MG TF Age

Please help a newbie. Every time I enter the reg or vin number of my car into a search engine for parts ect it states that my car is a 2004 when it is on a 53 plate. Any explanations please ?

Hi,:welcome2:

53 reg is up to end of February 2004. So a 2004 car can be 53. Simples. :yesnod:

Excuse my ignorance but it was first registered on 31/10/2003 and had it's first service on 27/01/2005 having covered 4656 miles. Surely this makes it a 2003 car.

Leigh Ping wrote:

smeg wrote: Excuse my ignorance but it was first registered on 31/10/2003 and had it's first service on 27/01/2005 having covered 4656 miles. Surely this makes it a 2003 car.

Yeah it's a 2003 plated car. But the search engine sees it as anything up to a 2004 plated car as that reg period ended in 2004. Hence the anomaly.


And :welcome:

Click here and have a look at this.

There is also a possible 'model year' confusion too (though not here I think) when manufactures release say the MY2000 models late in 1999.

Richard

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Model years all the way across the industry are only a guide.

James

Mechanically there are few differences between an MY03 & 04 TF apart from the model variants and trim which overlap anyway for 03 & 04, however from June 03 changes were made to the cooling system to try and combat recurring head gasket failures by the fitting of a remote PRT (pressure relief thermostat) this was taken from a design from Land Rover (Freelander’s fitted with the K series engines) in an attempt to reduce thermal shock, the theory was good but head gasket failures still occurred, this finally ran to the design of the multi or triple layer head gasket.

Electrically there were substantial differences between early and late TF’s and 2003 was the changeover year. The wiring harness, fuseboard, key fob and body/security control unit were the major changes (from Lucas to Pektron)

According to Rimmers 2004 was the change over year from VIN -620549 but this can’t be true as I owned a Sunstorm TF registered Oct 2003 which had the later electrics, also in the MG Rover Rave manual in the electrical library section the later type wiring diagrams are dated 01/08/2003.

You also have to remember that the car is a parts bin special, using a lot of common components from different BMC/BL/Rover/MG models plus whatever that was to hand on the assembly line at the time of your particular build.

There is also confusion in the factory records as my current TF was registered with the DVLA 1 week before it came off the assembly line!
Don’t go by the fitting of the PRT to identify the year as a lot of people have retro fitted the PRT kit, however If you have the black Lucas type key fob (02 and early 03) then I would use 2003 as the year for parts, if you have the round type key fob (Pektron SCU/BCU) I would use 2004 as the year for parts.

Oh, hi & welcome to The-T-Bar.

Brian.