Tin Top Advice

[Guest FIRSTBUILD]

just wondered if anyone knows of any horror stories about these ? probably looking at an 02 to 04 model hopefully the 160

 

thanks for any input

 

Steve

[speedtripledan]

just wondered if anyone knows of any horror stories about these ? probably looking at an 02 to 04 model hopefully the 160

 

thanks for any input

 

Steve

My mates got one the head gasket went at 20000 just as rover went bust been ok ever sense. lot of car for not a lot of money.

[Guest alan rowe]

We've got a 160 --- 2002 model (yellow of course), bought it in 2004

 

Current mileage 52000 and it's been brilliant, great to drive and handles really well

 

Other than normal servicing requirements it needed a new back box, got an X Power version, sounds good

 

Front tyres last about 20000 and the rears go on for ever, we've fitted Avon ZZ3 -- really good directionals

 

Air con needs re gassing and the radio is naf but other than that absolutely no complaints

 

Alan

[chris27]

Hi Alan

 

I had one a few years ago

 

good points

 

handled well and went like stink

 

bad points

 

build quality - rattles everywhere and the door cards kept on comming off

 

cheers

 

Chris

[ibrooks]

My mates 02 is on it's third gearbox.

 

Diff cage disintegrated on the first one and when he dipped the clutch the diff rolled forwards into the rest of the gear cluster and resulted in the front wheels locking. He was in the outside lane of a dual-carriageway in the middle of rush hour traffic. Nice big wide front tyres in a fairly nose heavy car on dry tarmac - the car just stood on it's nose and drew two black lines down the road without the brake lights going on. Pretty impressive bruise from the seatbelt and apparently there were two cars that swerved onto the central reservation (nice wide grass island) to avoid him with more swerving into the inside lane. Amazingly no actual crashes but he did manage to make the traffic news as an obstruction in the road whilst he waited for the recovery truck since the car was un-movable and after the slide sat almost sideways in lane 2 of the carriageway. That box was replaced under warranty.

 

Second one forced the main-shaft through the end casing of the box (OK it just cracked the end casing and made it bulge a bit). This time it was under the warranty of the replaced box as the original car warranty had expired. They had the box repaired.

 

Third one was pretty recent and we think a recurrence of the first problem. He'd driven to the Mini Club's workshop and been working on his Mini during the day. In the afternoon he went to move the car as one of the other guys wanted to get the trailer out of the big doors and it went about 18" forwards and stopped. He thought he'd rolled up against a brick on the floor as they were doing some work on the building at the time so he tried to reverse and see what was going on and it went back 18" and stopped. So he got out and stepped into a puddle of gearbox oil. Once again the car is imobile with the front wheels only able to turn about 18" in either direction. It was fortunate that it went where it did as they managed to get the thing inside the workshop on trolley-jacks and wheel-skates. No warranty this time just us and a replacement box, £160ish from memory. The diff pin had slid out of the planet gears and as the whole assembly tried to turn it tore a hole in the casing until it hit a strengthening web where it stopped.

 

Each time has lasted around 60k miles and it's a bit scary how little warning they each gave before pretty catastrophic failure. The first one had felt funny around the previous roundabout so he'd decided to go all around the next one and head for home since he was only 5 minutes into his journey at that point (the roundabouts are maybe 500yds apart and that's why he was in the outside lane). The second one just jumped out of gear whilst cruising along the motorway and wouldn't go back in so he coasted to the hard-shoulder leaving a trail of oil. The third one had given no signs at all on the drive to where it was parked but just wouldn't move again several hours later. OK the third time was a failure to a box that had already experienced a problem and been repaired but if it lasted 60k miles you would think the repair was fairly proven. But hey - PG1 boxes are cheap.

 

I had a Rover 45 and whilst it was a perfectly good car it was written off for very minor damage as the parts are silly expensive. There's no real problem with supply it's just that the suppliers seem to have taken the loss of the manufacturer as a license to charge whatever they like. Suppliers like X-Part/X-Power seem to have taken up the cause and get a lot of the common stuff at reasonable money but some of the less comon stuff is just daft.

 

You pays your money and all that.....

[Guest alan rowe]

oh my God -- don't tell Pauline ---------- she'll never drive it again otherwise