Finding the 800 Coupé's best angle for photographic purposes is never easy.
Purchased off a colleague for a 'nominal' sum in order to get it off his hands, this Rover Sterling Coupé is not without its issues - but nothing that special attention can't solve.
The KV6-engined Coupé had just clicked up 139,000 miles at the time Keith picked it up, but there's room for optimism...
Long term test: Coupé delights?
Finding the 800 Coupé's best angle for photographic purposes is never
easy.
ACK in July 2006, a motoring journalist
colleague found himself in a bit of a quandry. It went something like this -
his impending nuptials were going to cost a signifcant amount of money, and
with a rather sprawling fleet of ageing jalopies, something had to give. As
much as he loved his Rover 800 Coupé, he knew it would need to find a new home...
The trouble is - it had 'issues' - and throwing it to the wolves on eBay would have left it with the real possibility of being broken for spares - or worse - and he wanted to see it go to a good home. At around this time, we met on a job, and the subject of his cars came up - as it inevitably does - and he wondered if I'd care to take his 800 off his hands.
Well, my initial thoughts were to run a mile - after all, I've taken possession of a 1976 Rover SD1, which is about to undergo a fairly major rebuild, and that's beside all the other cars that grace the Adams household. Undeterred, he gave me the hard sell - and I said I'd think about it. There were plenty of reasons to say 'no' - I'd never seen the car, he'd needed to change the fob after the previous one packed up, and it was no longer working (leading to all kinds of immobiliser aggrovation), the mileage was sky-high, the bonnet wouldn't open, half the electrics were dead, and the gearbox wasn't changing properly.
You'd think it would have been easy to refuse.
A few days later, he e-mailed to ask when I would be picking up the Coupé, as he'd just got it out and it was running sweetly. Ahh, now that's not a good move - especially when I had a free Saturday coming up.
So, I ended up driving out to darkest Cambridgeshire with a mate to pick up his stricken Coupé. It was obvious that the previous owner had spent oodles of cash on it in the past, thanks to some detective work on the service history, and most of the problems should be easy to fix (...for Brian Gunn). An engine rebuild 10,000 miles ago lent some confidence - so hands were shaken, and off I drove. The owner of yet another Coupé...
Once out on the road, it immediately became apparent that the later KV6 Sterlings are a lot nicer to drive than their Honda-engined forebears. For one, the steering actually delivers a modicum of feel, and the gearing is realisitically sharp. Secondly, the aural qualities of the engine are actually fairly far evolved from the already sweet-sounding Honda engine. At lower revs and on small throttle openings, it doesn't quite deliver the whisper quiet smoothness of the Japanese power unit, but that is more than made up by the quad-cam howl it bellows when you give it full beans (brave, I know).
That's not a bad one...
Dynamically, the game seems to have moved on significantly, too. There's no Vitesse Sport-style alacrity of response in the slow bends, but in less demanding territory, it feels planted, solid and secure. Take it through a high speed set of sweepers, and it feels a little floaty, but not in the frightning under-damped way the earlier cars did.
So, it was good news on the chassis front. Within a few miles, the car started to win me over, even though I knew I didn't need this car. My friend who drove me out there, took my Citroen Xantia Activa, and try as he might, he struggled to live with the straight line pace of the Sterling - although that would be a different story in the bends.
The electrical issues were there in legion - but I was ticking them off mentally as we drove along. The windows, mirrors, seats and central locking, I had put down to the fusebox (as was the case with my last one), and I remain conficent that Brian will be able to do the deed with it. The gearbox was more baffling, though - before I drove the car, I'd written it off as having lost top gear (not uncommon), but it soon became apparent that top is there and working fine. The only problem is that it'll only engage on a feather-light or trailing throttle. Talk of the throttle position sensor being duff began to ring true, and I looked forward to investigating that too.
There's no doubt the previous owner would have got round to sorting it in the end - but time, as ever, is the killer sometimes.
Beyond that, there's little to moan about. The standard fit Rover stereo with CD multi-changer works a treat, the air conditioning blows ice cold, and there's a waftiness about this car that encourages a far more relaxed driving style than most cars I've driven recently. The body's wearing a few battle scars as expected at this mileage) and the paintwork's looking dull and unloved...
