Great car.....at a price. (MG ZR)

Member Name: drewboy

Product:	MG ZR
Date:	11/08/04 (6130 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks great, Fun to Drive, Quite Spacious

Disadvantages: Build Quality, Bad Residuals

i bought my zr about a year ago and have to say i do love it....with reservations.

it?s the zr105+ model with all the extras (essential as very basic at base spec) in metallic grey. i got the car pre-registered so saved about 3k off the total list price of just over £13k (which i would never have paid for a beefed up rover 25)

personally, i think the car looks great. just the right amount of changes to the bodywork of the 25 without making it look garish, although, that?s with my colour, not too sure i would have said the same if mine had been yellow!

performance wise, the car is very respectable with 105 bhp it hits 60mph in around about 10secs which is pretty good compared with other 1.4s (my last car was a vaxhaul tigra which would have been eating the mg's dust with its 1.4). the acceleration is at its best mid range from about 30mph to 50mph and i have left a few fellow drivers wondering what just happened! the handling is very good too, corners can be taken very well with little body roll, and coupled with the sports bucket seats (half leather, very supportive) u find it difficult not to push that wee bit more going round the roundabout in the asda car park!!!

inside the car is acceptable if not a little drab. this is where the rover 25 origins are most apparent. it?s quite a dark cabin though the metallic effect inserts lift it a little bit and do add to the sporting appeal.

the build quality is shockingly bad though.

as this was the first new car i had ever bought (i count pre-reg as new as it only had 40miles on the clock) i would have expected everything to be fitting together like gloves however this is just not the case with the mg. there are squeaks and rattles all over the shop, the most annoying of which is in the sunroof somewhere so i cant even try and fiddle with it to stop it. also, the bad build quality is affected by the hard suspension. i personally like hard suspension, much better for
driving pleasure, but if this is going to be adopted, the car MUST fit together properly or it rattles like an old Ford Capri, which it does. And in a car which has so far done only 6500 miles, is simply shouldn't.

After one rattle had bugged me to the point of going crazy, I took it back to the garage for them to have a look at. It turned out the back passenger window was loose and could actually be pushed out with your hands! To the dealer?s credit, they did fix this under warrantee but I suspect that it wasn't fixed completely because the rattle is still detectable although not NEARLY as bad as it was in the first place.

Equipment wise my car has the 17inch alloys, front fogs, remote central locking, driver airbag (think passenger is available) and the full electric pack (including the heated mirrors - FULLY recommended as a useful way to avoid scraping the cars alloys of the kerb in reverse parking). It also has a standard immobiliser and deadlocks (make sure you press the button on the key fob TWICE or the deadlocks will not be turned on) but no alarm, which as a (semi) hot hatch, it really should have.

I mostly use my car to travel around the city and find that it copes very well with the crowded roads of a busy city centre, the car is light enough to cope with dodging in and out of traffic and it has plenty of acceleration for getting off at the lights. I recently took a trip in it down to the Lake District and found that the car copes equally well with the motorway and I felt fine after the two and a half hour trip. In terms of fuel consumption, I have found the car to be on average from my experience of other cars with the same size of engine and can usually get about 300 miles from a full tank of unleaded (which costs about £27) and that is mostly city driving. Parking the
car is easy (as said, the electric mirrors do help this) although the power steering is not as light as other cars but I prefer this way as it feels a lot better when driving about as it gives you more feel is corners and stops the car wandering at speed.

WORD OF WARNING........
The car does not come with a spare wheel. I found this out when I had a flat one day and had to phone the garage. Their response was 'Rover MG do not offer this with the MG ZR however they have included a can of foam to put in the tyre to get your to a garage". NEVER put the foam in as it will wreck the tyre and cost you WAY more than a puncture should. Best bet is to buy a space saver wheel which should fit in the boot which comes with a big useless bit of polystyrene. Personally I think this is a shocking policy as if you pay £13k for a new car, SURELY you should get a spare wheel.......

Have only had the car serviced once so far, but this seamed to go smoothly and the garage did seem to be able to get rid of some of the squeaks and rattles. It only cost me bout £80 but this was a special offer. They did not offer a courtesy car however, although a lift to work was there if I needed it.


All in all, as I said, I do love my car, would just like it to be built better and be
better equipped but if you are willing to put up with these hardships then you get a really good fun budget hot hatch!

I would recommend the car although I would personally not buy the car again but for me, I don't see the point in trading one car in to buy it again!

drew

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