Great
Nothing has gone wrong with this awesome machine.
This car can perform as well as its rivals, the handling is OK, but not great. The sport seats hold you in place well, but wider people may struggle. The dashboard is pretty simple, but looks good. From the outside this car looks beefy and sporty its the best car in the MG range.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 23rd November, 2004
Good performance let down by build quality
Front and rear badges de-laminated.
Hear knob was broken and just spun round. Both fixed under warranty.
Tappet noise even after cold starting.
Stiff gear change to the point where I'm taking it to the dealers.
Squeakes all over the car.
The ZR 105 with the 1.4litre engine is quite quick 0-60 but anything after than and you can see that it isn't a motorway car as stated.
Its not the most comfortable car, the sports seats will give you back ache after a while.That's the trade-off I guess.
In general I find the build quality poor and cheap components have been used to build the car. Everything is cheap looking inside the car, and rattles are everywhere.
That said it has great handling, looks and performance.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Don't Know
Review Date: 8th September, 2004
Great fun to drive and a real head turner too!
The boot refused to shut and the dealer repaired it under warranty.
The rear doors became very stiff to open and close. I tried oiling them, but it made no difference. Again the dealer repaired under warranty.
There is an annoying intermittent rattle behind the dashboard.
Performance from the VVC engine is very good, but if you want maximum performance then you have to keep the rev range between 4000 to 7000 revs per minute to get the best out of it. The performance between 1000 and 4000 revs per minute is more or less the same as the standard 1.8 litre (the 120) but to be honest the engine loves being revved hard and sounds quite good to.
I average about 33 miles per gallon which isn't bad considering how hard I drive it.
The handling is very good and the steering is very pointy and direct with quite a bit of feel to it.
The cabin is a little dated and some of the plastics used is not the best of quality and the drivers seat is too high even on the lowest setting. It makes you feel like your sitting "on" the car rather than "in" the car.
The exterior looks great especially in some of the bright colours such as Trophy Blue and it really turns heads, far more than say a VW Golf GTI would.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 28th June, 2003
Great performance and looks for a low price
Both rear windows had a slight leak.
Steering column shroud was slightly misaligned. (Both repaired under warranty.)
A brilliant car based on the Rover 25. Fast, good handling, reasonable price and not expensive to run apart from insurance. Drives beautifully, out-performing many much more expensive cars. Hard cornering induces good, safe understeer which is easily controlled.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 27th June, 2003
Understeer is not good. Oversteer is what you want. No one likes understeer.
Just a warning to all other 160 owners, my 160 has just blown the HEAD GASKET at only 31'000 miles. I was well aware of the K series engine blowing its gasket at around 40'000 miles, but please get yours checked or changed soon if you are getting up to 30'000+ Happy driving of this great, fun car! :-)
Don't bother with this car as it "WILL BREAKDOWN" and give you no end of problems!
It also drinks fuel and isn't that quick anyway.
Talking to you from first hand experience.
2nd Jun 2004, 06:06
9/10 for the performance? It may be slower than 200vi with its lower maximum speed, but ZR160 still deserves a 10/10 for it :)