For those interested in old cars.

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

 

Which as we all know from the great BMC / BL debacle, it does

 

GM made the same mistake, goodbye Oldsmobile and Pontiac. 

 

Chrysler made the same mistake, goodbye Plymouth etc....

That was the other way around, large companies taking over smaller badges and just sticking badges on the same models to “engineer” a more desirable and thus profitable vehicle, that never works........what does work is shopping around for collaboration with other manufacturers with technology or components which make it more economical than to design/develop in house.

 

Just one perfect example being the PSA/Ford engine lines, a more extreme example of badge engineering which actually worked would have been the Ford Galaxy/VW Sharan/Seat Alhambra people carrier, made perfect sense at the time and made each model a valuable contributor to each manufacturers model line up.

[russ p]

Got this the other day still reading it but seems an excellent book

Author seems to like other British transport icons such as deltics and VC10s

 

https://books.google.com/books/about/British_Leyland.html?id=keO-zQEACAAJ

[Northmoor]

22 minutes ago, russ p said:

Got this the other day still reading it but seems an excellent book

Author seems to like other British transport icons such as deltics and VC10s

 

https://books.google.com/books/about/British_Leyland.html?id=keO-zQEACAAJ

From the review:

"Many mistakes made BL, but some of the cars were superb, the designs of genius, the engineering excellent; it is just that we have either forgotten, or been brainwashed into believing the worst".

 

The last bit could apply to 90% of opinions about BL or in fact all cars.  Very few people have actually driven the cars they slate as terrible.

[micklner]

27 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

From the review:

"Many mistakes made BL, but some of the cars were superb, the designs of genius, the engineering excellent; it is just that we have either forgotten, or been brainwashed into believing the worst".

 

The last bit could apply to 90% of opinions about BL or in fact all cars.  Very few people have actually driven the cars they slate as terrible.

As well as the BL dogs already mentioned , I also drove a Triumph 2.5 PI and a Rover V8 both cars were superb for their time . Austin 1800 wasnt too bad, very comfortable.

I also suffered Maestro's and  Montegos, they were simply horrid and unreliable proper dogs .

[MrWolf]

3 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

That was the other way around, large companies taking over smaller badges and just sticking badges on the same models to “engineer” a more desirable and thus profitable vehicle, that never works........what does work is shopping around for collaboration with other manufacturers with technology or components which make it more economical than to design/develop in house.

 

Just one perfect example being the PSA/Ford engine lines, a more extreme example of badge engineering which actually worked would have been the Ford Galaxy/VW Sharan/Seat Alhambra people carrier, made perfect sense at the time and made each model a valuable contributor to each manufacturers model line up.

 

Regardless, sticking different badges on the same car means a lack of choice and the destruction of marque loyalty. It probably doesn't matter much anymore because you need to read the badges to tell most cars apart.

 

I remember a company director buying a new Galaxy when they came out, it spent more time at the dealership than on his driveway with fault after fault and in the end he made them take it back. He described it as an unreliable gas guzzling shed (25mpg or less) there's not many left.

As for the other two, the Alhambra was mostly made of milk bottle tops and had a name that was reminiscent of either somewhere that staged Christmas pantos or a terrorist group. Popular with dodgy taxi operators.

VW ignored UK dealers pleas not to name their shot at winning the "Seven seater dole cheater" market by naming their vehicle after one of Viz comic's infamous Fat Slags. 

It bombed. 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by MrWolf
Stupid autocorrect

[APOLLO]

Well my 1999 Ford Galaxy 2.3 petrol is still going strong, passed MOT last month with no advisories. A/C failed in summer and the repair will cost more than the car is worth but I intend to run it a while longer. I bought it in 2001 virtually as new. The engine has never missed a beat, and never had to spend much on it. It is still on its original exhaust. MPG is dire I agree (I get around 27 average). Lovely car to drive though. I will miss it, we're not sure what to replace it with as kids are now grown up & we no longer need a seven seater. Probably a Kia or Hyundai.

 

Brit15

[russ p]

18 minutes ago, micklner said:

As well as the BL dogs already mentioned , I also drove a Triumph 2.5 PI and a Rover V8 both cars were superb for their time . Austin 1800 wasnt too bad, very comfortable.

