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How on earth did that happen? Five whole years with the same
car, surely some mistake, let's do the maths. If I started
my motoring aged 20 and I predict driving becoming not-much-fun
around the age of 60, then that's just 40 years to enjoy.
So I've spent 12.5% of that time behind the wheel of a Rover
400. Yikes.
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Just a few brief facts about the car. It's red. It's
a 414 iS... or possibly a 414 Si, even the salesman
didn't seem to know at the time. Anyway, it has alloy
wheels and driving lamps and, um, that's it.
It has "keep fit" windows, which now really,
really annoy me. Oh, an electric sunroof. But no ABS,
no air con, no CD, no anything else you care to mention
that seems to come as standard on virtually any car
these days.
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Bought just when car prices were at their worst, just before
the plummet which was just great unless you had a second hand
car to sell (hey - isn't that virtually everybody?) it cost
precisely £12,000. I think a slightly better spec'd model
would now set you back about £275, but maybe that's just the
bitterness coming out in me. In those halcyon days, my friendly
Rover salesman would not be shifted from this admittedly nice
neat round figure... not even willing to relinquish metallic
paint as a small incentive to buy. Having subsequently watched
that telly programme with the Irishman and the bald cockney
where they screw car salesman to the floorboards on price
I wonder just how bad I am, or how good my salesman... or
was it just another era? No... I just think I'm bad at dealing.
So, £12,000 pounds, and five years on I might get £3,000 for it. Which would be okay if those five years had been anything other than very, very dull indeed, driving wise. I traded in an Escort 1.6, which I wish to God I'd kept, because I'd have saved myself £6,000 and life would have been neither richer or poorer in consequence. In comparison the Rover was no faster, and handled slightly worse, though the ride was better. Boot space was identical, and as far as the interior was concerned, at least the Escort didn't have the fake wood, and it did have somewhere to put a cup down.
Five years is not that long, and you'd think I could remember what was going
on in my head that made me make this major purchasing decision,
but sadly I cannot now recall. It could have been worse, I
suppose. The car has been very reliable, only failing to start
once, and that was my fault for leaving the hatchback open
and not using the car for a week, the tiny boot light ran
down the battery. Five years of total reliability, no unexpected
costs, and it still works just fine now. (Oh dear, no longer true, see update below!) But also five years
of niggles.
I spent the first year returning the car regularly to the dealer because of
a clicking noise in the dash. Everyone agreed it was there,
and they tried very hard to fix it, removing the entire dash
at one point, only to find nothing. Eventually I gave in and
learned to live with it. Well, no. I didn't, it drove me mad.
I went everywhere with the stereo on very loud to cover it
up. And then one day, luckily, a very large stone, kicked
up by a passing hooligan in a silly looking tarted up Nova,
broke the windscreen. A very nice man from some windshield
company came, scratched the hell out of one of the wings,
replaced the glass, and lo, the click was gone. I went to
the dealer and told them. They had spent days trying to cure
this noise, but the revelation as to its source was greeted
with total disinterest. I thought they would be keen to add
it to the Rover countrywide knowledge base, in case it came
up again, somewhere. How silly I am.
Just a quick run through the car's good points and bad points. Good first.
- The engine is good. It's only 1400cc, so you can't expect
too much, but it revs very easily and if you change gear
an awful lot, then quick progress is possible. If you don't
change gear then hills can defeat it very easily. It's a
nice tight unit, has hardly lost oil over it's 50,000 miles,
sounds a bit rough now, but can't really complain.
- I quite like the alloy wheels.
- Oh... my girlfriend bought me a leather gear knob, I like that.
- Nothing else.
Now the bad.
- The transmission. Terrible. See below.
- From the outside the hatchback can only be opened using the door key. Why?
Come on. It can't be that hard to have a push button or
handle to open the thing. It's design like this that drives
you mad. Small thing, big hate.
- There is nowhere to put a drink down inside. Forget cup holders, I dream of cup holders... I'd just like a flat surface, for goodness sake.
- The radio/cassette is not great, and the display for it, shared with the clock, went wrong after a couple of years. An LED display no bigger than that on a five quid calculator, but it cost over £120 to fix, thanks Rover.
