Rover 216 GTI Review

Overall Rating

The rover 216 gti is one of the best cars i have ever owned and i have had 8 of them. I get good mpg about 40-45 on long runs and 30 ish round town. Parts are easy to get hold of from scrap yards as many patten parts like drive shafts do not stay in the box.
They rev like a motorcycle and are very fast of the mark. against the 220 gti which picks up slower but has a faster top end box standard.
i lowered the suspension 2.5 inches and added 17 inch alloys with 215 40 17 tyres and goes round corners very well.
I replaced the drivers seat with one from an m reg which has a height adjuster on it works better for my 6"3 height.
Mine has 153000 miles now and still very fast on bottom end but top end only 115mph with k&n on and nice size big bore on back end but out of all 216's i have had none go faster standard unless you using nitrous as the 220 gti i had did 125mph top end standard but was no wear near as fast on bottom end due to the ratio of the gearbox.
Over all this car is as fast as u want it to be and can be so much better with a little money.

First bad point is the rust u can get around the back wheel arches if people don't get there fingers dirty rubbing out the road muck. best to get rid of the rubber inside wheel arch protectors to help stop this.
Second bad point is the rubber drive shaft balancer that helps to rot the drive shaft from behind that will snap after so long as mine did then new ones just fall out as not made correctly so best to ring around and get one from scrap yard.
Thats about it for real bad points i think.

The rover 216 gti mine being the 1990 H reg is one of the beast things rover produced but only with the help of the honda 1600cc DOHC engine in it. One day i would like the 220 turbo coupe as they are supposed to be better than the escort rs turbo!! but would settle for a turbo on the 1600 if some one made one for it? never buy i rover with a rover engine in they are not very good at all, stick with the honda engine if at all possible.
Hope this helps some of you out there to get your first rover 216 gti if you buy one u will never look back i never have, had this one now 4 years done 50,000 miles in these 4 years and replaced only 1 tyre and a track rod end altogether on all 4 mot's.passed everytime.
So have fun and take care of it ok.