I've been looking at two cars, both 100k 1998 one company owner vehicles with full main dealer history. Both are £4,000, the details are:
Mondeo 1.8lx, S Reg. 5 Door, Met. dark blue, Air Con
Rover 620 SLD (diesel), R Reg, Met. Charcoal, Air Con
Which would be the best bet for another 30,000 trouble free miles over the next three years???
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Paul
If you decide against the diesel please let me know where it is. I could be interested
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For my money,all things being equal,i would rather own the Mondeo,should hang together better without bits falling off like the Rover,even considering the 600 is one of the better built Rovers.
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100k would suggest the car has either had a clutch not too long ago or is due one, an expensive repair on the Mondeo and from what I 've got from a couple of guys I work with who own them, because the subframe all has to be readjusted after refitting to the car, they never drive the same afterwards - Might be worth checking out.
SWMBO's parents had a 600 and absolutely adored it though the central locking ECU had a russian roulette principal of which doors/the boot it was going to lock/unlock!
Good luck!
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I have too heard that the Mondeo clutch, on a diesel, is 8 hours labour. I run a Rover 400 diesel and regularly get 53mpg on out of town driving. I am not offering an opinion, just some facts!
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Isn't this a bit of a myth about the Mondeo clutch?I enquired at a Ford dealership and was quoted £300.
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Paul,
Pure opinion based on a whim.
Take a chance on the Rover because this will feel a better made more individual car.
The Mondeo might be a more sensible pick with a lower repair liability but these days you can be unlucky with anything from Fiat to Mercedes.
I assume you want it as a business use car because the Mondeo may be more family friendly.
Either of these cars is £4000 well spent. About the first years depreciation for either!
David
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Be careful with a Mondeo.
They are excellent cars but if yours pulls to the left under normal driving, acceleration or braking then simply walk away. Or if the steering wheel is not horizontal when driving in a straight line.
This could apply to any car I suppose, but mondeos are notorious for pulling to the left and in my experience you can never get them right again.
I have one of my own and have real problems with the handling.
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There are only two reasons why a Mondeo will pull to the left on an uncambered stretch of road. The first is if the front nearside subframe has been incorrectly aligned when reattached after removal to, for example, replace a clutch. The other is if the nearside wheel has hit a kerb and knocked the nearside suspension out of alignment. All that fuss on BBC Watchdog a few years ago came from one old man driving along a steeply cambered road and taking both hands off the wheel to fight off a wasp. His car naturally pulled to the left as most cars would and bent its front suspension against a kerb. The old man explained all this in a Watchdog Christmas Special. It's also why the Mondeo in question had an odd set of wheel trims. All were correct for the car except the one covering the nearside front wheel which was for a later model.
HJ
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Go for the Rover 600. We bought an immaculate S reg 620SLi auto in metallic oxford blue 6 months ago with FRSH and just 30k (paid £7500). It was the best motoring decision we have ever made. It is pretty solid, looks extremely classy, and attracts admirers like no other car I have ever driven simply because it has a sense of occasion (can't think of any other car for this price that you could say that about). Several Mercedes C-class and Jaguar S-type owners have approached me at petrol stations to compliment the looks.
If I were buying again, I would definitely try to find a 623GSi. The leather and extra power would be very nice to have, although the 620 is by no means underpowered - use kickdown on the motorway, and you can hit 110 very quickly. SLi/SLD should be your minimum spec - it just looks silly with plastic wheel trims. Go for a traditional colour to fit the car's image. Silver doesn't really suit it to my mind, and BRG can look a bit fuddy-duddy. I think that Oxford blue is the best one to go for.
I find that it is much easier to get comfortable in the 620 than in an old shape Merc C class saloon (I'm 6 foot 3), and I can get out of the car after 3 hours and still feel fresh. The luggage compartment is cavernous also - it takes more than our old Granada hatchback with ease, although this is more due to good proportions than gross capacity. It is a long car though - 17cm longer than the Mondeo and only 6 inches shorter than a Merc E class - so make sure that the previous owner has not scraped the colour-keyed bumpers. Having said that, at least they can be touched up easily (I've seen loads of Mondeos with minor bumper knocks that have torn through the thin plastic skin to reveal some sort of foam underneath - so the whole bumper would have the be replaced). The 600 bumpers are proper solid plastic. Also, the cabin is absolutely airtight - I need to keep the AC on all year round to stop the windows steaming up, but it doesn't seem to have much effect on fuel consumption.
Make sure the cambelt has been changed every 60k, and double check everything electrical - the only weak spot according to people in the know, although we have had no trouble at all.
I'd prefer to keep to positive comments about the 600 rather than negative comments about the Mondeo, but the Mondeo's looks are just plain frumpy to my mind (the only reasonable bit about it is the rear end of the estate version). The Mondeos I've been in (S reg and later) just feel cheap after the 600, and are noticeably a notch or 3 lower in terms of perceived build quality. Also bear in mind that the Mondeo LX won't even have alloy wheels.
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Go for the Rover 600. We bought an immaculate S reg 620SLi auto in metallic oxford blue 6 months ago with FRSH and just 30k (paid £7500). It was the best motoring decision we have ever made. It is pretty solid, looks extremely classy, and attracts admirers like no other car I have ever driven simply because it has a sense of occasion (can't think of any other car for this price that you could say that about). Several Mercedes C-class and Jaguar S-type owners have approached me at petrol stations to compliment the looks.
If I were buying again, I would definitely try to find a 623GSi. The leather and extra power would be very nice to have, although the 620 is by no means underpowered - use kickdown on the motorway, and you can hit 110 very quickly. SLi/SLD should be your minimum spec - it just looks silly with plastic wheel trims. Go for a traditional colour to fit the car's image. Silver doesn't really suit it to my mind, and BRG can look a bit fuddy-duddy. I think that Oxford blue is the best one to go for.
I find that it is much easier to get comfortable in the 620 than in an old shape Merc C class saloon (I'm 6 foot 3), and I can get out of the car after 3 hours and still feel fresh. The luggage compartment is cavernous also - it takes more than our old Granada hatchback with ease, although this is more due to good proportions than gross capacity. It is a long car though - 17cm longer than the Mondeo and only 6 inches shorter than a Merc E class - so make sure that the previous owner has not scraped the colour-keyed bumpers. Having said that, at least they can be touched up easily (I've seen loads of Mondeos with minor bumper knocks that have torn through the thin plastic skin to reveal some sort of foam underneath - so the whole bumper would have the be replaced). The 600 bumpers are proper solid plastic. Also, the cabin is absolutely airtight - I need to keep the AC on all year round to stop the windows steaming up, but it doesn't seem to have much effect on fuel consumption.
Make sure the cambelt has been changed every 60k, and double check everything electrical - the only weak spot according to people in the know, although we have had no trouble at all.
I'd prefer to keep to positive comments about the 600 rather than negative comments about the Mondeo, but the Mondeo's looks are just plain frumpy to my mind (the only reasonable bit about it is the rear end of the estate version). The Mondeos I've been in (S reg and later) just feel cheap after the 600, and are noticeably a notch or 3 lower in terms of perceived build quality. Also bear in mind that the Mondeo LX won't even have alloy wheels.
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I've owned two 600's now. A 94 620 Si Auto and now a 97 623 GSi Auto.
The 2L went like stink, it had a sports box fitted to it :) Huge smiles as it went through the rev bands in each gear. 0-60 came in in around 9 secs. It felt like a sofa on bends but the car was a supreme motorway cruiser.
Nothing major mechanically went wrong. The only thing that did was the driver's door central locking solenoid but it was seven years old, £40 from Rover and 30 mins to replace. I took it from 24K to 60K with not one MOT niggle. It went through front pads every 18,000 as it was an automatic. The main pipe and exhaust silencers will wear out quickly if its used for short journeys (about 2 years at £100 a pop). Cheap insurance, the full 60K cambelt service and all fluids was £275 from a good independent.
The 2.3L, put your foot down and it pulls and pulls and pulls. 0-60 in around 7.5 seconds and around 29-30mpg. GSi means excellent full leather seats, alloys, air-con and a sunroof, ABS, Cruise control, electric driver's seat, electric wing mirrors (with heater) all electric windows, coded alarm system, stereo with CD autochanger. Also at the back, three, three point seat belts. Anything past August 1997 is badge deleted with a plain 600 on the back not that they were even considered nickable ! Good understated looks.
The car has much tighter handling than the 620 and better feedback through the wheel. It glides along at 70mph and it is a lot quieter than the 620. Massive smiles when I left a 320 for dead last week.
They were around £24K brand new, a 4 yo with 60K on the clock around 5-6K with a dealer FSH. I've got a dark blue one which shows up the dirt badly but clean and polish it, it looks beautiful, I don't think the design will age as quickly as the Mondeo.
My two cents anyway.
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