Mg Cars

The Rover Group

MG Rover 800 Classic Cars in the United States, the car was known as the Sterling, and was only available with the 2.5 litre Honda V6 petrol engine. Initial sales in America were strong, and the design was well received. However, early vehicles were soon found to have been under-developed and quality and reliability problems soon escalated to a crisis. The sales then fell as the reputation of the model deteriorated, especially as soon as J.D. Power surveys criticised initial quality and reliability publicly. This was especially damaging as at the same time, the same core vehicle, the Acura Legend was doing extremely well in America.



Many mechanical and chassis parts for the Sterling 825/827 are still readily available due to the fact that it was largely identical to the much more popular Acura Legend in these areas, save for engine cooling and braking systems. However, electrical, body, and interior parts are quite difficult to locate in the US now.




In Europe especially, the Rover 800 was hampered by Honda's insistence on using its own double-wishbone front suspension. This allowed a low bonnet-line, but restricted the total suspension-travel, which in turn could not give the Rover 800 the executive car ride qualities and traction on poorly surfaced roads which were necessary for it to compete. The first 2.5 L engine also lacked low-end torque, which particularly affected its "drivability". The 4-cylinder cars suffered from reliability problems, thanks to the fragile Lucas fuel injection systems which Rover used.

It should be noted that the 2.5 L Honda V6 is a completely different engine from the Rover KV6 Engine introduced in 1996, although the two share the same nominal 2.5 L capacity and a V6 architecture.

Early build quality of the Rover 800 was reportedly fairly poor, (J.D. Power) with trim, electrics and paintwork problems. The Rover 800 did have a roomy and luxurious interior but this did not save the car from gaining a poor reputation from which it never really recovered. Corrosion problems in early models also marred its reputation.

By 1989, the 2.5 L engine was enlarged to 2.7 L, the expensive Maestro-derived instrumentation had been changed to gauges sourced from a different component-builder (losing the oil pressure gauge and voltmeter in the process) and build quality had improved. A budget version of the 800, using an eight-valve (as opposed to the usual 16-valve) version of the O-Series engine was introduced, but was short-lived.

The original version of the Rover 800 was one of the most popular cars in Britain's full-sized executive car market, which at this stage was effectively split into two strong sectors — mainstream brands such as Ford and Vauxhall, and prestige brands such as BMW and Audi. It directly competed with the likes of the Ford Granada/Scorpio and Vauxhall Carlton.