Any Mgf Owners Out There?

[Guest Angel Boy]

Just wondered if there are any other MGF or MG owners out there in Hoody world? I picked a BRG 97 plate 1.8 VVC MGF up a couple of weeks back as after last winter I decided the Hood is really only a Summer machine. For a 13 year old car and only 48k on the clock, it has been very well looked after and looking through the wod of receipts I got with it, literally thousands spent on it. Best part is it literally didn't cost me thousands to get it.

 

 

 

 

I know nothing about MGFs so have been doing many hours of reading etc, but you can't beat speaking to owners so any recommendations as to which MG club I should join?

 

Cheers,

Andy

[Guest Christine]

Yep! One nice motor you have there with quite a few mods by the look of it, I have a 2004 MG TF 135 very underrated car in my humble opinion, handles like a dream and reasonably quick, just keep a eye on the coolant level often first sign of head gasket failure, As for owners Club I'm in the MG owners club but I think either are just as good.

 

 

[Guest mastarforth]

I have had 2 MGF's

 

got to say underated in my opinion, loved both of them

[Guest Stuartl]

They are often worth more as parts. Saw a T plate go on ebay the other night with a years MOT for just over £500.

 

As said before, watch the temp gauge, the K series eats head gaskets like no tomorrow (

[Adrian]

i have a mgf 160 trophy i bought in april, briilaint little car.

from speaking to people the main problem is the head gastket, so keep eye on coolant......my gasket went the first hour i had it, the garage i bought it from serviced the car and forgot to fill coolant.....but replaced it for me. not missed a beat since...

mg owners club are best for spares and trips out as they have their own dedicated sections for both.

mg car club best for socials and racing if thats what you want to do.

i am in both at this m oment in time, will see how good they are before i decide which to kick into touch.

have joined the mgf register but not impressed...

[harvs]

I had an MGF for several years and really enjoyed driving it. In fact, it was the fun I had in the MGF with the rear wheel drive which made me think about getting a kit car! As other have said, watch out for HGF - I had it go twice. The chassis also flexes quite a bit going round uneven corners. But other than that an absolutely fabulous car. Hope you enjoy it

[Guest Angel Boy]

Thanks for the advice guys. I've read loads of reports about HGFs and it seems Rover/MG tried to fix a problem by introducing something that potentially made it worse (plastic dowels instead of steel). Seems the mods made by Land Rover for the Freelander k-series engine are the best way to go, but fundamentally the engine was never designed for the capacity that it has ended up at. Starting to get used to checking the coolant as part of my weekly routine.

I'm noticing some weird little quirks which I'm not sure if they particular to my car or not one of them is how the rad fan kicks in after about 2 minutes of the engine running. I've yet to trace how this is controlled, but so far I haven't found any dodgy wiring mods so I'm wondering if it's had some override down in the ECU? Is this possible? I'd be expecting it to kick in around 97 degC-ish rather then just barely registering in the temp gauge.

Regarding the clubs thing, I guess I'm looking for the best place to ask all the questions I have rather social or events and definitely not racing. So sounds like the MGOC is the place to start.

 

Cheers,

Andy

[Guest dinger]

I had one for a couple of weeks just to buy and sell on, but really enjoyed driving it, was quite impressed considering the front end is a metro,

Headgaskets are very common but seem to hold together if they get past the 50k mark,

The fan cutting in ealry could be a faulty temp sender or even a disconnected plug onto the sender, the ecu will automatically switch the fan on if there is a fault with the temp sender or see's an open circuit.

 

early ones seem to suffer from rot on joining edges and also keep an eye on the coolant pipes that run to the radiator as these are prone to rust and leaking, also chack for damage as they can get hit by speed humps.

 

ALot of fun per puund in my opinion if you can get past the stigma of a hirdressers car,

 

Enjoy Andy, aslo the best colour you have there.

[Guest Christine]

Hi Andy, I worked at Longbridge from 1989 to 2000 mostly on the K series, we've probaly had at least one in the family from then to now.

with referance to the mods you mention the uprated rail the new type head gasket etc. are all attemps to solve the problem but unfortunately

to no avail. The MGOC is the best club for tec info with some amazing guys who know the car inside out. You mention funny electical querks

my drivers window opens on it's own when the wipers or turned on to intermitant, to me just part of the cars character. as for the Hairdressers

stigma............................just drop the hood when you can !

[Guest Angel Boy]

Hopefully this weekend the weather is going to be sunny long enough for me to poke around the engine bay a little to see if anything funny is going on and to have a bit of a drive with the roof down for the full on hairdresser effect

 

I'll have a bit of a snoop around the MGOC site and see what I can pick up from there. Thanks for the input guys.

 

Andy

[Jamiep]

never had an Mgf but had a zr for about 6 years, the k seires is a good engine although quite close to the limit on coolant levers, one thing to look out for is the water pump leaking. quite often the cause of HGF but rerly fixed which often leads to repeated failures.

I modified mine, changing internals from 1.4 to 1.8 and using PTP cams (very close to tf135cam) was putting out around 140bhp and more torque the the ZR160 made huge difference and never had the head gasket let go. changed 2 leaking pumps though!