Eddies car find of the month

rocket63 wrote:Its not Orange

A7ESK wrote:1998/S ORANGE ELISE S1 EXIGE BODY (1998)
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/886199.htm


Does look the part .

Eddie King have a good day all the sun out again.

1997 ROVER 214 SI RED wrote:
It is a quality car there is no denying that, but the defect list is as follows: -

The electric windows don't work - some hoody wearing yob broke in to it while it was parked up near Reading and the windows never worked after the new glass was put in. On the plus side, if you are looking for a car with new glass in

The Intermittent function on the front windscreen wipers is very intermittent indeed, it sometimes works and sometimes it doesn’t. To be honest it is quite entertaining trying to guess where on the windscreen the wiper blade will actually stop, plus as the rest of the wiper functions work fine it’s not really a big headache.

The internal heater / cooler fan only works on setting 3 and above, not sure why it decided to not blow out any air on settings 1 or 2 but as far as I see it if you want air blowing inside the car then open a window. Obviously you wont be able to close it again afterwards (see above) but that’s all part of the Rover’s charm.

Rear heated screen doesn’t work, I assume this is probably just a fuse or something but given the state of the rest of the electrical issues this car has got I wouldn’t bank on a 23p fuse fixing the problem.

The car has a rather attractive Radio Cassette built in, I do have a code for this but have not mastered how to make the thing work. Not that I am really that bothered, I haven’t bought any cassettes since about 1986 and given the dross that they play on Radio 1 these days I doubt I am missing much in terms of entertainment anyway. It’s not the same since Simon Mayo stopped doing the top 40 and Dave Lee Travis got fired.

The seats are a bit worn as well, but it has done 110,000 miles so that is only to be expected. You could probably camouflage the seats by buying some of those beaded seat covers from the local market anyway, you know, the ones that every minicab driver seems to use. I can’t see them increasing the comfort factor by much though, how can sitting on 120 wooden balls be comfortable, you would probably end up with a backside with more dimples on it than a golf ball. Anyway, if you want to buy one of those there are probably loads on eBay but you don’t get any with this car.

The exhaust system including the catalytic converter needs replacing. On the plus side this does mean that the car makes a rather excellent noise when travelling at speed, however at low speeds it does sound like an asthmatic camel carrying a bin bag full of spanners.

There may be other stuff wrong with it that I don’t know about but I have been driving my kids around in it and I wouldn’t do that unless I thought it was safe. Actually, on the subject of kids, if you buy the car and then find a Pokemon card in the back somewhere then my son would quite like it back. I have no idea which Pokemon card it was but the “animal” thing in the picture was yellow and in my opinion looked a bit like Paul Daniels.



What colour is the car?
Well, a quick look at the photos in this listing will show you that it is a rather attractive shade of red. When it has been cleaned it will be a real “babe magnet”, you’ll probably see that women suddenly start to notice you and find you more attractive.

A “Babe Magnet”, are you sure?
Ok, that bit probably isn’t true, but it is a nice shade of red.

So did women find you more attractive when you were driving this car?
Ok, you caught me out again there, that isn’t strictly true either, most of the women I met tended to think I looked a bit like a horse. Unfortunately while I may resemble a horse in appearance that is where the similarity ends.

It has done 110,000 miles, has it ever let you down?
Only by not attracting women.

Do you have happy memories of the car?
Yes, I have some very happy memories, I once backed in to my boss’s car in the company car park and while there was no damage to the well built British Rover his low quality piece of French tat looked like it had been driven into a wall. Happy days indeed.

What are the wheels like?
Well, it has 4 Alloys, they are a bit scuffed but could probably be made to look quite nice with a bit of effort. There is some life left in the tyres as well, if you are interested I can measure the tread on them but they will certainly last a good few thousand miles yet.

What about the spare?
That’s one of those space saver things, I don’t think it has ever been out of the boot to be honest. I would rather stick the car on the back of a low loader and pay £120 to get towed off the motorway than drive around with 3 Alloys and one other wheel that looks like it belongs on a scooter anyway. Plus if you have one on your car you can only drive at 50mph, who does 50mph on a Motorway? Old people, that’s who, pensioners that drive while wearing hats. So if you know any hat wearing pensioners that still have a driving license then you could probably flog the spare wheel to them. Tell them its “low profile” or something, they’re not going to know the difference anyway.

They don’t build Rovers any more do they?
Sadly they don’t build Rovers any more and therefore I think you could consider this a “collectors item”. This is a vehicle for connoisseurs. Fine wines, excellent food, fashionable clothing and the Rover 214si they all seem to fit together perfectly. You would not feel out of place sipping Champagne and eating oysters next to this car whilst picnicking at Ascot.

But this is such a magnificent vehicle I have so many other questions I need to ask you, what should I do?
Feel free to ask me any questions you like, my specialist subjects are sport and 1980’s pop music however I will attempt any other questions you choose to ask.