Time to buy (again!)...any advice appreciated
 

Good morning all,

I have come into a little bit of money (the silver lining to a bereavement) and I think the time is right to treat myself to a Rover 75. I have previously owned a ZT190 and a ZT260, for 13 years in total, and loved both cars, but I had to get rid of the V8 finally when I had to start travelling 145 miles each way to get to work - even travelling weekly rather than daily, the costs of running a car which by then was 13 years were going to be eye-watering! And it would have ruined the car, which had only 64k miles on it when we parted company. Thankfully, the years of driving so far are now over.

Much as I had a lot of fun in the ZTs, my preferred option this time would be a 2.5 V6 75 as a suitable blend of performance, comfort and (in theory) manageable costs. There seem to be some beautiful examples out there, some with remarkably few miles! While I'm familiar with the cars, it's nearly 15 years since I bade farewell to my ZT190 (which was only 3 years old at the time), and a lot of issues will have cropped up with the cars which I never had to worry about during my previous period of ownership. Please could I ask for the wealth of experience of forum members to offer some tips on what to look for - good points, bad points, considerations, anything to help me identify a decent one and steer clear of a time-bomb!

Any thoughts will be gratefully appreciated!

Welcome to the Club and forum, a wealth of information and some absolute experts when it comes to our choice of transport. The How-to's are especially informative and advice there also in what to look for when looking for a further purchase.
Good luck and enjoy it all.

Something to read, might help :cool: https://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/for...ad.php?t=75282
Hope you find a good one and welcome back:cool:

A lot of time has passed since you last owned a MG/75 and in that time there are a few things people have learnt to look out for.
On the whole we feel the marque is a very well kept secret and is one of the outstanding cars of its period.
Common things to be aware of on the V6

Timing belt, service interval is 6yr or 90k and costs in excess of £400
Cooling fan known to fail, can be anything from worn out brushes, failed resistor or completely failed fan. time consuming to repair or replace.
Clutch slave and master cyl a known point that can fail with a large repair bill, Look out for a hard to press pedal or leaking slave cyl. again a hefty bill.
Broken springs front and or rear, usually the bottom coil.
By far the most serious thing to check out are the upper rear arms and rear sills, both prone to corrosion. Although called upper arms they are what the rear spring sits in and are known to rot through, still available around £180 per pair. General opinion on the rear sills is that they will sooner or later succumb to the tin worm. replacement rear sills are available for around £120 per pair.

Other than that your looking at a 10 to 20yr old old car, common sense needs to prevail.

Thanks for the replies folks! I had found the Ultimate Buyers Guide thread, but it's a while since it was closed, and even the follow-on thread hasn't had much input for some years.

This is particularly interesting...and the last bit is definitely true!

How easy is it to check these components? The rear sills should be straightforward, but the rest presumably needs a trained eye (if only I had studied something practical instead of languages...!). And I'm guessing that checking the car's recent paperwork might reveal the beginning of corrosion or a leak from the clutch cylinder, whereas the cooling fan could pack up without warning at any stage?

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to reply!

Hello, and good luck with the search!
The points covered above seem to touch base with most issues I'd keep an eye on when buying - the V6 combined with the automatic gearbox is a butter-smooth drivetrain that'll feel lovely combined with the soft 75 suspension.

If you need any bits and pieces we have pretty much everything commonly needed for the 75 / ZT, and thankfully a lot of parts that were a pain to find a few years ago are plentiful again.
Best of luck, and be sure to post some pictures when you've chosen a worthy 75 :)

Welcome to the fountain of knowledge concerning our cars. Plenty of help and advice available.

Thank you both! Like almost everyone else (probably!), my absolute dream would be a duotone; could someone offer an idea of how much extra one pays for the privilege, over a car which is otherwise identical? I'm sure there is some variation - some of the duotone combinations are no doubt more common and/or popular than others, but a ballpark figure would be useful. Not that there are any duotones for sale right now anyway, or at least any that I can find!

Seen this one? Saw it on Gumtree a couple of weeks ago so may have gone. Also mileage seems wrong - 10k?
Link here https://www.gumtree.com/p/rover/2003...75-/1417004270

It's a diesel and the Mileage is 105000 :)