ROVER COUPE TURBO REVIEW
I owned a Rover Coupe Turbo back in 2003 and for the most part is was a lot of fun. Sadly though there are a lot of hassles with owning one of these too (not to mention expenses) and as they become older and less reliable this increases.
Firstly the head gasket on the K series engine has always had a tendency to go bang! This is not unique to the turbo model, the 1.8 in the MGF and the Lotus Elise also have a bit of a reputation, which is one of the reasons Lotus switched to the more reliable but less torquey Toyota engines. Sadly this problem also exists on the 2.0 turbo, and with many tuned up examples about the problem is only exacerbated.
The performance however does redeem the Rover a little; it has buckets of torque, virtually no lag from the turbo (which runs at 10 PSI) and 200 BHP. Mid range speeds are superb with 30-70 times beating the M3 of the same era.
While the head gasket is pretty much where the major reliability issues begin and end, there are other drawbacks that would put me off ever buying one of these cars again too. Firstly the suspension is dire. Spongy, unpredictable and possibly even dangerous in a 200 BHP car. Torque steer is a big problem and owners should avoid flooring the accelerator from a standing start as they are likely to find themselves in a bush!
Luckily handling issues can be rectified, and an aftermarket suspension is strongly recommended. The brakes on the car are, however, very good and extremely responsive.
All in all I wouldn’t recommend one. The performance is OK, but the reliability problems are too great to warrant purchasing. There are other cars with similar performance without such issues and in the long run it would be better to fork out a little more on one of these instead.
Tags: Rover
February 16th, 2010 at 10:07 am
Rover have lost there credible branded name now that there cars are becoming a disappearing car for sale. I have not seen any new car from this brand for some time, plus there cars when popular still had problems.