A little unfair on the "striking" by 1994 when the first PR3 (MGF) was conceived the striking was at an end and it was a reasonably prosperous period, then BMW took responsibility for Rover Group, this was supposed to be the saviour of Rover, unfortunately BMW didn't like the MGF as it clashed with the Z3 so they allowed it to reach the market but would not develop it further, this was designed and made on a shoe string budget using parts bin technologies now known as modular build, you are correct on one part though they could design and build some very good vehicles only to be watered down in final construction by the bean counters (even worse with BMW, I know from experience) when china made the LE a lot of the British firms making the TF parts had either gone bust or didn't wish to re-tool for what was a small production run, so many parts were made in China to quite an inferior quality, hence the LE reliability being questionable, in fact the best build quality is notably the F from 94-99 following the Phoenix 4 take over and project drive the build quality sadly took a nose dive, many TF's suffer badly from rot due to the paint prep being drastically reduced, and cost reductions forced upon suppliers. I was an employee there from 1984 - 2000 (only one strike that in 84 non since as I recall)Can we take Common Dash Warping at face value or have we a euphemism here or maybe a marsupial in the same sub category as Drop Bears.
The LE500 seems to have disproportionately more problems than earlier cars, it certainly seems to have had more than its fare share of grumbles on these pages.
If I’d have done some homework before buying the f I might have been drawn to a 500 & assumed that the problems experienced were indicative of all the cars. As it was I just bought it almost on a whim & was more than happy with what I found. Researching a car once it’s in the drive flies in the face of rationality, I’d sold a Ferguson TED20 & found the garage & workshop empty. So it was tractor out roadster in & we’ve got on very well since. It was & remains well screwed together or maybe I should say it has come apart without too much of a fight (with the exception of some of the suspension bit) but those are the bits I didn’t want to find slack.
As I have recently commented when the odometer past 125’000
MG Rover could design & screw a car together when they set their minds to it (when they weren’t striking).
M