Rover

Michael kenyon Rover 200 owner
I have owned my Rover 200 from new and it has never let me down, it is a great car. I am an inventor and if I had enough money I would re-start Rover again. There are still thousands of Rovers still on the roads, so the market is still their. Why not ask all Rover owners to become shareholders in a new Rover setup. I'm sure that the public would leap forward to thwart the China company it is a sore in our hearts.

phil
shame

Rover owner from Finland
I have owned now three Rovers: Rover Metro yearmodel -90 (which was imported from England by private person), Rover 200 1.4 103 bhp yearmodel -99 and Rover 400 2.0 136 bhp yearmodel -00. I have liked from all those models, but the latest has been very good. It's good to drive, good engine: enough power and quite economical, the best which I have, is 6.17 litres per 100km. Parts are cheap, and it is always a joy to drive with it, nice, quiet, and steady ride was is hot summer day or blizzard. Only few balljoints and exhaust has been changed, and almost 190 000km on clock. Engine starts up every time, and it keeps its fluids inside :) How would I say, I think (here in Finland) the best car in its price group which is about 6000€ - 9000€, depending on driven kilometers. The only bad thing in 200 1.4 engine was that hgf which was also in my car, but luckily I had it fixed before anything bigger happened. Personally, I think it is shame what happened to MG-Rover, but I keep my fingers crossed that SAIC and Nanjing starts to make MG's and Rover's (sorry, Roewe's), and maybe sometime they will get those cars to us :)

j singh
rover was my life

Chris
i love all mg rover vehicles dating back to the 1980's which was the era of all great rover cars and i will always adore mg rover's.

kim
My father had worked at longbridge since 1973,worked very hard for the company, it is sad to see the west works being demolished to a pile of rubble,i own a mg zr and it is a great car to drive and reliable,very sad to see it all go.

Peter
As an Rover owner I feel very sorry about that what happened. But you (I mean former MG Rover workers) can say "thank you for that" to your beloved labour unions which had significant participation it this fall. Here, in Poland, we know very well how destructive organizations they (lu) are.

MG Rover Technician
over the years the public & press have slagged off the rover product,I have repaired mg rovers for 10 years. over the years i have slated them with a lot of silly faults that they didn't fix,when rover went into recievership we aquired 2 new franchises 1 french & 1 german (both massive companies).In comparison rover were a far better product than the french & german ones.monday morning at work i can guarentee there will have been at least 6-10 cars recovered in,in all my years in the motor industry i have never known products to be so unreliable,i could go on for hours,maybe the press should do indepth reports on some of the foriegn junk coming into the country....From a technician who thought rover were pretty poor,how wrong was I ?

ross
I know that the demise of MG rover was bad as i worked for a supplier of there parts but left before i could be sacked. Im just about to buy an MGF with 40k on the clock for "2700. You cant get better than that.

mark clifff
how can one company open and a similar company 30km away cann expand with the same product range ....is it the germasn look after the germans .......?

Glen B
It is sad that tyhe cars are no longer being made especially as it would seem that the cars actually looked good and performed well. That said being very blunt that some of the cars produced over the years were utter dross - take the marina it could have been a great car - good size - great size boot, but as for the suspension who invented that? The engines although old design were good long lived units. Gearbox??? made of playdough. Allegro - thats enough of that. Princess - as above. I could go on but I shant - Its Triumph that should have carried on the flag - at least the cars were of a good design ( stag engine excluded ), the doors always shut with a nice thunk.

ex rover employee
It might be over one year on, but where has all the money gone! Nanjing have paid up, PWC and the governemnt have received circa 5.7 million each - but what about the ex workers and creditors - by the time it comes to payout it will all have been filtered away. I doubt i will see a penny of the money I am owed.

