Charles' early 92 827 manual coupe

[Charles827si]

Glad your Coupé is performing well Charles - bit concerned about the economy though!

It's a 15 gallon tank so unless i've misunderstood, the round trip was 301 miles to the museum and you had 30 ish miles left? In other words a total of 330 miles ish? That works out to 22mpg.

Of course if i've misunderstood and it was 301 miles each way, that would be 630 ish which would be 41 mpg ish - pretty good!

Yes Dave; 301 miles was the whole trip including to the museum first and then about 30min drive (unsure of miles) to the offices and then home via the M6 toll road on the Friday afternoon (which had absolutely terrible traffic due to a lorry collision at the same time)
When I got home, I switched off engine and ignition back on to check the gauge (the fuel light was not on). The next day I went back to the Shell garage where I had bought the full tank before my trip down. Just as I set off, the petrol light came on. So by that I guessed there must have been 30 miles or less left in the tank.
I had originally calculated 38mpg. That was wrong calculating having checked again...

[scoobyh123]

It's a 70L tank and the fuel light comes on at about 10L left, if you needed 59.84L to brim it on your second trip to the Shell station then that's 13 gallons, 301 miles over 13 gallons is 23mpg - still not great!
A gallon is 4.54545454L or 4.54L for short. Don't know how you got 32.45mpg, that would mean you used 9.27gall or 42.11L

[Charles827si]

It's a 70L tank and the fuel light comes on at about 10L left, if you needed 59.84L to brim it on your second trip to the Shell station then that's 13 gallons, 301 miles over 13 gallons is 23mpg - still not great!
A gallon is 4.54545454L or 4.54L for short. Don't know how you got 32.45mpg, that would mean you used 9.27gall or 42.11L

I dunno then but I can say that from where I live to where I drove (in Birmingham) and back home is around the 300 mile mark which I was able to do without refilling on day. I guess had the car been a Rolls Royce Wraith or a conti GT the mpg would have been the same as you quote around 23mpg or less..the only thing with those is I couldn't work on them cheaply

[scoobyh123]

With a Wraith or a Bentley Continental, the mpg would probably be about half what you got!

Give you a rough idea, i was getting 26mpg from my Coupé on LPG, correcting that via the calorific value comes out at about 33mpg (which is what i could easily get on petrol) and it's automatic.

However when i had the exhaust on that was too large a bore, i was getting about 22-23mpg, 24mpg if i was lucky.

Have you measure the outer bore of your exhaust yet?

*** EDIT ***

This is embarrassing - the Wraith is more economical!

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/ro ... wraith/mpg

[Charles827si]

Plus I should mention the calculation of miles were based on the coupe' speedo and not the Tom Tom Sat Nav.

[Charles827si]

With a Wraith or a Bentley Continental, the mpg would probably be about half what you got!

Give you a rough idea, i was getting 26mpg from my Coupé on LPG, correcting that via the calorific value comes out at about 33mpg (which is what i could easily get on petrol) and it's automatic.

However when i had the exhaust on that was too large a bore, i was getting about 22-23mpg, 24mpg if i was lucky.

Have you measure the outer bore of your exhaust yet?

Actually not bad figures for your old coupe Dave I've not measured my exhaust

[scoobyh123]

With a Wraith or a Bentley Continental, the mpg would probably be about half what you got!

Give you a rough idea, i was getting 26mpg from my Coupé on LPG, correcting that via the calorific value comes out at about 33mpg (which is what i could easily get on petrol) and it's automatic.

However when i had the exhaust on that was too large a bore, i was getting about 22-23mpg, 24mpg if i was lucky.

Have you measure the outer bore of your exhaust yet?

Actually not bad figures for your old coupe Dave I've not measured my exhaust

My Sterling saloon is better on fuel than the Coupé was but haven't got the LPG conversion fitted yet.

Definitely be worth measuring the exhaust, it sounds like there's room for improvement there Charles!

