ROVER

[geoff10758]

I was listening to radio programme driving home from work just after it was announced that Rover was in trouble. They had an economist on there, so expert or something and he was saying how much more can you expect the government to do as since the late 70's the government had poured in over 10 billion pounds in some way or another. Make's you think doesn't it?

[Paul M]

Very,very sad, remember BMW paid British Aerospace £1billion for Rover in 1994, they said then that they only bought them to gain access to 4WD and front wheel drive technolgy. I never thought they would just walk away from the company after signing off the new mini and X5/new Range Rover.

I used to sell new Rovers in 1990-91 and they were fantastic (for the time  and compared to the competition), the K series metro was universally acclaimed as the best small car on the market, the 200/400 series were touted as genuine BMW 3 series alternatives, the k series 16 valve cars really were outstanding vehicles in 1990.  I remember having a 12-16 week waiting list for new cars and telling customers that had been offered a 12% discount on an Audi to go and but the Audi as I could not give them any discount at all or even guarantee a delivery date.- F***ing disgrace that it has come to this.

Totally BMW's fault coupled with the new managements failure to either secure funding for new models or develop a partnership with another manufacturer.

[perksy]

This Has been coming for ages...

You can't take an old car, put new headlights and a spoiler on it and expect people to buy it in Droves....

Also the site where they Build them is Old, and they Haven't had the Benefit of a Green field site like Honda/Toyota etc.

(Been to Longbridge and visited many Japanese sites, both here and in Japan )

They needed a Big investment from a Major player, but the way things are in the car market at the moment, there's too Many cars and Not enough buyers...

Also the Rover image is still 'Tarnished' AND they Depreciate like a Brick.

Put a Rover 75 alongside a similar speced Audi and Nearly Everyone is going to choose the Audi  

Had an MGF once (sorry to admit this     ) and Vowed i'd Never buy an MG/Rover product Again, as Stu said previously some of the Design and Build quality issues were Un-beleivable    

[windy]

Any one owned a renault latley .... in my opinion a much more unreliable and poorly built car than a Rover .... but go to France and everyone owns a Renault, Citreon or Peugeot - that is why they have an industry and we don't. We just prefer to spend our time being negative about a country that has great engineering talent ....

Sad.

Well said.   Our salaries also reflect what our country thinks of us too. And as for the Bliar defenition of an engineer - he thinks engineers are people who service washing machines. No wonder we are up s**t creek with our car industry.    

[Mark Stanton]

No wonder we are up s**t creek with our car industry.

Not completely - there's still Nissan in Sunderland and Toyota at Burnaston two massive car production plants.      

Sorry      

but go to France and everyone owns a Renault, Citreon or Peugeot - that is why they have an industry and we don't.

Not exackerrlee - I think the french government have stricter import controls and higher import tax duties or something along those lines, even in this age of european free trade - French built cars are cheaper in France than many others  

It wasn't so many years ago that even when living in Brum - I could buy a RH drive Rover cheaper in Belgium or Holland and bring it back home some 30mins from Longbridge cheaper than if I went along to my local Evans Halshaw rover dealer - why

Its only our governments that have continually taken us to the cleaners            

[smithydar]

A sad day for all those who have lost there jobs but in reality they have made S*** cars for decades and got away with it, it was inevitable in the end

Mike

i disagree with that.ive had the same rover metro gti for about 12 years now and other than a cranksensor ive had absolutely no problems..it will still go off the clock at 130mph(believe it or not) accelerates very well considering its only a 1400cc.the only down side is the bodywork now needs some attention.but all in all ive been more than happy with it..

and it will out handle a lot of cars on the roads around here..

gives the local boy racers a shock i can tell you..

im only going by my own experiences here though,and of my own car.

darren  

and can these little engines really be that bad if they stick them in caterhams..!!!

[Paul M]

Mark, no, I don't drive a Rover in 2005, my point was not that they are good now but that they once were but have suffered from neglect and underinvestment  in their mainstream range since BMW took them over. If BMW had put their considerable financial strength into developing this sector they would not have been in today's position. (and BMW would not have had to offload the company for £10)

[Mark Stanton]

I could see what your point was, that Rover may have been good 15 years ago     ..................long before BMW came on board ....................and the Rover company were already on the crest of a slump before BMW took over................... it was merely a BMW strip-out of assets rather than leave it all to the venture capitalists       that's sound business by the Germans to use what good there was

[DickieB]

I think there is a degree of over-estimating BMW's financial strength here.  They are also ripe for takeover, but clearly as a bigger firm that is still, for the moment, a viable concern.