The main decision about its future seems to rest on getting it running properly - do that, and it's fair game
A quick wash and a polish and the White Gold example is looking pretty mint...
Update - 30 August 2006
A lot of miles for a KV6, but its purring like a kitten after an engine rebuild
a couple of years ago...
SINCE we picked up the 800, it had been languishing in the garage. I wouldn't say unloved, but not needed. But following a recent drive of it, and coming to the conclusion that I'd forgotten just how sweet these cars are to drive, I decided it was about time to get it looking the part - and that meant a full valet.
Thankfully, my son, Matthew was on hand to do the hard work - so following a session with a Mother's Clay Bar, followed by a treatment of Meguiar's Tech Wax, the paintwork looks (and feels) smooth and shiny. I've fed the leather interior with some Glyptone Leather Care, and the seats feel soft and supple - just how they should. Oh, and just to continue the name dropping, Turtle Wax got in on the act to get the alloys looking sparkly again. There are many scratches to contend with on paintwork and one or two small dents - including a fairly deep keying down the passenger side of the car - but from a distance it looks like a million dollars, and that's all that counts.
I've now arranged for a new throttle body and other bits and pieces, and hope to pick them up very soon, and no doubt, we'll be reporting back as to how we got on. A nice slow idle, and the ability to cruise at 70mph with the KV6 engine spinning over at 2300rpm instead of 3500rpm would be very nice indeed, and the trigger for the electrical issues to get rectified.
There's no doubting the style of the leather-lined interior.
Update - 11 September 2006
ABS problem will need to be sorted out before it goes for the test...
OH dear - major disappointment strikes...
After setting out full of hope and optimism for my 800 and my plan to restore its ability to centrally lock, and have electrical operation of the mirrors, and seats by fitting a new fusebox, my hopes were soon dashed.
Thanks to Terry Brown at Freckleton Rover Centre for sending me his fully functional fusebox, but after fitting it, all the same electrical problems remain. It's hard to explain my feelings of disappointment when the new one went in (after one of the plugs put up a hell of a fight), and everything remained the same, so I'd probably best not try for fear of resorting to four-letter words of an Anglo-Saxon nature.
Anyway, it looks like that avenue wasn't successful, so it's something deeper in the electrical system. Brian! Help!
I'm still waiting for me Throttle Body to test the other theory about the lumpy running and unwillingness to drop into top gear, so let's hope we have more success on that front... Hmm.
Update - 11 December 2006
THANKS to Stewart Weller, my Rover 800 Coupe now looks a whole lot better. Ever since the launch of the Vitesse Sport range in 1994, the most sporting examples of the breed have ridden on a very nice looking set of 17-inch rims - and to my eyes, the Coupe in Sterling form loses out on that important X-factor because it stuck to the 16-inch dinner plates that looked oh-so-similar to those used on the saloon.
So, when I heard that Stewart was considering breaking his tidy Vitesse Sport Fastback, I made him an offer - '£100 for the wheels, and you get my mint Sterling 16-inch wheels in return.' The deal suited him down to the ground, and thanks to a Bang & Olufsen shaped eBay purchase, he was passing my way - so the swap ended up being done on my drive... in the dark. These sort of things should be straightforward, but when you're dealing with a car whose wheel nuts are made from toffee, and the tyre shop it last visited decided to over-tighten them, it soon becomes an epic. Let's just say, it was a good job there were spares in my garage.
With the wheels fitted, there's no doubting that the 800 looks a whole lot better now, and it seems to have taken on an all-new attitude.
That's no bad thing really, because there has been little movement on the electrical side of things... Brian Gunn paid a flying visit and in the pouring rain, he decided to take a quick look at the Central Control Unit (CCU), as it looked like this was causing my maladies (as opposed to the fusebox, which was replaced some months back). There was nothing obviously amiss, and all the plugs were in, so it looks like I need to get hold of one of those in order to restore the majority of my electrical systems...
