I have a Rover 420. The 2 litre engine has been criticised for various reasons, but I have never had any problem with it.

A personal anecdote here. A friend bought a Rover 820, same engine, but bigger, heavier car. After he had owned it for a few weeks a warning light came on which suggested that catastrophic engine failure was imminent. He had to have it towed to the garage, they replaced some chip attached to the ignition system. The fault came back again, they replaced the chip again ...

Looking at the wiring diagram for the car, I could see at least eight input wires to the suspect chip. The garage seemed to be checking none of these. Eventually my friend sold the car in exasperation with the fault. He asked me whether I had ever had similar problems. I said no, I had removed the bulb from the warning light.