I also suffered Maestro's and  Montegos, they were simply horrid and unreliable proper dogs .

 

I always fail to see what is wrong with maestro's and montegos especially the 2 litre MG versions 

They have fantastically torquey engines handle brilliantly as suspension is actually Golf but with the addition of better anti rollbars 

Over the years I've had about ten and hopefully next year will see me getting my current one roadworthy again . I've never experienced any reliability problems with them that are out of the ordinary 

Yes they rust but so did most contemporary cars but the MMs didn't rust too bad structurally unlike mk3&4 escorts which rotted front crossmembers very quickly 

Turbo versions although quite thirsty very VERY fast especially the maestro 

I'm not having a pop at mick but it annoys me some 15 years after its demise there is still so much anti BL sentiment even in the motor trade

A couple of years ago I was looking at a freelander at a garage in fakenham and asked what engine it was and was told I was lucky it was the BMW engine 

So I said he was unlucky as I didn't want it!

I have cars with both the BMW diesel and the Rover L series,  although a little bit louder the rover is by far the better unit and only 8v

The BMW is huge heavy,  takes a massive amount of oil and has nowhere near the grunt of the L series both have been remapped by a rover specialist which actually gives more power and better fuel consumption the L series is about 175bhp in power and 160 in economy mode and gives over 50mpg whereas the BMW unit although in a bigger car is around 155bhp and 43ish mpg but not as much torque as the L

[APOLLO]

36 minutes ago, micklner said:

As well as the BL dogs already mentioned , I also drove a Triumph 2.5 PI and a Rover V8 both cars were superb for their time . Austin 1800 wasnt too bad, very comfortable.

I also suffered Maestro's and  Montegos, they were simply horrid and unreliable proper dogs .

 

I have a 1973 Rover P5B V8 in my garage, fully roadworthy, owned since 1982. Lovley car - nicknamed "The Flying Armchair"

 

For work use I bought a 1973 Marina 1.8 HL back in 1974, not the best car I've had for road holding but got back what I paid for it in Nov 75 when I traded in for a brand new Princess 1800 HL. A nice car to drive, very few problems and ran that for 7 years. My last BL car was a 86 Montego 1.6 Petrol, absolutley no problems just a boring car to drive.

 

My worst ever car followed, a virtually new Audi 90. Vorsprung durch wallet !!!!!

 

Brit15

[Trainshed Terry]

This makes for intresting reading, there some I agree with a lot I don't

 

Terry.

[russ p]

7 minutes ago, Trainshed Terry said:

This makes for intresting reading, there some I agree with a lot I don't

 

Terry.

 

As with a lot of those type of surveys gets bit top heavy with exotica 

[alastairq]

1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

MPG is dire I agree (I get around 27 average).

blimey...For my motors, that's Mobil economy run league...

[APOLLO]

18 mpg average in my Rover, 21 on a (rare these days) good run !!!

 

Son has a Hyundai i30 1.6 diesel, 50mpg, free road tax, 5 year warranty (now 4 years old & NEVER been back except for servicing). All the gizmos, wonderful car.

 

Brit15

[MrWolf]

25 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

18 mpg average in my Rover, 21 on a (rare these days) good run !!!

 

Son has a Hyundai i30 1.6 diesel, 50mpg, free road tax, 5 year warranty (now 4 years old & NEVER been back except for servicing). All the gizmos, wonderful car.

 

Brit15

 

New cars I admit do things better and so they should, being developed from the previous models. 

 

But regardless of the pedigree, I find them soulless, bland and boring.

 

Which is also probably why you're still driving something that by modern standards is heavy, thirsty, uncomfortable, badly heated and ventilated, slow and to the eyes of a lot of snowflakes, downright dangerous to you, others and the planet.

 

New cars such as the Hyundai? They're like my fridge, you switch it on, it does a job perfectly well, you clean it now and then and throw it away when it stops working.

 

Which is why I prefer old cars and if I want to go really fast on not much petrol, I'll use my motorbikes.

[MJI]

I have driven a Maestro, it was quite a nice airy car. Much better than the Escort Abbysmal in use at the time in that job as a pool car.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Wasn't the MG Maestro Turbo advertised as being faster than a Ferrari back in the day?

 

Mike.

[Oldddudders]

15 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Wasn't the MG Maestro Turbo advertised as being faster than a Ferrari back in the day?

 

Mike.

But a lot less well-behaved, said the road-tests, with grim torque-steer. We had a couple of 1.6 Montegos, and they were quite nice to drive, with 86 quite accessible bhp. One needed a new clutch, though, at about 12k. The black MG Metro we had before them was our first new car, and really quite pleasing, except over hump-back bridges, which seemed to confuse it. 

[MrWolf]

45 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Wasn't the MG Maestro Turbo advertised as being faster than a Ferrari back in the day?

 

Mike.

 

They got stolen and burnt by chavs faster than anything else.

 

Although anyone who was driving back then knew that the fastest thing on earth was a diesel Astramax van .

[Enterprisingwestern]

11 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Although anyone who was driving back then knew that the fastest thing on earth was a diesel Astramax van .

 

From first hand experience, especially in Gas Board colours!

 

Mike.

[doilum]

9 hours ago, MJI said:

I have driven a Maestro, it was quite a nice airy car. Much better than the Escort Abbysmal in use at the time in that job as a pool car.

It was a much bigger car. We bought one as a second car for the winter(Dutton hibernated). The top of the drive was just 72" between the houses and as I lined up for the first time I clipped the nearside mirror. Deep breath, try again and hit the offside mirror. Big curse, try a third time and hit both mirrors. This was wider than my friends Vauxhall Carlton or next door's Volvo 144. It had to live out on the road where, one rainy Saturday night it was stolen. We found it next day just half a mile away with the back seats down and, from the wrapping litter, it had been borrowed as a passion wagon. 

It was a truly poverty spec example in chocolate brown with matching plastic interior and a 1.3 A series engine that couldn't catch it's own shadow. My wife actually liked it. To be fair to the Maestro, one of the best days out in my life was, five up, to the 1986 Challenge cup final in an MG turbo version that my uncle had blagged from a dealer contact as an "extended test drive". Much of the trip down the A1 at 100+ ! 

Better than an Escort? In poverty spec the Ford is much more fun if less roomy. Would I have swapped the XR3s for an MG if the drive had been wider? No.

Edited December 22, 2020 by doilum
Predictive text error

[russ p]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

But a lot less well-behaved, said the road-tests, with grim torque-steer. We had a couple of 1.6 Montegos, and they were quite nice to drive, with 86 quite accessible bhp. One needed a new clutch, though, at about 12k. The black MG Metro we had before them was our first new car, and really quite pleasing, except over hump-back bridges, which seemed to confuse it. 

 

I never really had much of an issue with the torque steer either,  I fitted mine with koni dampers and inch lowered springs as soon as I got it so whether that helped I don't know. 

It was rumoured that the maestro turbos were actually more than the quoted 152bhp this would explain why they were considerably faster than the equivalent montego which wasn't massively heavier than the maestro 

One thing that wasn't good was the brakes , nowadays with decent pads it's not really an issue 

While the turbo was fast I have always considered the EFi the better car loads of low down torque and 35-40mpg may only be 115bhp but still feels quite fast today.

I remember the advert for those stood next to an empty space with the slogan the golf gti will be along in a second 

[MrWolf]

I remember a girlfriends mother owning an MG Montego Turbo in black, she loved it, though said that the steering got a little light past 120…

I also remember Montegos piled up in the scrapyards because some stupid little flywheel sensor had gone pop and it was too expensive to fix. Besides, cheap Rover 214 / 216s were becoming available. Something else with a black box Achilles heel that sent them to the crusher in a hurry. I had a new 214 SLi as a loaner and whilst it did its job very well, I couldn't get interested in it as a car. It had that typically post 1980 acres of grey interior and forgettable styling that typifies any modern car costing less than a house and plenty of those too.

[Northmoor]

9 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I remember a girlfriends mother owning an MG Montego Turbo in black, she loved it, though said that the steering got a little light past 120…

I also remember Montegos piled up in the scrapyards because some stupid little flywheel sensor had gone pop and it was too expensive to fix. Besides, cheap Rover 214 / 216s were becoming available. Something else with a black box Achilles heel that sent them to the crusher in a hurry. I had a new 214 SLi as a loaner and whilst it did its job very well, I couldn't get interested in it as a car. It had that typically post 1980 acres of grey interior and forgettable styling that typifies any modern car costing less than a house and plenty of those too.

