2002 MG TF 135 review from UK and Ireland

Car history:

Bought ex demonstrator at 1200m.

Door locks intermittent fault - doors sometimes don't lock or unlock properly.

Passenger window stopped working.

Gearbox fault at about 15000 miles.

Exhaust fault at about 15000 miles.

General rattles, squeaks, leaks etc.

Handling: The tail will play only when you really push it. The front end will give first. Makes it safe, until it's wet/snowy etc then the tail end becomes much more as one would expect of a 'sports car'!

Steering: Quite sharp and direct, although from memory the 'new' Mini is sharper and more direct. Makes the car easy to position and control.

Ride: Good for a 'sports car' will not remove all your bones in one journey although it can be a little tedious on longer motorway runs.

Noise: Very noisy with roof up or down very tedious after a couple of hours driving. Noise levels need to be reduced with the roof up on the next revision of this car.

Build quality: Very poor really. Rattles and squeaks everywhere, leaks at the door mirrors, which are apparently fixless.

Rust appearing inside already car age at time of writing: 1.5 years (18 months) (kept in middle England, not coastal location!).

Service: Good, but I shouldn't have had to see them as often in a little over 1 years ownership as I have had to! Normally the main dealer will do all they can to sort the problems I've had as soon as possible. However to start with they did not seem as keen to sort problems, and seemed to try fobbing off instead of issue resolution.

Modifications:

I replaced the original 15" wheels with MG 16" 'multispoke' wheels, fitted with 215.40.16 tyres all round. The tyres were (and still are) Goodyear Eagle F1. I would recommend these tyres to anyone.

I purchased the wheels and tyres from Brown and Gammons.

Fitted Windstop: bargain of the year!

Fitted Chrome bits: makes the interior come together tying the chrome door handles to other chrome bits!

Fitted alloy heater control knobs: as above just tied the car together more fully.

Replaced 'whip' aeriel with a short aluminium unit. looks much better.

Replaced standard 'tape deck' with Pioneer MP3/CD head unit.

I do like this car, but it could be so much better.