Rover 600s

Well it's surely "more" modern then. Clearly as a car that was first sold in

Except that generally, it doesn't. It's only on rare occasions. As I've said, none of the ones I looked at when buying, had rust there.

Flat 240Nm torque-curve from 2100rpm upto 6000rpm makes for just about the best possible power-band you could ever hope for. I fail to see how it could be improved ?

What "turbo lag" ? Have you ever driven a TI ? Low-gearing and the little T25 blower, makes for a distinct lack of lag.

Me too, but only cos there's less to go wrong with the NA lump. That assumes they both make the same power and torque though - I'd rather have the Turbo if it made more/lower torque.

LOL :)

Of course not - the Rover 45 is an early-nineties Rover 400/Honda Civic in disguise. The focus is a much newer design.

conservative

Quite possibly. But it's still something to bear in mind when buying a Turbo car.

Only if they've only ever done long journeys. Turbos only really wear when cold (or when stopping with them still spinning :)

It doesn't suffer from this at all, unless you do it on purpose, in the wet. It's VERY hard to unstick the front tyres in the dry !

Yeah, there is some torque steer. But it's something you simply "get used to" (you simply have to hold the steering wheel tightly :), and as you say, affects all fwd-cars to some extent.

Ever driven a TI ? How many of the above use the same TorSen diff (answer : Zero) ? It does an EXCELLENT job of sorting things out, considering the limitations of the chassis, and the 200bhp it has to handle.

Depreciation is it's best feature - only a loon would buy a new TI :)

Fuel Bills and Tax would be almost the same. Insurance is quite a bit cheaper for the TI, than other 2.0 Turbo cars, including the Fiat. Servicing costs are much cheaper for the TI, as indicated above.

And remove the engine, then put it back in...

Um. If you're just gonna do half a job, then what's the point ?

Ditto. I bought it because it was cheap. If they were double the price (which seems to be the going-rate for an "equivalent" (but better) car, then I wouldn't have given it a second glance.

Heh - if you do a few miles, you'd be a loon to run a 2.0 Turbo car :)

Oh yeah, I know hen the oil is cold, and not flowing through properly. I tend to keep the revs down below 3k (just as boost is building) until warm, and the Saab manual states to keep it below 2500-3k until then, as does the sticker on the back of the sun visor.

hopefully previous owners (2) saw this too, and followed it, because otherwise, it seems in average nick for a 19 year old car.

Doesn't have to be that modern. Almost all (all I think) have an oil feed cooling the turbo othewise the bearings would fry.

Slightly newer (i.e late 80's onwards) have water and oil cooling, wihich means idling down at the end of a fast run isn't essential anymore, just desirable.

In the old Oil only days, turbo would still be spinning at stupid revs after the engine was switched straight off, and only ha dthe oil present in the bearings at the time which lead to the oil coking, and the bearings going dry and wearing out.

It's slow in comparison. Anything can be 'better handling' if it's not being moved around as fast :)

The one we had was nothing special.

rotflmao.

How come they rust then ?

I like it, yea. But it still looked dated 10 years ago, never mind now.

Screamer ?

You'd need the extra power just to get anywhere remotely near the levels of performance the 620 provides. And whether an extra 30bhp is enough to overcome the extra 150 kilos it carries is open to debate.

ok, no debate about it - the extra 30bhp *isn't* enough to overcome the extra 150 kilos :)

TI's turbo has water and cooling, and an oil-cooler for said oil (mounted infront of the intercooler, next to the radiator) - I fail to see how things could be any cooler :)