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MG MGF Technical - Rant

Just had the Ball-Joint drop off the wiper rack, in the pi*****g rain! Less than 3 years old, 25K. W-T-F MGR! do you not think people would rather pay an extra £100-£200 on the price of a new car to enable it to be fitted with decent components. Now it's gonna cost you a new rack, and a million hours labour, under warranty. British "Management", God help us! Regards.
H.R. Bridge

Maybe not, they might ping it back together and put a cable-tie round it to stop it happening again....
David S

Don't forget that these sorts of things go wrong with other marques as well !! like my other car- a ford
don k

It was a common problem on Rover 800's, fitted with exactly the same component, a plastic ball in a plastic knuckle. It was no surprise when the ball and knuckle wore to a point where the ball fell out the knuckle. I remember spending a New Years day at a recovery garage in Nottingham because the ball and knuckle had failed, therefore I had no wipers - and it was raining.

It first appeared on the R800, over 15 years ago, and its still being fitted to new cars today - and still causing the same problems. I suppose the difference is that in the past the part failed outside the 12 month warranty, so it wasn't a problem for Rover.

Make sure they replace both the ball and the knuckle, otherwise it will fail again within 12 months.


Paul
P9 VLS
Paul

New rack fitted this morning, under warranty. "We keep that part in stock, they're always going".?? Regards.
H.R. Bridge

Sounds familiar same thing happened to us only the car is a 2002 TF 160 (24k miles). To make matters worse we were at Fort William about 75 miles from our Hotel in Luss.

First wiper stopped working on passenger side in heavy rain, then the drivers' wiper failed with a loud clunk about a minute later as we just entered a car park.

Called out the RAC (a local garage break-down vehicle was sent) who arrived about 40 minutes later. As we expected the wiper linkage had failed and needed to be replaced, no quick fix.

After a few phone calls to/from our own dealer (who were a great help) we found out the nearest MG Dealer was a further 70 miles north in Inverness (further in the wrong direction). As we were planning to set out towards home the next day (stopping off in the Lakes over-night) we decided the better option was to cut our holiday short and return home directly. However, there was another 3 hour (or so) wait until the tow-truck arrived and we were finally heading for home at 5:30. :(

The first leg of our journey, which took 2 hours, was to pick-up our luggage and check-out from our hotel (losing money for that nights stay). The remainder of the journey from Luss to Hemel Hempstead took just under 9 hours. Tired and stiff we finally got to bed at 5 am this morning, made worse by being up at 7 am the previous day! =-(

Many thanks to the RAC and more importantly the driver of the break-down truck from the local garage Heathercroft Motor Engineers based in Fort William who drove through the night to get us home.

Many thank also to Terry (service manager) at Priests Of Chesham who arranged for the new wiper linkage to be fitted (by Simon) while we waited. Shame Priests were not in Fort William in a way! ;-)

Paul & Sue.
Paul Lathwell

First chance I get, I'm going to take the new rack off, and drill and tap a hole through the joints, and fit a screw and washer,which should stop it actually falling apart when the joints wear out.Perhaps I should get some of that Rain-X stuff, so the wipers won't get as much use! Regards.
H.R. Bridge

I had the same problem on mine a few months ago. My driver's side ball joint thingy broke while I was in the outside lane of the M6 in the pouring rain. By pure luck I happened to have a roll of duct tape in the boot so I taped the joint back together just so I could continue my journey. The rack has now been replaced, and the tape is still in the boot, ready and waiting.....
S.W. Jewkes

More bits to add to the In-car Spares Pack.

Geoff F.
G. Farthing

I had it last march on my 98F, erplaced it with a Satur special (or more correctly, MS replaced it with one of his own specials), metal ball and socket I believe.

Plastic parts wear out quicker than metal ones, its simple, basic engineering that rover still haven't grasped :(
Colin Ashworth

This thread was discussed between 12/09/2004 and 20/09/2004

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