1995 Rover - Austin 200 SEi from UK and Ireland - Comments

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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!