We all have personal rules to which we live our lives. They are the sort of fundamental things that define us, from a refusal to ever touch a cigarette right the way through to only ever buying Heinz Tomato Ketchup. One of my personal rules is that I should not to gamble. Over the years I have found this to be a completely fruitless exercise, be that playing cards or purchasing a lottery ticket, I never come out on top. So why should buying a car be any different?

Last weekend in a moment of madness I decided to trade in my unloved Honda Civic for an MG ZS180. When inspecting the MG, I detected a rattle coming from the inlet manifold. A quick mobile web search brought up that there could be a couple of reasons for this, one being a quick cheap fix with a soldering iron and the other a slightly more serious and expensive breakage. On the whole I liked the car, so ignoring my own rules I gambled and bought the car, with a hefty discount but without warranty.

On getting it home the first thing I did was lift the bonnet and removed what I believed to be the offending item, the variable inlet system actuator. In this little box are situated two micro switches, which are operated by a motor driven cam. Being a great British product, there is a design fault which means the solder joints break, rendering the switches inoperable. A quick modification and some re-soldering fixes this problem (or £80 for a new one) and the rattling disappears. Sure enough, when I opened my actuator, there was the broken solder joint.

Ten minutes later, the repaired item was ready to go back on to the car. It was only when I went to re-fit the item that my heart sunk. With out going in to too much detail, the actuator operates a plastic arm which runs through the inlet manifold. Branching off the arm are plastic sockets which attach to a ball on the variable inlet butterflies. The actuator moves the arm, which opens and shuts the butterflies according to the revs of the engine. However, over time these sockets wear and become detached, leaving the butterflies to operate of their own accord and producing the offending rattling sound.

The arm on my car was loose and a quick wiggle revealed that is was no longer attached to anything! Ordinarily, this would not be a problem, all you would need to do is open the all plastic inlet manifold and replace the arm. Except in this case, in a feat of great British design and engineering, the manifold is sealed. New manifold £550 plus VAT!

Bugger!

Next day I trawled the net looking for either an upgraded or aftermarket part to replace my defective unit, only to find that not one exists! Fortunately though, I managed to find lightly used part with a warranty for £300, and after an evening of tinkering and a considerable amount of help from the forum members on www.themgzs.co.uk, I replaced the offending item. It is now running perfectly.

There are a couple of points that came to mind whilst doing this work. One, what the hell were the designers thinking of when they produced this part? Why did they weld shut the construction panel (which is also held down by screws!) on the manifold and not use a rubber gasket? Secondly, why has no one produced a service exchange part or an improved new unit, especially considering this engine was not only used by MG Rover in various models of its cars, but also by Land Rover in the Freelander. On just this small piece of evidence I can start to understand why we have seen the demise of the British motor industry.

As for my car, now the engine is fixed, I am going to spend the weekend getting to know it better, so next week I can bring you a full report on exactly how good or bad it actually is to drive.