Rover Vitesse 2.0 Turbo

If there is nothing connecting the airbag to the car then it will not fire.

Does it have a passenger airbag? If not, don't bother - the kids won´t be driving it! I only disconnected the pax airbag on our Voyager.

Well, I bought the car a couple of days ago and have driven it since. Quite a nice smooth ride, and a good power delivery.

There is a burning oil smell with she is pushed hard, and the back box is blowing a bit, but otherwise ok.

She will be going up on ramps next week at some point to be fully checked over however...

JamesM said:

Thanks again all


Does anyone know a rough price on getting the airbags disabled? We've a little one on the way and my wife would like to have him in the front when she's out alone...

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J plate 800's didn't have passenger airbags. Only driver airbag (as an option!).

You might not even have one. My dads old K reg Vitesse didn't, neither did my L reg 820 Si

We had the burning oil smell on ours. It was a leaking head gasket (the standard T series leak under the distributor). I fitted a Klinger head gasket set (40 quid from www.bestofbritishrover.com) and also changed the valve stem oil seals at the same time to prevent oil getting into the cylinders.

The head gasket job wasn't too bad - until one of the bolts sheared. I would suggest spending £30 on new head bolts whilst you are at it. The valve stem seal replacement too ages - the valves are quite deeply recessed and even with the right valve spring compressor it is fiddly to do (that took half a day on it's own!).

Now we have no oil leak and no apparent blue smoke form the exhaust - for under £100.

If it turns out to be in resonable condition, I'd happily spend that on her, but with 150,000 miles on the clock there can't be too much life left in the old girl...

And, it might sound silly, but for the price I paid in the end, if I get 6 months out of her I'll be more than happy.

Anyone care to have a guess what I paid???

cjmillsnun said:

J plate 800's didn't have passenger airbags. Only driver airbag (as an option!).

You might not even have one. My dads old K reg Vitesse didn't, neither did my L reg 820 Si

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Airbag only became standard fit around 1994. The style of wheel used was the same though.

Yup, I had it checked out - no airbags


I did get a quote from Rover to remove the bags anyway, and was quite surprised when they quoted just £50. VW and others charge up to 4 times this amount...

JamesM said:

If it turns out to be in resonable condition, I'd happily spend that on her, but with 150,000 miles on the clock there can't be too much life left in the old girl...

And, it might sound silly, but for the price I paid in the end, if I get 6 months out of her I'll be more than happy.

Anyone care to have a guess what I paid???

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Well, we paid £250 for our 153,000 mile, 1993 Vitesse (which is in pretty good nick and has working aircon), it passed an MOT first time with no work required (£29) and I have just spent about £80 on head gasket, bolts and sundries.

Total £359.

I guess you probaly paid £200 or so.

Richard Moss said:

Well, we paid £250 for our 153,000 mile, 1993 Vitesse (which is in pretty good nick and has working aircon), it passed an MOT first time with no work required (£29) and I have just spent about £80 on head gasket, bolts and sundries.

Total £359.

I guess you probaly paid £200 or so.

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Close enough - I got him down to £170

Better late than never - she's been up on the ramps and the outcome is pretty good...

Passenger side top bush has gone.
2 new tyres are needed.
A new back box.

The only problem is the ABS. My mate at the garage was straight up and said he didn't know anything about the sensors and suggested I had it fully tested which I will try to do at some point next week...

The light doesn't even come on when started, so I think the previous owner has removed the bulb from the dash. I'll try to look into this later tonight if possible... ABS is an MOT failure though, so I hope its going to be a quick and simple sensor fix... No scrapyards around here seem to have 800 parts though

Check the fuse for the ABS light

PM sent, James.

hey ive just bought a 820 vitesse turbo:

its a lovely car and I only paid 440 for it

two things that are wrong with it:

1) the turbo is noisy when i come off the gas, does the car come with a dump valve as standard?

2)the d/s front shock is squeeky, is there anything i can do to stop it? (cheaply)