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MG Midget and Sprite General - MGF (nmc)

Now I've almost got my little sister to the point where she will decide not to get a small euro hatch as a first car.

No it will be an MGF!

So what are te pointers?
HGF
Rust
Hydragass
Are they trouble?
Onno Könemann

My big sister has a low milage year 2000 limited edition F. Other than HGF being a big issue for older cars (or any MGRover with the 1.8 litre K series) the only other thing I think is general naff build quality! Her car only had 35k miles and bits were just falling off it constantly!

There is an excellent modern MG forum here:

http://forums.mg-rover.org/

I use it often for advice on my Rover 25 which also has 'reverse kit car syndrome' (the car starts as a whole car and slowly dismantles itself!).

Check coolant for mayo, a sign of imminent HGF!

Cheers,
Malcolm
M Le Chevalier

HI Onno,

MGF's can be great cars, basically if head gasket has been done properly with uprated gasket and you keep an eye on waater levels they are fine,

Rust at rear of sills (in front of rear wheelarch) front wings (at front corner, around the arch, where they meet the sills and around the side indicators), rust on the doors, rust on rear arches.

Bad repairs when accident damaged (they are prone to front end impact) this easily can damage the subframe, and also I've seen plenty of cars with badly welded front ends.

I wish you were near to us as I've got a bare shell in the garden with all the classic problems.

Drop me an email and I'll stick a mgf repair manual on cd in the post for you

Regards,
John

PS - I've got a nice orange MGF for sale on ebay at the minute (most problems already sorted out - my ebay nam,e is little_british_sports_cars)

John Collins

Thanks for the tips

John
if she get's one i'll mail you for the disc

I would love to buy one in the UK (as they are dirt cheap) but she prefers a LHD car.
Onno Könemann

I bought an MGF about 3 years ago now and am happy.

I looked at a number of cars and found a few cars with very low mileage. The high mileage vehicles I saw were pretty much "dogs" as described above however all the low mileage cars were perfect body wise. So I would advise don't even bother looking at any car with more than 40,000 miles on the clock and preferably less.

Sadly there is no cure for HGF, I think the basic design of the engine is at fault but as said if you can ensure you never run short on coolant and a quality job is done on replacing the original HG with the latest then problems can be kept to a minimum.

Hydrogas units whilst being superb suspension can deterierate over time. They are IMO the same as a Metro (indeed the MGF is an A Series metro front end minus engine, mated to a K Series metro front end forming the rear) I already have a suspension pump which sorts out most problems but in time the units can leak their gas which then almost renders them useless.

Just one more thing about H/Gaskets in the UK there have been thousands of K series engines with HGF that nowadays all local garages know exactly how to repair them and can give a price for the job even without thinking. The cost is about £400 and is easily sorted. I take the view that you need to add £400 to the buying price so that you have 1 HGF in the bank for when it happens. :)
Robert (Bob) Midget Turbo

From seeing posts on PH it appears many garages haven't a clue how to do the complete job of gasket replacement and coolant system refill properly

There's a chap that regularly gets recommended to do the job for much less and much more reliable plus others have posted up the procedure

Do a Search on this forum for more info - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&f=81&mid=39637
Nigel Atkins

If hes the only bloke who can do it he will be an extremely busy chap LOL

Nigel I think if a garage does one and it fails after a short period do you think they will do more? unless they can do it correctly what would be the point, they would go out of business! wouldn't they?
Robert (Bob) Midget Turbo

Oh PLEASE a K Series is easy to deal with IF you know what you are doing.
Deborah Evans

Good article on the K series head gasket problem at link below. It should be noted that the engine/gasket is not an entirely bad design and it is not guaranteed that it will fail like most people think.

It has got a bit of a bad rep due to 'experts' that don't really know anything.

That said, 1.8 litre engines will be more likely to suffer than the smaller capacity 1.1 and 1.4 due to narrower gap between bores.

Anyway, waffling a bit, researched all this stuff when I first got the Rover 25 and I agree that the issue isn't as scary as people make out but obviously you don't want to buy a car with signs of imminent failure.

cheers,
Malcolm

http://forums.mg-rover.org/showthread.php?t=245578
M Le Chevalier

Bob - you're asking the wrong person the wrong question - when it comes to garages and "specialist experts" not doing a good job yet remaining in business - I could write a book on it

As I've said before there are many bad businesses and many bad customers, you have to decide which is which

I didn't say he was the only bloke who could do the job properly - I do say according to the posts I have seen there appears to be many garages that do a poor job of K HGF and with my personal experiences I can believe it

A garage that cocks it up could (IF it's honest) just admit the mistake and/or just put it right and avoid them in future or learn from the mistake

Not all the garages are specialiset Rover/MG

The work may not immediately go wrong and the car owners may not be car enthusiasts who recognise the fault or faulty repair, the MGF prices mean it's available as a 2nd, 3rd, 4th weekend highdays car for those that just want a two seater soft top sports car

You don't have to believe me, do the Search (easier than archives here)

I make mistakes but not this time, on this subject

Deborah
- I also never said that the K HG was difficult - but my point is that you do need someone who does know what they're doing

I'm not doing the engine down at all or it's HGs

The garages that do a poor job or owners that don't look after their cars are the ones promoting a poor reputation for K HGF - not me
Nigel Atkins

This thread was discussed between 02/05/2011 and 03/05/2011

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