On the way home my trusty? P reg rover 220 D turbo starts making a very rattly noise when I put my foot down and it doesn’t seem to accellerate as well as it should.

Any guesses whats up and is it worth taking it to a garage for them to charge me an arm and a leg to look at it?

Could be any of a vast number of causes, from a damaged exhaust baffle to a skipped timing belt!

Have you checked the click clack valves?

Shimmy dohickeys?

Dangle flange rotation?

Wankle nodules?

Alternator bearings, tensioners.

The L series is a pretty robust motor. check the ancillaries first.

It may just be shagged.

Sorry.

It really could be loads of things,

turbo – big end – camshaft/tappets – water pump – oil pump.

Honesly, without looking at it, no body could tell you whats wrong with it, either find a mate you knows something about cars or your going to have to bite the bullit and take it to a garage.

Ps. I’m a mechanic.

Cheers all for the advice – it may be the excuse I’ve been looking for to get a new one…

Check turbo air hoses. Could explain loss of power. Rattling is a tough one. If it smokes like a bonfire suspect fuel pump / timing trouble.

Happy shopping!

My car’s making a funny noise as well, anyone got any idea if it’s the same thing? Is it worth me rebuilding it or should I simply scrap it?

Spark plugs

What kind of rattle? Could be belt tensioner has failed.

The Rover 220 is a pretty good car to work on, simple and easy enough. If you don’t want to do it and you know your mechanic then get him to have a look at it – it shouldn’t take him long to diagnose.

the rattle is like a if you got a tin full of balls and span the tin – I’m guessing the turbo but no noticable smoke and it was still running well enough to me home the 40 miles up the M1

The acceleartion problem could be the throttle body packing up and the rattle sounds like the exhaust!

You’re not the rover I was overtaking yesterday as my turbo blew up are you?

Turbo bearings are looking like the culprit if the car is still running but lacking in acceleration. You may see traces of oil around the exhaust pipe whilst its running. check the Coolant (when it is cold!!!) to see if there is any oil contamination in it. This would indicate a cylinder head gasket failure. could be a number of things really. try and get a friend to check it out. A garage will charge you £80.00 just to tell you what is wrong. The Rover 220 is a fine motor, but it’s at that time of it’s life where it’s going to start eating cash. Buy a Saab turbo, there going for a song nowadays!