[Dominika L]

This our baby - 105 Trophy SE, only 36k on the clock, just came back from it’s MOT with a new battery after sitting on the driveway for couple of months.
Husband is suspecting that we might need a new alternator... we just took it out for a short drive and the whole dashboard went crazy. Speedometer & Rev counter needles started going up and down and then whole dashboard went off. It eventually came back to normal for brief second but the it went off again. Clock and fuel gauge wasn’t affected. We got home and now the car won’t start :/ now even more than before my other half wants to get rid of the car before more problems come... could it be the alternator needing replacing or something else ? (Simpler and cheaper lol)

 

[Man in the Car]

Doesn't really sound like the alternator.

I would start by checking the tailgate wiring loom where it passes from bodyshell to tailgate through the rubber boot at top left of the tailgate opening. It is a very common issue for the wires to chafe in this area, and the resulting electrical shorts very often cause malfunctions elsewhere - the kind of things that you have mentioned are the same as other people have sometimes experienced as a result of damaged tailgate wiring.

Damaged tailgate wires are relatively easy to repair (albeit a bit fiddly due to the restricted access and the lack of an excess of slack in the loom due to cost cutting at MG Rover leading to many sections of the loom being shortened to not much more than the minimum required.

Looks a nice tidy one; be a pity to let it go.