Folks,

You have probably all heard/ know about this already but as I recently got a
nasty suprise I thought I'd share it with the group just in case.

Realising that we all appreciate that minis do rust a bit but even so I have
been caught out big time here and would like to hope that people who think
they just have some cosmetic rust (as I did) can catch it before they have
to start cutting their cars up....

Please, If you own a late reg rover mini, get the underneath looked at
properly and if requird, cleaned up, painted, undersealed and looked after
before you suffer the wallet lightening that I did.    I thought buying a
late model would have given me some better protection from rust but I was
badly wrong.

I am told that a fair number of these later model cars (mainly the MPi)
apparently left the factory with little/no paint and underseal on the bits
you can't see (ie most of the bodywork that the salt, dirt and tyre spray
gets at).  My own car was just primer in a lot of places and has rotted to
within an inch of an MOT failure in just 5 years.

I do live in the north of Scotland so the weather here is a bit hard on
your motor but even so, it's a bit of a disaster.  I have ended up having to
have about 10+ panels replaced, a load of welding and a paintjob.

Before anyone asks, I personally inspected the sorry state of affairs before
any work on the car was even discussed so I know all the work was genuinely
required.

Hope you all have more luck than me.

Cheers

James