[Charles827si]

Autocar on the Wraith; "We averaged 15.2mpg".

[scoobyh123]

Autocar on the Wraith; "We averaged 15.2mpg".

Lol! I know, they did point out in the one linked to if you were enthusiastic it could easily drop to 15mpg but on a run, 27mpg was easily possible.

I'd still rather have the Coupé than a Roller though, it's half the weight for a start so you don't need a forklift just to change the wheels!

[Charles827si]

Autocar on the Wraith; "We averaged 15.2mpg".

Lol! I know, they did point out in the one linked to if you were enthusiastic it could easily drop to 15mpg but on a run, 27mpg was easily possible.

I'd still rather have the Coupé than a Roller though, it's half the weight for a start so you don't need a forklift just to change the wheels!

I guess there is an average mpg for a car of that size and engine that could be considered not too unreasonable.
The Rover Coupe is half of that cars weight as you say and the 800 Coupe is just a tad heavier over the saloon.
But as a competitor to the 800 Coupe the Jaguar XJS is the closest;..but I know which car I would rather have to keep.

[scoobyh123]

My brother got married when i was a sprog and used his car as his honeymoon transport, touring Devon/Cornwall, particularly Dartmoor. He reported an average of 27mpg from that back in 1981, the car in questions was a P6BS aka Rover P6 3500S and back then, my dad had a near-new Cortina 2.0GL company car, that just about managed 26-27mpg on a good day (bearing in mind his journeys were pretty long most of the time as well) - both cars were regarded as having "respectable" economy back then.
The contemporary Rollers were lucky to see 12mpg on a run so it gives an idea how things have progressed.

Not sure the only Coupé competitor would be the XJ-S - what about the XJ 4.2C/Daimler Sovereign 4.2 Coupé? Or maybe the Honda Legend 2.7 Coupé? Almost a carbon copy but not quite? Then there's the Datsun Skyline 240KGT (C210 series), Mazda MX-6 2.5V6, Merc 230CE and probably some others i can't think of. There was rumoured to be an XJ40 Coupé but i don't think that got further than protoype stages.

Taking the need for certain comfort levels (leather, A/C, heated seats etc) into consideration, that wipes the Datsun and Mazda out of the competition, not sure on the Merc but out of all of them, to get similar performance, you need to go to the Roller/Bentley and maybe the XJ-S All of those are considerably heavier and having seen an XJ-S on the banger track in 1988-90 and how easily it fell apart because it was rotten (only a few years old as well!), i'd definitely choose the 827 as well!

[Charles827si]

My brother got married when i was a sprog and used his car as his honeymoon transport, touring Devon/Cornwall, particularly Dartmoor. He reported an average of 27mpg from that back in 1981, the car in questions was a P6BS aka Rover P6 3500S and back then, my dad had a near-new Cortina 2.0GL company car, that just about managed 26-27mpg on a good day (bearing in mind his journeys were pretty long most of the time as well) - both cars were regarded as having "respectable" economy back then.
The contemporary Rollers were lucky to see 12mpg on a run so it gives an idea how things have progressed.

Not sure the only Coupé competitor would be the XJ-S - what about the XJ 4.2C/Daimler Sovereign 4.2 Coupé? Or maybe the Honda Legend 2.7 Coupé? Almost a carbon copy but not quite? Then there's the Datsun Skyline 240KGT (C210 series), Mazda MX-6 2.5V6, Merc 230CE and probably some others i can't think of. There was rumoured to be an XJ40 Coupé but i don't think that got further than protoype stages.

Taking the need for certain comfort levels (leather, A/C, heated seats etc) into consideration, that wipes the Datsun and Mazda out of the competition, not sure on the Merc but out of all of them, to get similar performance, you need to go to the Roller/Bentley and maybe the XJ-S All of those are considerably heavier and having seen an XJ-S on the banger track in 1988-90 and how easily it fell apart because it was rotten (only a few years old as well!), i'd definitely choose the 827 as well!

