MG Rover has denied speculation that it has run into difficulties supplying panels to body repairers due to one of its tooling manufacturers going bankrupt.

A spokesman, who confirmed that some suppliers had gone out of business, said: “Every carmaker has parts problems and some are worse than ours. We do suffer occasional delays, but we have taken control of our issues.”

Body repairers have complained about “numerous MG Rover panel parts” on back order, with delays up to three months.