Rover Expriences

Sir,
I have followed the recent Mini v. Imp correspondence with interest but troubles are not necessarily confined to cars costing under, say, £600, as my experiences show.

Early in 1964 I exchanged my 2,4-litre overdrive Jaguar, for a 3-litre Automatic Rover Coupe and since I have been motoring for over 40 years I do consider I can look after my cars.

The Rover is, of course, a fine car, quiet at all times, an instant starter, reasonably economical on petrol but heavy on oil and although meticulously, carefully run-in has never done better than 1,000 m.p.g. on “Shell” Super, performance is adequate though not so good as my 2.4 Jaguar, but outstanding is the power assisted steering.

However, the fact remains that in 17,000 miles to date the driver’s door lock has been replaced twice at Rover’s expense, I have my second speedometer and third rev.-counter, a new petrol gauge in the dash and unit in the tank, whilst it complete failure of the oil seal in one rear hub necessitated the fitting of new brake shoes and at the same time two new journal assemblies had to be fitted in the transmission.

Considering the initial cost, this is not very good. In my younger days I spent less on Fords than any other car I owned and next year, when I change, why not return to Dagenham for a GT Cortina with Cox Seats and save some money ?

Beckenham. C.K. Shone