V astly V irile C aterham or Variable Vile C%&p?

[pinkprincess]

Anyone know of any horror stories with their 1800cc VVC motor's reliability???

 

High miles a problem? More expensive than standard/SS K-series to service?

 

The only reason I ask is that the 28k miler just in at Caterham seems too good to ignore at £15250.

 

R992RJM

 

teeth.gif teeth.gif teeth.gif The Big Five-Oh! teeth.gif teeth.gif teeth.gif

[Tarek]

The MGF seems to have no problems with reliability. A friend of mine has just part-ex'd his VVC MGF at nearly 80K and had no problems (well, not with the engine anyway, various bits of trim kept falling off). The engine does seem very reliable in that context.

[oilyhands]

Err..

 

Not wishing to spread doom and gloom but the VVC is in my opinion one of the most embarrasingly unreliable units Rover have produced, primarily due to failures of the VVC mechanism and pulleys coming bolts coming undone. A quick trip to the MG bulletin board will soon give an idea of the teething problems. I have had over 75 low mileage secondhand VVC heads through my garage in less than a year all with valve damage sustained by failures. If I can accumulate this many heads from low mileage engines and within a close radius of where I live, how many more must be out there.

 

I would be religious about inspecting the belts and ensuring that the pulley bolts are of the later stronger type and that they are loctited up correctly. Check to see that the belts and pulleys have been inspected and that any factory recommended modifications have been made, there were a few WRT to pulley bolts.

 

Oily

[Mark Piper]

MGFs are renowned for "doing" head gaskets - I'm not sure whether this is confined to the standard 1.8s or affects VVCs too...

[Bob Corb]

Has anyone with a Caterham VVC had any problems?? I haven't heard of any so far... The only thing that is more expensive service wise is that they take an extra litre of oil compared to a std engine and they they have two timing belts to change rather than one (although the second one doesn't look too hard to change).

 

If you get the cam pulleys checked as part of a service then I think the rest of the engine is reasonably safe. There are reliability issues with the internals of the VVC mechanism but they aren't too common. The head gasket issues on a VVC are any different from the rest of the K range. I dont think the Caterham installation is as hard on the gaskets as the Rover/MGF installation.

 

I'm happy with the performance of my VVC, and dont forget that the VVC engine is a great starting point for a high power evolution (speak to Peter Carmichael)

 

BC

[AL Wain]

AGREE COMPLETELY WITH BOB. Although my car is quite new I am delighted with the performance and tractability of the engine.

I would suggest that a test drive SHOULD be taken , then make up your own mind.

 

ALan Wain

OO51VEN Licensed to Thrill!!

[Robin Renton]

This is a great engine for a road-going 7 IMHO. Plenty of torque & useful enough power if you do the minor upgrades to 170-ish bhp which have previously been discussed.

Robin

[Nick VVC]

I agree - I've had my VVC for 3+ years and, touch wood!, no problems (and if that's not tempting fate I don't what is!).

 

About 11,000 miles and rising, including half a dozen trips to France, plus several track days in the last year. Various minor problems but none so far with the engine.

 

Nick.