Why did Rover MG collapse?

Answer 1

Because people stopped buying their cars, they couldn't compete with the others making cars more reliable and cheaper abroad.

Answer 2

Its a long story.

Part of it goes back to the years of British Leyland and Government ownership, when the products were poorly developed, and not designed with export markets in mind. This left the company with a legacy of poorly developed products, and a strong reliance on the UK market.

Then there is the BMW ownership period, when the Rover 75 was developed with a German idea of Britishness, which didn't appeal to the British, who saw it as twee, or to the Germans, who wanted German products. The 75 was also compromised by being carefully developed with no sportiness, in case it should steal sales from BMW's 3-series and 5-series.

When BMW sold MG Rover to the Phoenix consortium, they did not include the part-completed designs for the new models under development to replace the 25 and 45, leaving the new owners with one recent model (the 75) and three models nearing replacement age (the 25, 45 and MGF). The new owners made a few good decisions in developing the MG ZR, ZS and ZT models relatively cheaply, and updating the MGF to create the MG TF, but they also made a lot of poor decisions. For example, a lot of money was spent developing the v8 versions of the 75 and ZT, and on the MG SV sports coupé, with little chance of a decent return on investment.
Another poor decision was to attempt to develop the 45/ZS-replacing RD/X-60 products on a development on the 75's expensive and heavy platform, and to prioritise this over the development of a 25/ZR replacement (which I believe could have been developed more cheaply and quickly, using most of the existing 25 platform). The RD/X-60 programme was partly subcontracted to TWR after the key planning decisions had been made, and TWR and Rover struggled to make the product meet the targets. The styling of the product left a lot to be desired, and an expensive re-style was ordered at a late stage, delaying the production date further. When TWR entered receivership, the RD/X-60 programme was at a crisis point, with MG-Rover needing to stop engineering work until the re-design was completed - which left the TWR receivers with no choice but to suspend work and lay off the staff working on the project. This caused a further delay to the programme, as the lack of TWR staff meant it took a very long time for MG-Rover to get the digital data that had been held by TWR. By this time MG-Rover's products were very old, sales were falling. The buying public (and the dealers who had seen the RD/X-60 styling models) were losing confidence in the company's future, and sales were falling. Eventually sales income was not enough to support the company's cash-flow, bill became unpaid, and suppliers started to stop delivering parts. This caused production to be halted, the story hit the headlines, and the company collapsed.

Answer 3

Piss poor management caused it. They never invested properly so had to make their models last longer. As less people bought the cars which hadn't progressed like the competitors Rover started cutting corners. They fitted less and less equipment as standard and then quality went out the window. The workers lost interest and still had the mentality of the 1970's "strike for everything" days. Instead of doing something about it they ploughed money into no-hope projects like the MG-SV and putting a Ford V8 into the ZT (nobody bought them). These cost a substantial amount of money which could have been used to make the City Rover a good car, as it had the potential. Instead it ended up a joke which needed warranty work done to it before it was sold. And it's difficult to explain to someone who has parted with £9,000 that the dents in the roof "are a characteristic of the vehicle" and the waving fuel gauge was normal (remember them from the 70's?). Complete madness.

Answer 4

Cos it was like this Blairs Government .

They did not have a clue what they were doing and basically no one from management to shop floor give a s..t and so as all great **** ups go they worked it into the ground.

Worth remembering when the first Mini came out no one at the factory had the foggiest idea how much they cost to build.

Just imagine having a world beating selling car and losing about 80 pound on every single one .
Management, they should have sacked the lot of them in the 70s and got the Japs over to run the place instead of all those planks in Birmingham

Answer 5

The products were old designs, and could not compete with modern ones from other companies.

Unfortunately, there was insufficient money available to develop new cars.

Rover made many commercial mistakes. One was to price the 25 to compete with the Ford Focus, even though the 25 was a class size smaller. Also, some engines were unreliable, with blown head gaskets (small coolant reservoir meant a small leak led to big problems).

The image of Rover was that of a pensioners car. I feel sorry for all the workers who were made redundant, but the management were incompetent, and working practises were inefficient and outdated.

Answer 6

Because of poor quality and obsolescent models general shoddy workmanship.Also the inability to admit when a problem existed.If they had been able to do a deal with Honda they would still be in business.Having worked with Honda engineers who set standards instead of non technical accountants who set spending limits far two low for any model to succeed. I well remember the mod to the Rover 800 that consisted of a piece of wet and dry abrasive disc to prevent cam belt tensioners from slipping .Regards Mick

Answer 7

MG Rover collapsed because know one bought there cars and MG Rover spent to much money on motor sport.They were over reaching themselves spending money on Rallying projects,Le mans and touring cars. They were focusing to much on motor sport than trying to sell their cars.

Answer 8

Simply: Auto Manufacturer Industry Nationalization.

Britain's decision to conglomerate all their auto brands under one name, British Leyland, was really the death stroke to MG/Rover. While Rover hung on until recently, they were under-funded and thus produced inferior products no one wished to buy.

It was a good illustrative lesson on how far to let government interfere with business, though.

Answer 9

When they had the chance, they did not invest in the future. In the last few years they were just too small and inefficient to compete. Also, a lot of people in Britain had their cars when there wasn't so much choice, and had to put up with them. All the breakdowns, rusting, bad starting, etc.

Answer 10

They could not compete with cars which were of the same standard selling cheaper than theirs. Rovers were great cars in their time and it was sad to see them go.

Answer 11

The failure started many years ago. In the 1960's it was common to invite Japanese to come and view British manufacturing. They were eager to come and we proudly let them see the best manufacturing in the world. Similarily others came to view our manufacturing.Naturally they went back to Japan, Korea, China ... and improved upon our production methods.
Since then UK manufacturing has collapsed. Those who came to copy/improve our methods have now taken the lead. The UK government just lets the demise of UK manufacturing continue.
Motorbikes, televisions, cars, household white goods .... the list goes on ........................