1995 Rover - Austin 200 220 Turbo Coupe 2.0 turbo

Summary:

Fantastic and cheap performer - look beyond the badge!

Faults:

Nothing apart from a little turbo smoke when the car has been sat in traffic/idling for 10+ minutes. Any ideas anyone?

General Comments:

Great car. I have previously owned a couple of Rover 214 16v's and were pleased with them, so the natural progression was the turbo. 200bhp standard and lots of fun. Suffers from a bit of torque steer, but you learn to live with it. In terms of handling, I was pretty impressed in comparison with the other dreadful-handling hatchbacks, but it's still not a patch on my 1985 XR3i.

Great gearbox makes for lazy driving (25-150? mph in 5th with no problems). Very fast as long as you are on a dry road.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 25th January, 2006

20th May 2007, 10:28

If the handling is not a patch on a 1985 XR3i then it must be seriously bad.

1995 Rover - Austin 200 218SD 1.8 turbo diesel

Summary:

Economical cheap workhorse, even if it's rather old

Faults:

I replaced the front disks a couple of years ago.

Clutch cable snapped at about 38000 miles.

Central locking is not working on the rear off-side door -I learned to live with it.

Discovered today that there is fuel leaking from the fuel tank or close to it, possibly as a result of me reversing into a pub (not recommended) a couple months ago in the Lake District!

General Comments:

Generally this has been a reasonable car, returning even now, 50 miles per gallon. I admit it's a bit boring and annoyingly the seat height does not adjust resulting in backache at times. Quite nippy for a diesel thanks to the turbo, but could to with more guts for safer overtakes.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 6th October, 2004

1995 Rover - Austin 200 sei 1.4

Summary:

A granddad's car!!!

Faults:

Brake disc's cracked at 96200 miles, needed new disc's and pads. Which cost £60. (cheap)

Exhaust fell of at 96220 miles, center pipe and back box £70.

Engine emmissions failed mot, which was the lambda sensor (£60)

Dodgy electrics. Electric windows, and central locking.

General Comments:

The car is nippy for a 1400 but will not beat ax gt etc. The twin cam helps to aid over taking.

This rover is fully colour coded, and looks respectively nice.

Leather seats are a treat!

One big problem very poor handling, and cornering.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 12th August, 2004

1995 Rover - Austin 200 SEi 1.4 16v

Summary:

A very cheap, luxurious, boy-racer thrashing machine

Faults:

As with all of my previous Rover 200's the back box rusted completely through and required replacement.

The power steering can feel very sensitive at times whilst driving 60+mph on the motorway although this doesn't always happen.

The engine suffers from a ticking camshaft as per many of these type of motors.

General Comments:

My 214SEi is, although quite loud, a seriously lively motor. It is completely standard and can reach 60mph from standing in around 8.5 seconds. The motorway pickup is excellent and fuel economy is very reasonable, not changing much even when driven hard.

For my £750 I got excellent half leather seats which are height adjustable and have lumbar support, center rear arm rest, power steering electric windows and wide 15inch alloy wheels which were a fantastic boost to grip/handling as compared with my previous poor-handling 214SLi which could get seriously frightening in the wet.

This car is the best motor I have ever bought. I payed £750 for it with tax and MOT (spent £60 on new brakes) and the car is in excellent condition all round. The only cosmetic niggle is the fact that the rear doors often appear a different metallic red to the rest of the car.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 10th February, 2004

11th Feb 2004, 10:22

Different colour back doors usually mean the car is a 'cut and shut'! Nevermind, as long as you like the car hey!

28th Sep 2004, 09:57

Standard 8.5 seconds?? The 1.4 K series engine only puts out 103 BHP standard, the fastest you will do 0 to 60 in is 10.5 on a good day.

3rd Nov 2004, 17:05

ORIGINAL WRITER:

Sorry to the above comment, but for some reason this particular rover was much faster than all my other 214 16v models and could reach 60mph in this time.

Anyway, as of summer 2004 I have sadly sold my much lover Sei (for a fraction less than I paid), to be replaced by a extremely good value (bought from the family very cheaply) 2000 model Vectra GLS. I had high hopes for this much more modern car after my Rover and with a significantly larger 1.8 engine I was expecting a performance boost! Sadly though, I really wish I'd kept my Rover. The Vectra is excellent at everything apart from acceleration. 60mph cannot be achieved below 10secs and it is totally unresponsive compared to the Rover. However it looks fantastic (SRi spec colour coded spoiler, skirts etc all in silver), handles a hundred times better than the Rover, cruises unstressed at up too 100mph, has A/C, all electrics, ABS and many other modern gadgets. Whilst top end speeds are much more attainable (and greater) than the Rover, the car just doesn't give me the all round driving pleasure. It's all very well breezing a sharp corner at speed, but there's never any grunt left to come out of it with! Next car: Rover 216 Coupe!

2nd Mar 2005, 13:13

I own a 214sei and mine goes from 0-60mph in about 9 seconds, it is faster than the 214sli which did it in 10.5 seconds.

22nd Jan 2006, 17:02

ORIGINAL WRITER: November 2005 and I have now upgraded to a 1995 Rover Coupe 2.0 Turbo. Fantastic motor which leaves pretty much anything standing. I would recommend this upgrade to anyone - this Rover even goes round corners!