- Air circulation is poor, it's very hard to get a good flow of hot or cold air to the feet.
- The clutch pedal is way higher up than the other pedals, and I've seen this on several examples, which makes thing uncomfortable.
- Okay, I admit it, I can't think of much else. Maybe I'm being harsh. No. It's just so dull.
But the transmission. By which I mean, in this case, the
way it changes gear. Or rather how I change gear. Now, I've
complained about this to the dealer every single time the
car has been serviced, but they've done nothing. And I'd like
to point out that it's not me, I can drive other cars with
no problem. But mine... every gear change an adventure. The
balance and precision required with clutch and accelerator
to get a smooth change is extraordinary. Some days I cannot
be bothered and just lurch around the place. Some days I blame
myself and really try... but I shouldn't have to. It's just
awful. Take your foot off the accelerator when slowing and
it lurches. Foot back on, it lurches. First to second, lurch.
You can feel the engine moving on its mounts, it's like you're
a learner driver again. The only strategy that works is to
coast. I've developed this really bad habit, especially in
towns. I roll down hills in neutral. Arghh.
I once got a mechanic to admit that these cars "weren't the smoothest", and the courtesy cars they give have been almost as bad. For this one fault I HATE this car. You just cannot enjoy driving it, unless you're on a motorway and don't need to change gear for hours.
Consumable items during this 50,000 mile odyssey (about which
one cannot complain):
- One exhaust, just over a hundred pounds to replace.
- Front brake pads, thirty odd quid.
- Wiper blades various.
- Four sets of tyres. Unusually, and somewhat annoyingly,
all four tyres seem to wear at pretty much the same rate,
so it's always been a set of four required, which feels
expensive, at well over 300 pounds a set. The original Pirellis
lasted very well but tramlined, tried Bridgestones, great
grip, poor wear, and Continentals, good grip but so noisy
and terrible wear. Back to Pirellis then.
I never meant to keep it this long. Two years maximum, but things have conspired against me. Oh that it was truly awful and unreliable. Oh that I could justify replacing it. But I can't. It works well. It's the right size. It's quite cheap, very economical (40 mpg over 50,000 miles, can't be bad).
But it's just horrible to drive. If there's anyone out there,
I'm begging you, anyone who knows how to fix the bloody transmission,
please let me know. I would be forever grateful.
Update
#1
Well, 5 years has become 5 and a
half, and the mileage is now nearly
60,000. And the good reliability
(one of the car's only saving graces)
has been severely dented by recent
events. A nasty noise started coming
from the gearbox. The car has just
spent two days at a specialist gearbox
repairer being fixed and the bill
came to over 500 quid. A small bearing
had broken, and the bits had damaged
the main drive shaft, or something
like that. Not very good for a low
mileage car, the man had never seen
this happen before. I had the clutch
changed while they were at it, and
the car is back on form, but my
wallet is now broken.
Update
#2
And so on, on inexorably, to 6 years
and more. The car has now gone into
semi-retirement, and only gets run
once a week currently. It now stands
next to a shiney new company car
- against which it compares quite
badly now. It's amazing how many
more safety features even a run-of-the-mill
modern car has compared with one
going back just six years. It has
but one air-bag. The new one has
umpteen, plus ABS and self tightening
seat belts and so on. But to the
Rover's credit it starts first time
every time, and still gets me there
in relative comfort and economy.
Final Word
Finally, after 6 years and 8 months, the Rover has gone.
Ironically, after my claim above that it started first time very time, the moment
I slapped a 'For Sale' sign on it, it wouldn't start. I went off and bought a battery. Nope, that wasn't it.
A new starter motor cured it, but that was a hundred quid down the drain. And do you know what?
After all my moaning I was very sad to see it go. Okay, it was dull. But it never let me down (until the very end)
and after I'd prepared it for sale I stood back and saw a very nice, solid, clean and thoroughly practical car.
I miss it already. Final mileage 64,000. Precisely 200 garage visits to refuel, final MPG was 40.6 - THE END.
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