Car troubles

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
I've been running older cars for some years, in the main because I refuse to pay lots of money and hate the depreciation of up to date models.
My usual budget is between £300-500. I've been very lucky with cars at this price having owned a mint Audi 80 Avant and two tidy Rover 75's even one with the 1.8K series that was perfect!
My present Rover 75 a 2000 2.5V6 Automatic has now some issues that could be expensive to fix, due to my knees I'm not in a position to do the work so am on the look out for a replacement before the MOT in March.
I could look for another 75 but the newest is 2005 and some spares are hard to find now.
So has anyone some ideas of what's out there that is reliable and easy to fix at a £500 max budget?

[Cleggy]

I'm surprised by your comment that some spares for the 75 are hard to find. I'm still running a 1998 Rover 600 and have not had any real problems with spares. I wonder if you are a member of the mg-rover forum http://www.mg-rover.org/ as that will be a good place to communicate with other owners of 75's and see how they are coping.

I really like my 600, which is of course based on Honda components. A large part of the expense of running most cars is depreciation, but I only paid £1400 for the 600 eleven years ago, so that's been pretty economic. I also run a Toyota Celica, which I very much enjoy, but that has lost far more through depreciation. As for a good replacement for your 75 or my 600....regret to say that I don't have any great ideas; so many of the current crop of cars look damn ugly to me .
600's sell for peanuts now - any good for you?
C

[Murphyv310]

I'm surprised by your comment that some spares for the 75 are hard to find. I'm still running a 1998 Rover 600 and have not had any real problems with spares. I wonder if you are a member of the mg-rover forum http://www.mg-rover.org/ as that will be a good place to communicate with other owners of 75's and see how they are coping.

I really like my 600, which is of course based on Honda components. A large part of the expense of running most cars is depreciation, but I only paid £1400 for the 600 eleven years ago, so that's been pretty economic. I also run a Toyota Celica, which I very much enjoy, but that has lost far more through depreciation. As for a good replacement for your 75 or my 600....regret to say that I don't have any great ideas; so many of the current crop of cars look damn ugly to me .
600's sell for peanuts now - any good for you?
C

Hi Cleggy.
Yes I'm a member of mg-rover.org and the 75&ZT owners club.
There is now a fair sized list of parts NLA, the upper rear arms are a weak point and their supply is patchy, Rimmers occasionally have them but at a big price and DMGRS have imported them from the MG7 line and SAIC beforehand. Body spares are non existent but the breakers can help there as body rust is rare.
I would have a facelift 75 but I find some far too expensive and often with a list of faults due to neglect.
Oh well I might be lucky and find one at the right price.

[Cleggy]

I would guess that one factor which may have contributed to the shortage of spares for the 75 is that it was in production at about the time that BMW "took over". In contrast, the 600 is built almost entirely on from Honda Accord parts, and so if you're prepared to pay the price, you can still get those (mostly?) from Honda dealers and they are probably easier to find in breakers yards. I sometimes wonder what I would/will replace the 600 with and that's a hard question to answer; they were very well spec'd and quite expensive cars when new and the Honda engines and gear boxes were damn good. Hopefully, I think it will possible to keep it going for a while.

B