We had two Montegos; our first replaced the last Maxi so you can imagine the step change.  It had some brief fault with the power steering and the wheel bearings (a common fault) but within 18 months we upgraded to a Vanden Plas without leather (my parents never liked leather seats).  Dad ran that until for about eight years until a head gasket killed it at about 170k; apart from the wheel bearing fault (again) it was brilliant, a really roomy car, huge boot and lovely to travel in for long distances.  Our neighbours who were loyal Ford owners (they had a really nice 1.8 Sierra for years ) commented on the torque and the space in side the Montego.

We also had a Maestro City X which I learned to drive in; while roomy I never really liked it much.  It had some weird carburation fault which caused hesitation at the most awkward moments, like when you've joined a fast road and someone appears just as you're committed to pulling out.......

I drove a Rover 214SLi - one of the original shape - for a couple of years as a runabout and it was excellent, quite well screwed together but I would agree that it didn't have a lot of character.  It blew a radiator - easy home change - and didn't like very damp weather, eventually breaking down on the M4 outside Bristol in biblically wet weather.  That was traced to tired insulation on the main HT lead, swapped in the garage for free it drove home OK and never hesitated again.

I didn't know about the Montego sensor fault but suspect rust killed quite a lot, they often seemed to go on the rear wings around the C-pillars.  Cars are definitely better built now but agree character lessens with each generation.  However the next generation of drivers are simply not interested; if any of my younger colleagues are actually interested in cars then it's very unusual.  There's a saying that young people now are less interested in cars now than in the App they will use to buy one.

[russ p]

32 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I remember a girlfriends mother owning an MG Montego Turbo in black, she loved it, though said that the steering got a little light past 120…

I also remember Montegos piled up in the scrapyards because some stupid little flywheel sensor had gone pop and it was too expensive to fix. Besides, cheap Rover 214 / 216s were becoming available. Something else with a black box Achilles heel that sent them to the crusher in a hurry. I had a new 214 SLi as a loaner and whilst it did its job very well, I couldn't get interested in it as a car. It had that typically post 1980 acres of grey interior and forgettable styling that typifies any modern car costing less than a house and plenty of those too.

 

The flywheel sensor is quite an easy fix. One problem with the carb version was the auto choke control.  Most often it was just poor contacts on the ecu

My mum had an R8 214 that was a pretty decent car

In the first lockdown this year I was idley looking on the net and cam across a late 200vvc coupe I went to see it and bought it,  absolutely fantastic car lovely half leather red and grey interior. 

Only done 30k and fitted with latest uprated head gasket. 

I looked for one briefly five years ago during a break in cancer treatment and bought an MGf instead. 

The coupe is a great car and can't believe I haven't had one before,  shame its not a turbo but unmolested ones go for over 10k these days 

[russ p]

One thing I've not mentioned yet is maestro is an annogam of seam rot! 

[boxbrownie]

13 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

 

I remember a company director buying a new Galaxy when they came out, it spent more time at the dealership than on his driveway with fault after fault and in the end he made them take it back. He described it as an unreliable gas guzzling shed (25mpg or less) there's not many left.

As for the other two, the Alhambra was mostly made of milk bottle tops and had a name that was reminiscent of either somewhere that staged Christmas pantos or a terrorist group. Popular with dodgy taxi operators.

VW ignored UK dealers pleas not to name their shot at winning the "Seven seater dole cheater" market by naming their vehicle after one of Viz comic's infamous Fat Slags. 

It bombed. 

 

 

Interesting, I had three Galaxy and not one spent any time being repaired under warranty, I have to assume he had the petrol V6 4x4 model which was indeed a gas guzzler (I am surprised he got as much as 25mpg out of it, the V6 4x4 was included into the models on the insistence of VW who wanted an AWD for euro winters), as for you assertation that the Alhambra was “made of milk bottle tops” is odd as all three versions were manufactured on the same production line, so unless the SEAT model made a diversion through the works cafe not sure how that works out .