Did I say that Rover ignored the issue? did I day the design engineers haven’t got a clue? did I say that they did nothing? what I said was (and it has been documented by many others) that they went through a period of denial. I’m sure it takes a long time to introduce changes, but considering the scale of the problem you would think that a deal of urgency would have been applied and the result come about rather earlier than near the end of the engines natural lifespan. Much has been made of the coolant cicuit being a problem rather than the engine, surely this is just part and parcel of the packaging of the engine, again an MGR responsibility so to shift blame to another area of the same organisation doesn’t make any sense.
If the cooling system and gasket/head/block interface had been right in the first place then there would have been no need for change however long it might take to implement.
Again it comes back to the engineers not understanding enough about their own engine to implement it correctly.
You mention that Rovers acceptance of the HGF issue would result in commercial suicide, any sensible person can realise this and that also confirms in their mind that Rover are not telling the whole truth albeit for sound commercial reasons, that still doesnt make their ommissions the correct thing to do.
If you would care to point out in my postings the mis-informntion about what went on in the east works and give me the real version then I’m happy to correct it.
My post regarding ‘Porous Pete’ is factual and can easily be substantiated. The length of time it has taken for MGR to sort out the HGF issue is a matter of public record. What went on behind the scenes we will never fully know, but the nett result which surely is what matters most is that it all took a long time to happen.
Incidentally it was 5 long years before the simple mod made to the head gasket to prevent oil/water contamination was introduced on the factory gasket. This was a signficant cause of gasket failure until then. I appreciate that it can take time for mods to be adopted and tested…I too have worked in a production environment… but 5 years?
Incidentally you mention that HGF only occurs on 1.8Ks, it certainly occurs routinely on 1.6Ks as well as any Caterham onwer will be happy to confirm. I have around half as many calls about failures on 1.4 and 1.6Ks as on 1.8s, sure the volume is lower, especially percentage wise but it is still significant.
Dave