Engine "cooked" Connie 1.8 se petrol (53)

[T-Cut]

The underlying reason for gasket failure in the 1.8 is coolant leakage. If you can keep the coolant inventory correct, it will last as well as any other engine. The problem is, a small leak in the 1.8 isn't like a small leak in the diesel. The 1.8 can't afford any loss whatsoever, so the emphasis must be on leak prevention. What this engine really needs is a proper I-bus temperature gauge (like the Schaaper digital) and a coolant level sensor like the one you can get for the MGFs. With those and a little attentiveness, you're laughing.

TC

[jonno12]

Originally Posted by ASMOTORS

Before I bought my Diesel 75, I did some thorough research about these cars. MG Rover did not design the Petrol engines well, they are all prone to HGF, even the 2.0 and 2.5, with some prone to irrepairable water/oil leaks on the side of the block (having seen 2 with similar fates). I knew the Diesel was very reliable, so the majority of 75's around today are the Diesel ones, they seem to last forever, they are very strong engines. The bits that fail on these are non engine related, but all Rover bits and pieces related, like Airbag Warning lights going off, etc.

Somehow, I think the Rover Engineers (English not German) deliberately did this, so that in the long term, they would make more money out of the customers, due to them having to keep going back to the dealers for various fix's. The whole mentality at MG Rover was wrong. Remember the old 200/400/600 series, well the Honda Engined 1.6's and 2.0's were the most reliable, the others, namely 1.4 and 1.8's were prone to HGF and generally unreliable.

Rovers Cars are beautifully crafted, well screwed together, with soft supple rides and comfort, but badly let down by poor quality engineering, leading to bad customer service. Someone was right, if this was America, they would have been sued by the Motoring Federation and every owner for poor Quality and Unfit for Purpose

Get a diesel one, if you want another 75. They are less bother and the car does look gorgeous, from every angle and Demands another look, as you walk away after parking it up.

couldn't have put it better myself, beautifully worded

[chris75]

Oh dear ! Have to disagree with some of this

Originally Posted by ASMOTORS

they are all prone to HGF, even the 2.0 and 2.5

Wrong ! Very rare indeed on the v6.

Originally Posted by ASMOTORS

so the majority of 75's around today are the Diesel ones,

Doubt this is correct ; anyone have the numbers ?

Originally Posted by ASMOTORS

Remember the old 200/400/600 series, well the Honda Engined 1.6's and 2.0's were the most reliable, the others, namely 1.4 and 1.8's were prone to HGF and generally unreliable.

The 1.6 400 (416) was the K series , not Honda . I had 2 ! Also both the 2L M16 and T16 engines in the 800 series were a beauty.



[/QUOTE]

[Siberman81]

Originally Posted by chris75

The 1.6 400 (416) was the K series , not Honda . I had 2 ! Also both the 2L M16 and T16 engines in the 800 series were a beauty.

[/QUOTE]

you could actually get an automatic 1.6 honda engined 400, i know this as i nearly bought one many moons ago.

cheers, si

[Talago]

Originally Posted by roamer;

Hi All, Ii realise this post is in the wrong place but for some reason I cannot post on tech help! Please bear with me as im not very mechanically minded so post may be a bit long winded. Ok here goes ... my car had been parked up for some months due to me being unwell although had been started and had very short runs. Last week was her proper run out after a few local runs totalling approx 80 mile. On Saturday coolant and oil checked all ok, drove to fort william approx 200 mile to visit son and family, car drove well and im thinking ... i love my car. prior to return journey coolant and oil etc checked again no probs, hadnt used any and no evidence of mayo etc on cap or in tanks, again lovely drive back up until 1 mile from home when car starts to loose power, judder and temp gauge shot to red then car came to a complete halt. I called my garage who came to get the car, it had to be winched onto the recovery truck as wouldnt fire to start. Garage phoned yesterday to say car very poorly and probably renewing the head gasket wouldnt help as no compression to engine! then they say will have another look at it over the weekend to see if can get it started and advise me that hg replacement would cost 500/600 or if needing engine looking at 1500!!! I cannot justify spending 1500 despite really liking the car. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated as I dont have a clue what to do next x

Exactly the same thing happened my wife's 45 at the beginning of this year. Car wouldn't drive at all it was so hot. We were told engine was scrap and car would not be worth fixing.
I decided to get an uprated head gasket and have a go, as I couldn't make it any worse. An ex Rover engineer told me that if the head had never been off before we could re-use the bolts. It took us nearly 2 days and almost 1 day of that was spent just cleaning everything.
Long story short... That was 6 months and 4,000 miles ago and car is driving great. No more trouble.
Payen head gasket cost £44.00, inlet manifold gasket was £4.00 and we didn't get the head skimmed.