Peter Backstrom, Lund, Sweden
I have always loved british cars for their personality and presence. I have driven Rovers for more than 30 years now, starting as a student with a 1957 Rover 75 P4. What a sturdy, well built car! 20 years of 1982 Rover 3500 P6B ownership and 370 000 kms confirmed my confidence in Rovers. Two 1978 SD1 cars gave me some reliability problems, but I loved the design. Currently I drive a 1995 Rover 620 turbo, with the lovely strongpulling T-engine. After some 230 000 kms it still gives excellent service and I am not allowed to sell it, because my wife loves it. The next car will be a Rover 75 2.5 Auto or perhaps a MG ZT, but I prefer the interior of the Rover. Other family sedans have a presence like dead herrings in comparison with the Rover. How on earth could BMW be allowed to buy MG Rover? And then start the big slaughter and sale out. It is a shame that the british government did not support MG Rover like for example the swedish goverment always have supported Volvo and SAAB. Just check all the police cars in Sweden, all cars used by authorities and the majority of all company cars in my country! And all those british auto magazine journalists dragging british products in the mud. Compare with their german collegues in Auto Motor & Sport. British Harakiri, I would say.

Gehard Schnider, Leverkusen, Germany
I heard Andreas, that MG Rover were going to enter DTM, but the company liquidised just weeks before the first race. I also own a Rover and have been for many years.Me and everyone I know think it has a kind of British class that no other car has. Im very proud of my Rover 75 and wouldnt buy anything else. Thanks Longbridge for all your great cars I have owned over the years.

Digby James
The truth of it is the Japanese car industry only survived by imposing strict import barriers - you could buy their cars but they wouldn't let you sell them your !. It is also a fact that the French poured millions of public money into their own automotive industry and it was the British Government , with UK tax payers money and under British management, that rescued Volkswagen and put the Beetle back into production. The automotive industry is a global one and that needs the support of the state, as the Japanese , the Germans and the French have recognised. Soon nothing will be made in this country so you may as well get used to minimum wage jobs because that's all that will be available !.

Yann Cherruault, Paris, France
I think the death of MG Rover has a lot to do with today's savage capitalism. The Thatcher's years were a real desease for the carmaker, full of tragic under investment choices to sell Austin Rover at a cheap price to an old tories' friend, the boss of British Aerospace. In France, if Renault (now one of the biggest carmakers in the world) had been sold to a private company in the 80's, I think it would be dead today, like Rover! Then, choosing BMW was also a crucial error. Honda was the good choice and the Germans quickly realised that if they put enough money in MG Rover, their deseperatly clean BMW cars would look absolutly weak. BMW never did anything right to develop new models (except the 75) and new market. Then, they've finished the murder by stealing projects (Mini, BMW serie 1) and selling Land Rover to Ford… It's a real shame Tony Blair and the Labour didn't do anything against this ugly choice… The phoenix 4 did'nt have the assets to save MG Rover and probably just wanted to win big money by selling Rover to an other car maker. Once again, the government should have done something (no Rover cars for the police, Royal Mail, goverment, army, public system, what a huge shame ! Just because the EC wants "fair trade rules"! which, in fact, just help the powerful companies) long before it was too late. Today's car market is totally unfair and big car companies can easily sell poor cars because they can heavily invest in marketing and pay auto magazines with adverts to say they're top! I was blessed to be able to buy a brand new MG ZT 190 last november and this car is incredible to drive and so reliable. It was on of the last handbuilt in Longbridge. Thanks a lot to the great workforce who has always managed to build fantastic MG's & Rovers even if there was no big budgets behind. I think that the death of MG Rover, probably the greatest car maker of all times, shows the death of real cars with personality. People who ever had a chance to own one will never disrespect a MG or a Rover, even if back in the days they had few reliability problems. Most of the times, people full of venimous words against MG and Rover just now how they look! It a real shame it's over and Longbridge now needs a miracle to reestablish a strong car industry in the UK. And Nanjing doesn't look like a miracle… Much love to all MG Rover workers made redundant because of powerful people who just think about theirs tons of pounds.

Andreas Bauer, Bavaria, Germany
I bought a used MG ZS 180, because I love the cars of MG Rover. They have a kind of charackter which I can not find in boring cars like Mercedes, BMW, Audi and so on... I got a lot of positive feedback from my friends. Most people in Germany are not aware about the MG Rover products. I hope to drive my MG very long, because I don't like boring perfect cars.

Steve.
Over a year now & very sad reading from the ex workers.I own an MG/Rover car & while it's not perfect i still love the look & it's a shame to think there will bw no more.

