From The Times online:

“People talk about Volkswagens being reliable, and Mercs. But if I may liken reliability to the M1, the German cars are only at Milton Keynes. Toyota is outside Leicester, whereas Honda is already on the A1, going into Scotland.”

        – Jeremy Clarkson [1]

[1] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article824066.ece

I mentioned a while ago about the time I bought a Rover 600 because my previous car was involved in a hedge related incident. Here are two pictures on my Ford Serria and its adventure into a hedge.

and

The Rover 600 is a fine looking car and was an improvement in style over the equivalent Honda Accord (Euro) of the time. I still think that while the look is a bit dated now there are some of the styling elements can still be found on the latest euro Accords.

Collecting the car from the Rover dealership was a bit of a nightmare. The sales guy was demonstrating various aspects of the car when he tried to turn on the heater and fan. Nothing happened. After a few seconds the sales guy buried his head in his hands in a kind of “why me” style.

I was asked if I wanted the heater repaired before I collected the car on another day car or if I wanted collect the car as planned but return it in a few days to have the heater repaired. I elected to collect the car as planned as I had didn’t a car at that time due to the before mentioned hedge related right off of my Ford Sierra.

I was a bit shocked when I returned the car to the dealership a few days later to hear from one of their mechanics that the repairs world cost me several hundred pounds! He told me that it required the whole dashboard to be removed and that was the main cost. Obviously he had not read the Haynes manual which offered a much cheaper approach to accessing the heater unit. I will refer to him as dashboard man later.

I was asked to wait a bit and so I sat down in their waiting room. After a while the service department receptionist came over to discuss the repairs. She was a bit shocked when I told her that I had only bought the car from them a few days before. She didn’t realise that small fact because “I did not get angry or start shouting like the others normally do”

So I didn’t have to pay the several hundred pounds in the end as it was faulty when I picked up the car. I did get angry when I discovered that they had not arranged for a courtesy car and was told “you didn’t ask for one when you arranged for the repair”. I pointed out that I didn’t arrange for the repair they had in order to fix their fault.

Anyways the salesman who sold me the car was nearby and offered me a lift to work. It was an introduction of the type of customer car I could expect from this Rover dealership over the coming years. To me the sales staff where always doomed because however they handled a sale the service department was always on hand to destroy any good will.

My last visited to them was a few months before they went bust. I notice from an internet site that their lease for their building was up at the end of the year. I suspect that either their parent company told them to make a profit to justify their renewing the lease or they had an exit strategy which was to collect as much money from their customers as possible.

I noticed a number of firsts on my last visit. The main thing of note is that it cost me around £800 for a MOT and service.  I had been advised over the phone that it would cost around £400. The car was kept by them for several days which had never happened before. Their reason was that they were waiting for parts yet in the past they were able to get parts the same day. The replacement exhaust they fitted looked very cheap and nasty. Finally it was dashboard man who handled the transaction instead of the woman behind the desk.

I suspect that they may have had some of those “shouty” customers in those last few months and needed dashboard man to handle the request for payments.  

Even though this was 2002 and three years before the Rover finally went into administrating I knew from the moment I drove off their car park with my receipt for £800 of repairs that Rover was doomed. A few months later the dealership closed down. There is no better advertisement for a car manufactures woes than having a boarded up showroom with references to Rover in amongst. It’s still in that state today. If I were Rover I would have removed any references to the Rover brand or any traces that it was once a Rover dealership.    

So they next year when my service was due I decided to buy another car from a proper car company. This would be my second Honda Accord…

I’ve always liked Honda and especially Honda Accords. In 1997 after my Ford Sierra was written off in an unfortunate hedge related accident I needed to buy another car. I couldn’t really afford a brand new car so I had to buy used. I wanted to buy from a dealership this time and so one of the factors in buying my next car was the proximity of the car dealers to my home.

Even at that time I really wanted a Honda Accord and it was fortunate that there is a Honda dealership about 3 miles from where I live. My budget was around £10000 and I didn’t more than around 60000 miles on the clock.  Unfortunately Accords seemed to hold onto their value quite a bit so even a used one was out of my budget.

Fortunately almost next door was a Rover dealership and they sold Rover 600s. There were two advantages to buying a Rover 600. The first was it was really a Honda Accord but in a nicer body style. Secondly they were over priced when sold new and they did not hold onto their value very well like the Honda version did. If memory serves the Honda Accord when sold new was cheaper that the equivalent Rover 600 but they depreciated much more so there used price was much less in comparison.

So I had bought my first Accord but not my last…