Brian changed the throttle body, for a replacment one I picked off from the resident 800 expert on the forum, and although there were one or two dramas, it fitted on like a treat. However, in the aftermath of this, and we're pretty such this was not the cause, my once smooth and silky KV6 has turned into an obstinate and rough KV5. It's not a permanent fault, and running it up to full temperature sees it intermittantly switching from five- to six-cylinders.
On the positive side, Brian did a welcome replacement - he slung out our snapped bonnet release and replaced it with a good secondhand one.
Being ever the optimist, I like to think that some damp has got in somewhere and is playing havoc, and that could genuinely be the case.. it's just a case of tracing the fault. So, in order to get the car near to getting its MoT, we're still no closer - because of the electrics and rough running. A brief drive (on private ground of course) clearly shows an unwillingness to change into top - as it was - so whatever the issue there, it's more than likely linked to our duff CCU.
The list of electrical (and other) failures reads like this: No central locking, no electric seats, an unwillingness to change into top gear, no working key fob, an ABS light that won't go out, and a couple of chips in the windscreen. A very big positive is the working climate control system... and the fact it still owes me very little money. So that means, as it stands, it'll still most definitely be getting fixed.
So... the question is - does anyone have a spare CCU going begging for me to test with? And what's involved in replacement? Will the remote fob (which doesn't actually work anyway) need replacing too?
Being an 800, I suspect it won't go quite to plan - but as they like to say, we put up with these eccentricities because we love the product.
Missing piece of trim is an annoyance...
Update - 28 December 2006
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An investigation of the plugs and leads soon revealed what the poor running
problem was...
I COULDN'T leave it any longer - my Rover 800 Coupe remains sat on my drive looking pretty. And although it's a fantastic garden ornament, there's no way that I can remain guilt-free about the fact that it's running on five cylinders and not performing its duty as my stylish runabout. Instead, I'm driving around in an Alfa 156 - which, although is pleasant, and is full of character, it lacks something of the X-factor that I like in my smokers...
So, with Christmas Day out of the way, and with the worst of my hangover sorted, I decided to launch into the 800 - and also devise a plan of attack to get it back onto the road in time for the spring getaway next year. While my son attacked the pretty six-spoke alloys with T-Cut, and had them looking (almost) as good as new, I poked my head under the bonnet for a look-see.
So bearing in mind that the poor running followed Brian's fitting of a replacement throttle body in the pouring rain (with me holding the umbrella), we'd both come to the conclusion that water had either found its way into the plugs, leads, or perhaps the ECU connector. So, cracking on with the easiest things first, I disconnected the ECU, cleaned the connectors, refitted and fired up the old bus...
No joy, still running on five.
A bit of a giveaway...
The next job was to check the plugs and leads - and although it's reasonably straightforward job when you're used to inline fours, it takes on a bit of a different complexion when the car you're working on has a quad-cam V6 engine transversally mounted across the engine bay. However, in the end, my fears weren't realised, as once the covers are off the engine, getting access in is not all that difficult.
The rear
bank is a bit of a pig, and requires an odd length of extension bar for the
socket driver, but at least there are no shenanigans needed (such as removing
the inlet manifold as you do on many more modern V6s). The front bank's even
easier, although if the engine's warm when you attack the plugs, the top hose
which is directly in front of this bank of cylinders might become a painful
annoyance after a while.
Anyway, once the plugs leads were out, it soon became clear that water had indeed got in - and plug number 1 was immersed in dirty rain water. D'oh!
After cleaning the lead, the contact, and the plug (a nice stiff wire brush was all that was needed), it was put back together - and violà... it's running on six again. Relief.
A quick road test revealed that all was fine - and the gearbox seems to be behaving itself a lot more acceptably now. Did changing the throttle body have the desired effect? It seems to have done. A few full throttle upchanges revealed that second to third can take an age, and a quick look at the gearbox ECU under the passenger seat didn't reveal any flashing lights. So, a full fluid change is the next step to be taken there. That's probably not a bad idea as the car's due a service soon...
A couple of other issues manifested themselves on the test drive, too. Both the 'Sport' and 'Winter' switches on the gearbox selector are sticking in when pushed, and the only way to get then back out is with a screwdriver. Nice. Also, the car steams up very quickly as soon as it's switched off, which would indicate that its damp inside (and that's probably why those sticking gearbox switches feel like Lego in Porridge).
