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Car Of The Month :
November 2012




'A Vision in Red' by Mangoman



I bought my Rover 75 in late October 2010, so nearing my two years of ownership, and it is a basic Club SE with the 2.0 litre V6 engine. It is my first 75 in fact a Rover of any description, so I have to admit I was a little apprehensive in the beginning after reading threads on the forum only pointing out problems and failures! But after looking at them ‘up close’ I decided to go for it.

This was the third Rover 75 I had looked at, the other two being a year or so older and being ‘Cowley’ builds, whereas this one being a ‘Longbridge’ manufactured car, which I was happy with after hearing that they had a reputation of being slightly better put together – whether this is true or not, I don’t know. I actually did the 40 mile round trip three times to see the car before I finally decided to buy it – but eventually I did on the 28th October 2010.

Upon purchase I could see that only a couple of things needed to be done, namely the cracked rear light, a slight crease in the rear bumper chrome strip, (which is still there even though I have a brand new one sitting in the study) a decent set of mats and a re-gas of the air-conditioning. Other than that it was good, one previous owner, full service history with the last stamp in the service book 4000 miles previous. But even then, it didn’t have its unforeseen problems, and that being only after about a month of having it, the car suffered the dreaded ‘Cam-Sensor’ failure! – But it was soon rectified with the help of the online forums, thank goodness. But it did take a while to get the trust back…

The only other issue I had was what I thought was going to be a simple re-gas of the air-conditioning unit I discovered that it had a leak in the high-pressure pipeline, but again, was soon rectified by an excellent professional engineer!

Now, owner’s forums are fantastic places to belong to, they can save you lots of money and time but they can also fill you with consternation after reading everyone’s problems. But I think you have to realise that these are in the vast minority, and let’s face it, people only write in when things go wrong…

But there is another problem with these sites, and that is you also realise that there are so many improvements you can add to the car as there were so many options to take or not to take when originally purchased – truthfully, it’s hard to find two that are exactly the same! So, as a result of this awareness I have over the 23 months I have improved, or ‘modded’ a few things, and here they are:

• Chrome mirror covers
• Chrome kick plate on driver’s side door, as it was plastic.
• Lit vanity mirrors on sunvisors
• Rover emblem on ‘C’ pillars, were blank
• Manual rear sunblind, easier to fit than an electrical one
• Premium car mats all round, with original rubber mats in the rear
• Blitz ‘sus’ induction kit
• Wood and leather gear knob
• Brighter 5w 501’s replacing the standard 3w interior lighting bulbs
• Heko window Wind deflectors front and rear
• High performance ‘Free-Flo’ rear silencer
• Replace Harmony radio with a Symphony then a Pioneer DEH-2200UB CD/MP3 Player


• Colour-coded under bonnet engine covers
• Chrome door finishers


• 10mm. Wheelspacers front and rear with longer HT steel bolts fitted
• ‘SE’ Decals fitted under side-repeaters
• Smiley number plate
• Satin black grill, sprayed myself
• OEM headlight covers - made in Australia!


• Extra wood trim fitted to window switches, light switch and interior lights
• Bootlid mounted warning triangle
• Driver’s side cupholder – sourced in Portugal


• Audio upgrade tweeters in rear doors
• Bosch Aero-Blade wipers

Other than the above and normal servicing the only thing that has needed to be replaced is the front droplinks as they were worn and needed replacing for my last MOT. So other than that it’s been well behaved. (Thank goodness)!

The mileage is still quite low for a 2001 (51) car, only just clocked over 79000 miles. I try not to use the car a great deal, it’s more for pleasure really – like I avoid driving it in the rain, and in the snow, forget it! So yes, I do pamper it, but it’s deserved because the car is a bit of history, a history that we should all be proud of.

I hope to keep the car for as long as possible just as long as it is viable to do so, on the limited income that I have – But I am determined to do as best as I can as it is my ‘Pride & Joy’. I have owned a great deal of cars in my time, and very varied, but I can honestly say that this Rover 75 fills me with pride. It will be a sad day when I look out of the window and see it no more on the drive – a very sad day indeed.



Article written by member Mangoman

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