Ross, Edgbaston
If this country had been run by better managers and had changed as dynamically as the Japanese, then none of our industries would be in this mess. If anything, the disorganised collective that was British Leyland was a cause of management arrogance and union resistance to change, and you only reap what you sow. But you cannot under estimate the team in their last years. They really were truly motivated to get it right.. but wrong management decisions left the company with nowhere to go. TWR was the first of a few wrong ones as well as focus on sports.

Barry
"Rover - The Best Of British". Really? God help us all if it was.

Matt R
It is always unfortunate when a company closes, especially one as large as Rover. However, it is debatable as to whether it actually was a "great British car maker". Had it been so, it might have moved with the times and produced models that people actually wanted to buy, and kept itself afloat, rather than taking millions of pounds from the tax-payer. Ex-Rover workers are now in an unpleasant postition but they are not the only ones - people all over the country have faced similar problems, but not expected everyone else to bail them out. I sincerely wish all ex-Rover staff the best of luck with finding new employment, but please stop behaving as if you are all special cases. Rover was practically a charity for the last few years; you were "lucky" to get as long as you all did.

H .
Everything seems to be about the Rover, other company's have closed down and people made to find work else where with lower pay, Myself experiencing that problem but you just pick yourself up and start again. why should they be so speical that it seems to be ramed down your throat on TV,Radio,and in the papers, It's sad that people loose their jobs whoever they work for you just have to ajust to a new life some manage some don't There is a saying, I thought I was poor because I had no shoes untill I met a man who had no feet.

EX ROVER ENGINEER
What on earth has happened to the millions acuired by PWC for the sale to Nanjing Auto. Nobody has yet received a penny yet millions have been spent on PWC salaries & Government taxes????

Colin
Nearly 12 months after being made redundant, with 10 years experience of working on all models, I decided to take this "opportunity" to get away from the repetative factory environment to a clean workplace. I thought that maybe the IT industry would give me that chance. In April '05 I brought myself a computer, this was followed by 8 months of college learning ,applications, system building, networking etc. at 40 years old! I found it enyoyable,stimulating and very rewarding. Now with a list of recognised qualifications I thought it would be a short step towards a completely different career, how naive I was ! "Experience" seems to be the wall I am hitting my head against. I will try to keep optimistic, but do I see another repetative factory job on the horizon?

Lyns
I am still very sad at the collapse of Rover. I live in Birmingham and have to drive past the works to get to see my family. I feel sick to the stomach that BMW and the Phoenix consortium were allowed to strip this company of all its assets for personal and corporate gain, at the cost of peoples lives and pensions. My other half lost his job on the same day we heard Rover were going into administration so my heart goes out to all of you affected. My first car was a Rover metro which was replaced with Rover 214, both of which I loved dearly and cried when I had to part with them. I hope William (below) and people like him get given an opportunity soon - it's a terrible waste of trained mechanics and engineers, not to mention the employees from the dealerships and specialist garages. Good luck to you all X

william russell
i was made redundant in july since then my marrage has brocken up my nerves are shot i am working in a dead end job for minnimum wage and cant seem to get even an interview for a decent job my self astem is low and even suicide has been thought about. it seems that having worked at rover carries a stigma that automaticaly puts your application in the bin. people keep saying that cars will be built at longbridge again. i for one cannot see it they have no intention of that the only reason they took out the lease on the land was to give them more time to get the lines and equipment out.I am qualified to level 2 as a mechanic and level 3 in air conditioning. as for do i wish i was still at rover of course i do i cannot live on minimum wage with maintainance to pay. the colapse of rover was started by the germans they came in and took what they wanted told a load of lies about us, when towers and his cronies moved in they already knew they were closing it they never intended to deal with the chinese i believe the government waited until the backlash to local economies would be minimised. it miffs me that of all the money thrown at the employes that when i got a job all help not that i got a lot disapeared.

Kevin Kerr
A year on since the collapse of a great british car maker. I as all the workers there was fearful of what the future had in store. I am perhaps one of the lucky ones i have found a great job, less pay it may be but a lot more rewarding. I have moved from cars to caring,and loving the challange. sometimes things happen for a reason not to say i do not miss MG .i spent 19 happy years there, met loads of good people most of whom still keep in touch. Finally to say if this had been anywhere but the UK i would not be writing on here . thanks Mr Blair the history of MG during both wars is well documented. planes built to help the allies,cars second to none like a proper mini. So lads there is life after MG and in my case far more rewarding.