That's probably something to do with the fact that when the car was new, a Vodafone aerial and car kit was installed - and that meant cutting a hole in the roof (for some daft reason). Nice. I discovered that the devilish installation was leaking water during the summer, so removed it all, and plugged the hole with sealant and a gromit. I'm hoping no more water has got in since then, but we'll have to see...
'Sport' and 'Winter' buttons are sticking in. Let's hope a WD40 bath sorts out
that one...
It seemed a good time to take stock of what's needed to get the old girl onto the road - and although the CCU related problems are an annoyance, they'll not stop the car getting an MoT. So, it's time to prioritise and get with the programme - and I'm doing it this way:
1) Take it for an MoT test, and see what it fails on... if it's
not too much, then on to the next step.
2) Fix the ABS warning issue, and if the windscreen chips are picked up for
the test, then deal with them.
3) Fix the CCU/Fob/ECU issue.
4) Give it a full plug/fluid/filter service
5) Enjoy...
It doesn't seem too bad when looked at in these terms, and I'll be booking it in for an MoT test next Tuesday. Wish me luck!
Update - 20 January 2007
At last, it's MoT'd!
A WEEK ago, the Rover 800 went in for its MoT, and the news wasn't all bad. The tester decided not to penalise the car for its small bullet hole chips in the screen, and other than the ABS failure, I was looking at a worn suspension bearing on the near side front, and play on the other side. The rear foglight was also out - so no real problems to worry about, really.
First thing's first, it was time to investigate the ABS problem (as it could prove the most costly) - and because there was no tax on the car, I couldn't travel too far in terms of finding someone with a testbook to plug into and reveal why the failure indicator was remaining on. So, having left the car with the old school garage in my town (Marlow Motors, 01536 723577), he decided to do the old fashioned thing, and see if there was anything physically wrong with my sensors - the news wasn't too good, because he found that one was in a poor state of repair, and he had repaired what he could see, but the ABS light stayed on. It was now on to phase two of the operation.
That was to book it into the local autoelectricians (John Coopers, 01536 725733) - and although he doesn't have a testbook, he's always been good at finding similar faults on my PSA cars in the past... Again, he's old school - only this time, he found the problem, and diagnosed I'd need a new nearside front ABS sensor. So at last now I knew what I needed to do...
I ordered a replacement from Rimmer Bros along with the aluminium housing (at £140 all in), and in the meantime, left a replacement rear foglight switch (bought off Trevor Hallworth on the Austin-Rover forum - thanks!) with the electrician to bung in and sort. We knew that the bulb and rear light clusters were okay because before it went to John Coopers, we'd physically tested the foglights - by powering them up in place - and they came on with no problems. Figuring a new switch would cure it, I wasn't too concerned though.
However, the autoelectrician found that this didn't work - and after a few hours tracing the fault, he found that a relay board in the boot (which I knew nothing of) had been damaged, and once he'd put that right, I'd got rear foglights again.
However, when I received the call a couple of days later to say the ABS and rear foglights were now working, I had some more good news: the interior electrics were now all working too! It seemed that the damage in the boot had caused the failure of the central locking, electric seats, mirrors, interior courtesy light delay, and follow-me-home headlamps. Go figure! Especially as I was charged a bargain £68 for all the electrical work.
The suspension was reasonably easy too - one new bearing, and we were good to go. Oh, and as for the play on the other side, that was down to a loose nut - and tracing back through the history, I can only assume that was as a result of the last ABS sensor failure at only 10,000 miles ago - and the garage that worked on the car didn't put it all back together properly.
So, with all that work done, it was back to the test centre today, for the re-test - and it passed with flying colours, and no advisories...
To celebrate, we changed the engine oil (last done 6000 miles ago) and filter (which looked like it had been there a lot longer), and dropped the transmission fluid, too. Looking at what drained out of the transmission's sump (it was jet black, and like water), it looks like there's a real problem with the 'box, or that fluid has never been changed, and either way, it's not good news. A long road test this afternoon revealed that the change action is now considerably smoother (and a little quicker), and - disappointingly - it's still only engaging top gear on the lightest of throttles. Hmm.
