KV6

Rover's 2.5 V6 — the KV6 — in the Freelander, Rover 75 and MG ZS and ZT.

It shares the K-Series' construction and therefore its risk: through-bolts, wet liners, and a cooling system that is not optional maintenance. rover-k-series carries the detail and it applies here.

⚑ It runs THREE timing belts — one for each bank plus a rear one driving the transfer — and the rear belt is behind the engine against the bulkhead. On a transverse installation that is an engine-out job, which is what makes a routine service item expensive and what decides whether one of these cars is worth keeping.

They are all interference designs, and on cars of this age the history is very often unknown.

Its other complaints are ordinary — coil packs, a carboned throttle body, inlet gaskets — and cheap by comparison with the belt job that hangs over every one of them.