The old cars from the 60s/70s/80s were good on fuel. A P6, SD1, Cortina, Xj6 from the period still makes a good useable daily classic these days.
And yes there were more competitors to the 800 Coupe (and far more similar cars) that were out there.
In it's own way though, the 800 Coupe was in "a class of it's own" - destined for the American market and never setting wheels on the highways. Unusually; this too was a (semi) luxury car to feature both a manual and auto transmission in all markets. I think only the TWR 5.3 XJS had a manual box on some models in the UK.
The Acura Legend 2.7 never came with a manual box to my knowledge, unless the Honda version of the same age did.
As for Mercedes of the 80's, 90's did anything above the E class category have a manual transmission?
My brain is telling me to nod off to sleep now

[scoobyh123]

You're right about the older cars, they can make good usable everyday classics, also right that the 800 Coupé is in a class of its own.

I don't know for sure on the Mercs about the gearbox, never really looked that closely at them but the availability of the manual box on the 827 was rare. Also most owners would chose to have an auto when you're at that level. I believe the same goes for the Acura/Honda Legend as well although i'm sure i've seen a manual one on YouTube. The same video suggests that if it hadn't been for the Rover/Honda collaboration and Hondas resultant badge engineering to create Acura, Lexus wouldn't have existed and neither would Infiniti or any of the other badge engineered high-end cars.

My brain had already gone into sleep mode before you posted last night!

[Charles827si]

It's the time of year again for the dreary MOT (and I almost forgot about this year having realizing last night the expiry date is Monday September 3rd ).

I booked the coupe in to a local test centre (different centre to usual). There was a slight delay with the test because the previous customer was late to the test with her Hyundai.

So over two hours later, I got the results which are below as follows: -

Date tested
30 August 2018

Fail

Mileage
160,278 miles

MOT test number
1337 6699 4084

Test location for this MOT test will be available in 14 days.

Repair immediately (major defects):
•Nearside Front Upper Suspension arm pin or bush excessively worn Top wishbone bushes. (5.3.4 (a) (i))

Monitor and repair if necessary (advisories):
•Oil leak, but not excessive (8.4.1 (a) (i))
•Offside Front Bumper mountings corroded but not likely to become detached (6.1.4 (a) (i))
•Nearside Rear Bumper mountings corroded but not likely to become detached (6.1.4 (a) (i))
•Offside Rear Bumper mountings corroded but not likely to become detached (6.1.4 (a) (i))
•Nearside Rear Inner Integral body structure or chassis corroded within 30cm of a mounting, but not seriously affecting overall security Wheel arch. (6.2.2 (d) (i))
•Offside Rear Inner Integral body structure or chassis corroded within 30cm of a mounting, but not seriously affecting overall security Wheel arch. (6.2.2 (d) (i))
•Nearside Rear Fuel filler pipes corroded.


So as you can see one major fail recorded and several advisories.

Thank heavens there have been no brake failures or advisories considering how much work and money has been put into the entire braking system over the past year.

I have already managed to locate the part which I need which is the bearing assembly-upper arm front suspension - (RBP100050). The bushes have worn and as I saw for myself, the wheel had more than a slight wobble when rocked from the sides.
The part isn't at Rimmers currently (back order listed for £56.87 inc VAT) but I have checked on MG Rover part finder. There are x4 of this part supplied by AE Wilcox. Judging by Rimmers price, I'll probably pay slightly less, since previous purchases have always been less expensive.

This will be ordered tomorrow and with first class post I should have it Saturday.

With any luck the part can be fitted over the weekend in time for the retest on Monday 3rd - the same date the current MOT expires...fingers crossed!

[scoobyh123]

I hope the bits get to you in time Charles! I've been looking at some on Rock Auto, originally destined for the KA4 Legend which is about as close to the 827 as you'll get. Works out about $90 a pair (or did last time i checked) plus S&H or P&P to us. They're more of a bush though and come as the compete upper wishbone assembly with ball joint etc.