The Honda engine is superb, smooth and almost silent. I read a lot about these engines suffering from tappet noise, but touch wood I haven't had that trouble. It may have something to do with the fact that the car has only had one previous owner, it was the director of the company car section at Rover H/Q!!, It had been fully serviced by Rover every 5000 miles, so clearly it pays in the long run.
Despite the size and weight of the car, it will outpull most other cars on the road from a standing start (it's at its best when sat next to a spotty teenager in his XR2 at the traffic lights revving his engine, they have eaten my dust many times!!).
The only drawback with the engine is the fuel consumption, but then that is to be expected from a 6 cylinder engine I suppose.
My only other criticism is the gearing. My previous car, 2.0i DOHC Sierra auto had superb gearing, it would be slightly over 3 grand on the counter at 90mph, unfortunately my Sterling is just over 4 grand doing roughly 80mph (if my memory serves me correctly).
Inside the car is superb, everything electric and cream leather, and it all works perfectly at the moment so fingers crossed it stays that way.
It's a shame that the Mark 2 sterlings didn't have the fuel computers of the mark 1's. I would like to have a drive of one of the latest Sterlings with the revised 2.5 litre KV6 engine as apparently they had sorted out the ride quality and road noise problem by then.