Just to check the remote central locking, I put a new battery in the key fob, but it still doesn't work - so rather than messing around, I'll stick the new CCU/ECU/fob I just bought for £40 from eBay...
At the moment, I'm living with a car that has obviously had its ECU doctored, because I can open the car and start it on the key without using the fob - but if I don't get the key in the ignition within 60 seconds of unlocking the car, it immobilises itself! It's the same when locking it up, too - if I don't lock the car within 60 seconds of taking the key out, it immobilises itself - and the alarm goes off, the next time it's unlocked. That then means I have to put in a manual key combination to switch it all off again... As you can imagine, it's driving me to distraction!
It's all fun and games, but I do think we're getting there at long last.
Update - 17 February 2007
ECU transplant is nice and easy, even if the plugs and sockets seem a little
on the frail side...
Okay, so we're getting somewhere with the 800 - but because of other things getting in the way, my being able to fit the eBay CCU and ECU slipped a few weeks. Anyway, with the weather not looking too bad, and a free Saturday to my name (Yayy!), I bit the bullet and decided it was time to get the last few problems sorted on our car.
Regular readers will know that we've been taking our time with the 800 Coupe project, but since the flurry of activity around the MoT time, the car's been laid-up, unused since the purchase of a Saab Aero. However despite how quick and capable the Swedish missile is, getting back into the Coupe is always nice - as there's a real sense of occasion when you climb in - and let's face it, the driving position is wonderful, and the view over the bonnet agreeable.
So, back in the workshop, it was time to get the ECU and CCU out. Removing the ECU is a piece of cake - a single 10mm bolt holds it in, with a pair of locating slots at the bottom. You need to remove the battery to do this, but it's the kind of job you'd want the battery disconnected anyway. So, the ECU was removed, after taking care to remove the two multi-plugs (which seem to me to be 'lifed' to a small number of removal/refitting cycles), our replacement was installed.
After that, it was time for the CCU - and if you've seen the nightmarish mess of wiring around the fusebox in an 800, you'll understand that it was something I wasn't relishing. To ease the job slightly, it was a case of removing the fusebox itself (2x 10mm bolts - then remove a couple of multiplugs to give yourself some access). Once that was out of the way, the single bolt holding the CCU is clearly visible - again, a 10mm bolt to undo, then you're free to pull it from the retaining bracket.
Putting our replacement in was simple enough, although we didn't re-mount it... just in case it didn't work.
Replacing the battery, we heard distinct 'click' from the engine ECU... and after closing all the doors and bonnet, the fob was tested. Brilliant. We now had remote central locking. Feeling pleased, it was time to try starting the car - and after the briefest of hiccoughs, it refused flatly to start. Putting our original engine ECU back in had zero success either - the engine would turn over and start, then immediately die.
So, after all that, it was time to put our original ECU and CCU back in... at which point it re-started, and proceeded to idle as 'well' as it ever did.
Conclusions: it looks like our CCU and fob are matched, but the ECU isn't. If anyone knows a good agent who can re-code out ECU, CCU and fob, and get them all synchronised to the car, please let us know, as we really, really want to get this fine car back to where it should be. It's pretty obvious talking to Brian Gunn, that the ECU that's in the car has not been reset properly after the engine rebuild 10,000 miles ago...
Get that right, and we'll have a delightful car to play with...
The new CCU wasn't too difficult to remove - again...
Update - May 2007
In the end, we never did sort out the Rover's ECU problems. A lack of time, and a job chance conspired against us, and it was clear that we were never going to get it finished in time for the summer break.
We posted an advert on the AR forum, offering the car for sale - as an ongoing project - and Les Hedaux gladly took it on. There was a twist in the tail, though, because Les was actually the guy who took on our ex-Staples2Naples Rover 216GTi 16V, and a deal was done that involved this car as a part exchange.
Les was keen to sort out the issues - and began investigation. However, within a few short months, the gearbox lost all drive, and he had to move on the car...