Colin

[Robson Rover Repair]

Originally Posted by chris75

Wrong ! Very rare indeed on the v6.

Actually I would have to argue this is now on the increase.

Ive been to look at several v6's now for potential buyers, and have seem the signs of head gasket failure coming through the engines and coolant areas, no doubt due to the thermostat being faulty and developing a coolant leak.

Infact when I was at a local rover mechanic, there where three v6's sitting in a row and all 3 had head gasket failure due to the thermo/coolant issue, one had 33,000k miles, and the other two where in the 110,000k miles range.

I myself was clearly able to see on the 33000k car where the liners had moved in the engine upwards into the head, and on one of the others they had moved down into the block and was more than likely terminal damage!

Now this is NOT a fault of the head gasket, but the thermostat, but with it failing outright on many cars it causes the same situation as the 1.8 failure.

I fear this is a real danger to the V6 engines now as they start to get older.

[Dallas]

Originally Posted by Colin_NI

I fear this is a real danger to the V6 engines now as they start to get older.

Colin! don't say that I want to keep hold of my 75 (I cant see myself driving anything else)......

[chrissyboy]

Originally Posted by Colin_NI

Actually I would have to argue this is now on the increase.

Ive been to look at several v6's now for potential buyers, and have seem the signs of head gasket failure coming through the engines and coolant areas, no doubt due to the thermostat being faulty and developing a coolant leak.

Infact when I was at a local rover mechanic, there where three v6's sitting in a row and all 3 had head gasket failure due to the thermo/coolant issue, one had 33,000k miles, and the other two where in the 110,000k miles range.

I myself was clearly able to see on the 33000k car where the liners had moved in the engine upwards into the head, and on one of the others they had moved down into the block and was more than likely terminal damage!

Now this is NOT a fault of the head gasket, but the thermostat, but with it failing outright on many cars it causes the same situation as the 1.8 failure.

I fear this is a real danger to the V6 engines now as they start to get older.

i have been saying for the last year that the most hgf on rover 75`s that our repair shop used to do was the v6 ones only see one 1800 being two with mine , maybe the stat leak that the v6 suffers from isnt sorted by owners that dont know about cars and just top it up ,just like the 1800 really ..looking at this thread its looking like there is no real diffrence between any of the r75`s

[flyer_phil]

Well I hear what all the 1.8 supporters are saying, but the fact remains its a poor design and has caused a lot pain and expense.

All design engineers are taught to design things conservatively with a large margin of error. An engine should be able loose most of its coolant and survive if its well designed.

For example I once owned a Pontiac Firebird with the GM small block V8, a very reliable engine. I had a problem with the radiator cap which caused it to boil and loose a lot of coolant. This happened several times until I got hold of a new cap. The engine however was fine - why because it was a good design.

Even if you can get a good repair done on the 1.8 - the weakness still remains. You shouldn't have to be constantly checking the coolant for leaks, and its no excuse to say "well other engines do it too".

[chris75]

Originally Posted by HG dalek

you could actually get an automatic 1.6 honda engined 400, i know this as i nearly bought one many moons ago.

cheers, si

Fair cop ! You learn something new all the time !
Just in the interests of completeness, I found this in Wikipaedia ..........

The second generation 400 Series, codenamed Theta or HH-R, was launched in the summer of 1995 as a hatchback and later a saloon. This time it was based on the Honda Domani, which had been released in Japan in 1992, and was sold as part of the European Honda Civic range in five-door hatchback form. It was no longer as closely related to the 200 Series, which was revised independently by Rover but still shared many components with the 400. Power came from 1.4 and 1.6 litre K-Series, 1.6 litre Honda D series SOHC (Automatic gearbox only) and 2.0 L Rover T Series petrol engines, as well as a 2.0 litre L-Series turbodiesel from the more luxurious 600 Series.

Apologies to the OP for getting completely off track
I'll shut up now.