade. Interior is poor.
Hmmm...
Rover + K series + Yes Car Credit...
Now there's a nightmare of extreme theoretical mathematics that could only result in a positive result if using imaginary numbers...
He was warned about the possibilities of any car being a lemon, from them. He didn't listen.
You can get whole continents of maps on a PC without trouble, if you go=20 for an indash screen, it folds away hidden, if you go for a moulded=20 screen, it looks factory, it is only dashtop ones that look like s**te,=20 and are knickable if you don't remove them.
How much, if you wanted to buy one, would a decent audio system cost=20 that can do, DVD based GPS. People are working on using freely available overhead and=20 satalite photography data to overlay the road you are actually on, over=20 the map as an option. FM Radio (Soon to be AM/FM with RDS through a USB tuner card that the=20 MP3car boys are building) TV if you want it CD DVD movie DivX movie MP3 audio and MPEG movie
5.1 sound with direct coax output to a digital decoderYou can get most of this for about =A31000, and you get the fun of=20 building it. How much would ready built quality known name stuff cost to=20 do the same. The interfaces are getting quite cool now, skinable to fit the car=20 makers logos and choices of illumination colours, and very "factory"=20 touchscreen like. Have a look at
--=20 Carl Robson "Sorry Sir the meatballs are orf" (The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)
Indeed. PDA GPS is the way forward. With a 1GB SD memory card, you can fit just about every map on it you'll ever need, and still have room left. 300 quid buys a decent TomTom bluetooth set and a PDA.
Add to that another 200 quid for something like a Blaupunkt DAB/MP3 head unit and you're sorted. Especially in modern cars which tend to come with decent speakers as standard (my last few purchases have had factory fit sub woofers anyway).
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