I had a 216 on an N reg in nightfire red. It was one of the last of this shape before the the new shape came in. It was without doubt one of the best cars Rover ever made! The Honda engine was an absolute peach. It was smooth, it was reliable, it would love to be revved up to the red line and it would go like stink!! The 216 was one rapid car! I miss it.
I've got a 89 Honda Concerto, still going strong, has blown the head gasket twice though, and god thats a pain to fix, was my Dad's car, and thats when it suffered the blown head gaskets, but they've been fixed and its almost at 400,000km, still going strong. Love the car.
I am quite shocked about your comments on the 1.4 k series engine, I assume you have never ever driven one. The 1.4 16v k series, certainly the later 103bhp MPi version, is one of, if not the, most powerful 1.4 non turbo engines ever made - even to this day. Out of all the different cars/engines I have driven including vauxhall 8v, ecotec, ford zetec, honda d series etc. I think the best is the k series. They are bloody reliable too.
Straight up I will tell you from first hand experience these engines from the 80's and 90's are ALL known to go past 400,000-500,000 kms on still all original factory sealed blocks (original pistons, head gaskets, bearings etc). B series, D series, F series, H series of this era were built with ZERO obsolescence (manufacturers way of consumer sabotage to decrease life and accelerate repurchase). Used in normal capacity (not raced, abused or neglected) they will literally outlast most peoples driving years and not hard to conceptualise even normal human lives. I have cars that drive like new and yet have over 30 years of use. Most of these were discarded due to inability to diagnose, ability and motivation to do the simple repairs (due to consumer conditioning by companies and removing repairs in the equation of ownership) Modern cars are so problematic (by design) that once they are past warranty they are no longer financially viable to be owned. If you look around, you will see less subsequent generation of cars that have faded paint because they are no longer capable of lasting as long.
@sophocha K-series of that era never blew head gaskets, they had wet liners back then, 1996 they changed to the damp liner design which made it weaker in the bubble 200/400 which is when the problems started, my dads old 214 wedge did 220,000 miles without any problems.
@sophocha It's actually a very good design but relies heavily on the materials used being good quality. The bolts weren't up to the job and the headgaskets were just normal ones which expand at a different rate to the metals around them. Once cured with better bolts and metal gaskets they work well. Pity Rover didn't do it from the factory.
@hunghuge12 A van is not a car, I've owned several french cars and apart from a Peugeot 106 and Citroen XM, none of them had the wheel on the bottom. I've owned a lot of italian cars too and none had the wheel on the underside.
@dragythuno Really? What have you owned then? You want to be a pedant about vans that's fine but you're saying no other car ever made then contradicting yourself with a Citroen XM. I would love to know what fleet you've personally had since nearly all PSA group cars from the last 25-30 years or so have had extrernal spares. Oh hang on - so have quite a lot of Renaults. A lot of Fiat group cars have them, some BMW's and without looking it up I would guess a lot of others. So surprise us genius.
@DRobinson345 Amazing what badge snobbery can do for you isn't it? Then the tables turned when people realised the Hondas kept working and Rover went bump.