[jeff oakley]

There are several reasons why they have gone under and many posts on here are correct. The unions in the past were awful and some still have the them and us attitude. The site is not competative now against the other volume car makers. The image is awful, MG is girly, Rover is grandad. The range is poor, quality is not as bad as some would have you belive, but not up to Jap standards. As a people we do not think of our own workers first and foremost, When were you last abroad and saw a Police car which was not made in the home country. In ours you hardly see any,pick a luxury make and our boys in blue drive them, if the leaders of our country cannot direct the purchase of our own cars why should our people buy them? My brother lives in France, and even if the French cars were more expensive they would still outsell the rest, the police drive Renaults etc not BMW Merc etc, they have a pride in the country, it's commerce and its people. I wanted a MG estate as a company car, the lease company we use would not entertain it, the depreciation was faster than a dive bomber, truley scary.

You add it up and it was inevitable, how predictable though we need someone else to blame, BMW, and now the management who kept people in work for 5 years are going to be subjected to an investigation to see if they were paid too much. So we can look forward to a costly lenghty quango witch hunt and the inevitable scape goat being found so lessons can be learnt

[nlash]

already on the crest of a slump

Sounds Irish to me            

[nlash]

There are several reasons why they have gone under and many posts on here are correct. The unions in the past were awful and some still have the them and us attitude. The site is not competative now against the other volume car makers. The image is awful, MG is girly, Rover is grandad. The range is poor, quality is not as bad as some would have you belive, but not up to Jap standards. As a people we do not think of our own workers first and foremost, When were you last abroad and saw a Police car which was not made in the home country. In ours you hardly see any,pick a luxury make and our boys in blue drive them, if the leaders of our country cannot direct the purchase of our own cars why should our people buy them? My brother lives in France, and even if the French cars were more expensive they would still outsell the rest, the police drive Renaults etc not BMW Merc etc, they have a pride in the country, it's commerce and its people. I wanted a MG estate as a company car, the lease company we use would not entertain it, the depreciation was faster than a dive bomber, truley scary.

You add it up and it was inevitable, how predictable though we need someone else to blame, BMW, and now the management who kept people in work for 5 years are going to be subjected to an investigation to see if they were paid too much. So we can look forward to a costly lenghty quango witch hunt and the inevitable scape goat being found so lessons can be learnt

The start of the rot back in the BL days was mainly down to the idea of collecting all the individual manufacturers, Austin, Morris, Triumph, Rover, Jaguar etc and trying to sell them under one roof. Jaguar salesmen trying to sell the brand he new best when a customer wanted something cheaper and so on. There was infighting between sales personnel who where trying to meet targets for their respective brands. This just put the potential customers right off. Together with the sliding standard of the product and unions, the company was doomed from this moment on.

Take the Stag for instance. Triumph now had access to the Rover V8 and instead of using this to their advantage, they thought they could do a better job welding two dolomite blocks together???

Huge decline in sales under BL meant a cut in working hours and a lack of available overtime. Workers then started to strike over pay and the rest followed on.

[S8ight]

[felters]

My brother lives in France, and even if the French cars were more expensive they would still outsell the rest, the police drive Renaults etc not BMW Merc etc, they have a pride in the country, it's commerce and its people. I wanted a MG estate as a company car, the lease company we use would not entertain it, the depreciation was faster than a dive bomber, truley scary.

Jeff - I think you've just answered your own question...

The Public Sector in the UK have to buy goods and services on the basis of "best value". They don't drive Rover cars for exactly the same reason that your company won't buy one for you...

They were never a global brand in the way that Toyota, Daimler etc. are, and consequently could never afford to amortise the cost of developing a new platform over the limited number of units that they sold. It was only ever a matter of time before their product range became so aged that sales would drop to the point that they couldn't cover the costs of keeping the lights on. It's a bit like village post offices... we all want to keep them but when it comes to actually spending our hard earned on any thing other than stamps we all go to Tescos.

If you weren't prepared to buy one of their truly awful cars in the last few years then - IMHO - you don't really have any basis for asserting that they should stay in business.  

[jeff oakley]

Felters, we did buy with our own money an MGTF brand new 18 months ago and it is fine for what it is. I have always bought British where possible in everything but it is now almost impossible to keep that aim as we make almost nothing at all . My point was I wanted as a company car the MG  estate the lease company made it so expensive it was impractical. The police do indeed have to get best value as part of a EU agreement like they do for the armed forces, it is strange that all the other EU members manage to buy home produced products but we go elsewhere every time. It is sad but as I said inevitable because the British way is to buy everything we can at the cheapest price we can without rgard for the long term consequences, the additional cost so far of MGR is £40,000.000 for support for the suppliers, £67,000.000, for the pension fund hole which the new agency will cover, plus £7,000,000 to keep it open for another week, it makes the French way of calculating best value much more accurate than ours dosen't it.