A cracking car (Rover 25 2.0 TD iL 5dr)

Member Name: pontecaille

Product:	Rover 25 2.0 TD iL 5dr
Date:	05/03/03 (3090 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: low in consumption, stylish, good performance

Disadvantages: cheap interior

Well I suppose I had to start one day to give my opinion in the car field. I am not a car junkie but when it comes to give my personal input in that matter I can get quite accurate and hopefully useful to you.
Let?s start by the beginning. We have been driving a rover 414 Sli model for 3 years. As any old cars (this is a K registration), repairs got a bit pricey year after year. The car has nothing wrong with it. It has passed all its MOTs, has a very good service history and is actually a very good runner. We are quite sad to sell it away. But we know the person who is driving it today and it is a bit of a relief.
So why did we get rid off it if it is a cracker, I hear you say?
To be honest we wanted simply and purely a new car. When I say new I mean a good second hand one.
So here we go, working out a monthly budget. Actually it is not a bad financial figure to put in a car but we quickly found out that within this price range (which I though was quite high already) we couldn?t get the car with our few requirements.
Every car dealer we visited was clear about the fact we couldn?t get the car we wanted for that price. The funny thing is I looked over the Internet and seen many cars available for sale for under £5500. So why can?t we find one locally? I guess the prices up here are slightly higher.

Here is a list of the main criteria we were looking for:
Diesel, and at least 1.8 litres
Colours to avoid were green, red
Car audio
Few safety aspects like air bag
Not so fussy about the interior as long as it is comfortable and spacious
The exterior has to be in a good neck too
One previous owner
A full service history
HPI clear

I think we were not to demanding. But the lowest price we got was £7995 for a year old ford focus.
After few trips to many industrial sites in the west and central Lothian area we decided to look thoroughly at the cars we found online. We had our eye on a Tahiti Blue R
over 25 2.0l TDi IL model, W registration for under £5300. We checked the value of the car with the help of an online price car checker.
The only downfall was the travelling distance we had to do to view it, about 200miles from our home.
We still phoned the car dealer and obtained more information. We had to go down and see it. So we put a deposit to secure the car.
I am not going to tell about the trip as it has been a nightmare and will revive bad memories?
Anyway, when we got to the Autopark place the Rover was held at the back so that nobody could see it. It is a good-looking car, nice attractive and immaculate design, and nice vibrant colour. There are few scratches barely noticeable at the back and a big one on the side mirror. The interior is of a dark colour, quite basic and cheap looking but clean overall.
The room at the back is not as bad as some car specialists say it is.
The performance is however to be questioned, as the car seems to dramatically slows down in 5th gear. But it is working exceptionally well.
The slightly smaller steering wheel ensures a tight driving and more enjoyable to manipulate.
The safety and security aspects are the driver airbag, stronger and brighter headlamps, thief good proofing too.

The running costs are very good. We filled the 45l tank for about £35 and drove a total of 520 miles on combined routes. If I don?t mistake it is about 50 to 55 miles per gallon, isn?t it?
The cassette/stereo is of a high quality but we opted for a CD with MP3 player that we installed few days ago.
I think it is a competitive price for this model. We paid £5299 (value at the time was £5690). We didn?t manage to haggle the price down; it is more certainly because of the release of the programme Right car, Wrong car few months ago. But we got a free delivery and all the scratches touched up, mainly the side mirror totally sprayed.
The insurance group is 7, the road tax is one of the highest being
£160 for a full year. Spare parts are quite cheap compare to other brands and the after sales service from Rover dealer is quite professional.
We are overall very happy with this buy and hope to get the most out of it. And I give the Rover 25 2.0l TDi a 4*.
I definitely recommend this car maybe not as new but definitely nearly new.

Summary: