Essexman's mixed bag of motors- LTI fairway driver 95 page4

[barefoot]

I had one as a courtesy car a few years ago and it was OK. It drove, it steered, it stopped, everything was OK What I didn't realise was how fluid, how supple and generally all round capable it was until I got my 944 back 'later that same day' In comparison it was like driving a board, everything was so stiff, so firm, so uncompliant, a bizarre experience. So, I remember them with fondness, but all I see now appear to be rotten. It's a shame. In ten years there'll be none left apart from a handfull worth a millionty pounds.

[UltraWomble]

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201503262095668/

 

The pictures on this tell you all you need to know about where they rot

[Cavcraft]

Embarrassment factor 5? I weighed two or three in years back and felt ashamed having them on the back of my truck.

[Timewaster]

^^^^ From the man who voluntarily purveys corsas.

[HMC]

A good few years back I had an old s class that had a mechanical meltdown on the M5. It was quite late and the recovery people gave me a courtesy car to get me to my destination- a 3 year old ka. It was the first time I'd driven one and over the last leg of the journey, utterly drained and weary, I was quietly impressed with how it drove and rode, and how it coped with being mercilessly thrashed down the motorway and along a succession of B roads.

 

I'm going to have a look at one locally tomorrow, it's got a decent amount of mot and its at the price level where binning it is realistic if the mot is unkind, and if I keep it that long (unlikely going by usual habits)

[HH-R]

I think they rust a bit. Not sure though.

[jakebullet]

I saw one parked in town, owned by a genius* They'd banged viper stripes over the bonnet n roof, and then had a matching circle round the fuel cap. Rust, what rust?

[trigger]

My mate scrapped one last month on a R plate. It looked mint but there was nothing but air behind the front and rear bumpers. They really can rust badly. Mrs Trigger had one, It was 6 months old at the time on a Y reg, It was ok but i never liked it much.

[Noel Tidybeard]

ford decided to save money and didnt fit any brakes

[sloth]

a mate had one. in that shit purple. very early, my brain says p reg? he blew the engine up being a tit keeping up with my nova gsi. we fitted a 1.7 puma engine on the ka box and better brakes. was a mental little thing then. rust killed it sadly. 

 

sister had one aswell, used to drive from aylesbury to hull in 2hrs 45 mins flat....... 

[PiperCub]

Aren't these all driven by 20 something birds whose idea of car maintenance is putting petrol in the thing and hanging shit from the rear view mirror? Maybe that's just 98.567% of the ones in Essex then. 

 

Not just Essex - same everywhere!

 

On another note - if you manage to find a decent unmolested (un-girly'd-up) and non-rusty example, I'd snap it up, I think the first shape cars will start to be worth something quite soon as people start to get all nostalgic about their first cars they had 15-20 years ago.

 

One to avoid though is the convertable. An ex-gf of mine had two, both were really shite (not in a good way!) and leaked like buggery. Apparantly they were well known for it - even Ford gave up trying to sort it out.

[Timewaster]

All driven by 20 something birds eh?

 

Might make the buying process more interesting.

[/perv mode]

[purplebargeken]

My sister had one. It was some kind of special edition in Germany. It was baby blue and had leather seats. Nice little thing it was too, went and handled well.

 

We hired one in Jersey. Mrs. PBK loved it, I thought it was ok but not very practical. I imagine it dissolved about a month later.

 

Puma or Fester might be better options, especially the 1.7 Puma. 

[Timewaster]

I remember Mrs T having one as a courtesy car.

 

It had numberwang seats

[cobblers]

By now they are mostly at the point where there's nothing left to weld new sills to, and you will get tired of replacing the front wishbones every 6 months.

 

If you can get a non-rusty one, they are pleasant cars IMO. The handling is fun and agile, even the 1.3 OHC has "enough" power, they are good on juice, need zero engine maintenance and are comfortable enough for regular use.

 

But they are all fucked now.

 

If you can find one that hasn't been welded and doesn't have any evidence of rust anywhere, it might be worth buying. But if it's had a year or two of MOT patches then it's just going to do your head in.

[red5]

Buy an early non PAS 14" wheel one. Think of it as a 89 Fiesta with no overhangs (which is what it is basically). 15" wheeled models are worse by a margin on fuel consumption.

[fairkens]

Puma or Fester might be better options, especially the 1.7 Puma.

Pumas are great cars but if a Ka is being dismissed because of rust issues it's def not the first place I'd look

[RoadworkUK]

 

My parents owned this one, bought at three months old. Kept it for just over sixteen years.

 

Inevitably I'm going to say I, we, thoroughly loved that car.

 

During uni from 2000-2004 it did me sterling service on occasions when my first 800 was in dry dock, it was a hilarious device for Coventry Ring-Road relay tag-team chaos exploits.

 

Yes, it rusted. With phenomenal vigour. By the end there was more Zintek than steel up to the ankle-line, with plenty of waxoyl to conceal the evidence. It was almost as if it wanted to die, my Dad would weld in a panel and, three months later the car would say "HA HA! Your attempts at my ressurection are feeble! See how I dissolve in new and imaginative ways!" And then Dad would shake his fist at the car, say "Why I oughtta...." and get the gasless out again.

 

En route to Glastonbury Festival 2007 it developed an hilarious fault where it forgot about having a tickover. The moment you declutched the engine would die, so you had to coast to roundabouts and bump start before you ran out of momentum. I had lent Dad the Z4 I had at the time for the duration, so after his week of top-down B-road nirvana I mentioned this interesting foible and he said "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. It's been like that for ages."

 

And yes, the plugs and the cylinder head became one with each other and had to be drilled out. Happens to the best of us, though. We forgave the Ka this transgression as if it had been a newborn puppy caught shitting on the carpet.

 

The Ka was a great car, built very well out of terrible components. (WARNING: Cliché Ahead) In concept and in marketing, I genuinely believe that it was as close as anybody got to the original Mini, for better or worse. Its tendency to return to the ground from whence it came is a bummer, for sure, but I'll always love it for its totally manual, skinny-tyred non-power-assisted honesty of handling, its painted-metal, just-enough-to-function interior appointments.

 

 

And the best clock ever.

 

Lunatically, the day after these photos were taken it was replaced with an '09 Fiesta Diesel, with that engine which behaves so badly in Peugeots and MINIs alike.

 

Prediction: Won't last sixteen years.

[HH-R]

I sort of wish I'd owned one of these when they weren't all so fucked now. Or maybe I dodged a bullet, not quite sure.

[HH-R]

My friend had one of these when we first passed our tests, so it must have been quite a new car at the time. She used to do three point turns by smacking the car straight up the kerb on the right, then reversing and doing the same on the other one it suffered HGF too, but not sure about the circumstances on that one.

[greengartside]

I bought one in 2010. It was for sale at a garage about a couple of miles away but had been sat for 18 months because it was hideously overpriced.

 

Eventually the guy brought the price down and temptation was too much - I'd wanted one of these ever since they were launched in 1996 (I still have the launch brochure and price list at home). As a 12-year old who was used to older Fords, the Ka looked almost futuristic. The best bits I remember were the shape of the door mirrors and the revolving cubby-box in the dashboard.

 

So I bought it for £700, with about 83,000 miles on it I think and drove it for about 6 months. I decided to toy with it..

 

 

Not everybody's cup of tea, but it was a experimental thing and it looked quite good on the Mk5 Escort Ghia wheels. Furthest I drove it was to Daventry and back (about 200 miles) and did the journey like a champ.

 

Couldn't fault how it drove, was an early one with windy windows and no PAS too. Amazingly not rotten in either sills or filler cap.

 

Sold it to a woman who came from Surrey to buy it - the rear view mirror fell off on the test drive.

 

Would I have another? Yes, despite the criticisms of the rust and general mechanical fuckerys - I'd be quite happy to jump in one and travel to the other end of the country and still have a smile on my face when I got out at the end.

[Formula Autos]

_{My other half had a Sport Ka for a few years. It was a genuinely great thing to drive. By the time she decided she had to get rid, it had both sills rusting, along with the roof just above the windscreen, bubbles starting around the filler cap, and a suspiciously crusty looking front cross-member. The back wheelarch/bumper thingummy also sounded a bit crunchy underneath when you leant on it. This was on a 6 year old car with less than 30K on the clock, that was washed most weekends, and looked after. Mechanically though, it was great, having only needed a battery and heater flap in the four years she owned it. Shame really, as it was a good car; if only it had been rustproofed.}

 

_{I also had a mate who had a povvo-spec one on a T reg. It was proper basic, without even a tape player, and virtually no equipment to speak of. It was a tappety little thing, but always worked. He did find out an interesting handling quirk though, when he got a pair of Die-Yung Ditchfinders fitted on the rear, and swapped the Goodyears (on the car when bought) it had on the back, to the front. I'm guessing it was because the back end was so light, but it would try and swap ends if he drove it quickly on wet roads. The two tyres he bought were utter shit though - Kwik-Fit's finest el-cheapo ones, from what I can remember. His Ka also rusted so badly around the fuel filler that it failed an MOT, as the filler neck could easily be moved about. I'm guessing it was full of rust before he got rid of it, as the windscreen cracked of its own accord when he drove over a pothole, suggesting a twisty shell.}

 

_{In conclusion, look for rust. I doubt you'll find a rust-free Mk 1 Ka anywhere though - the youngest are now about 8 years old, which is about their lifespan it seems.}

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I had one new in 1999. It was excellent. I had them as hire cars before that, great.

 

I had a P reg one in 2006, ten years old and it was going ripe.

 

I have one now, a 2007 example with the newer, 'better' (it isn't) engine.

 

They have many good points. Lively, fantastic roller skate handling, okay on fuel, roomy interior and great all round vision. The styling is as mad now as it was almost 20 years ago. That's right, it's 20 years old next year.

 

BUT:

 

They feel so old now. Quite noisy, noticeable gear whine and the quality of the entire vehicle from end to end is shit. The rust problems are a scandal and no car of this era should rot as badly. Mine has it round the fuel cap, ends of the sills etc. Underneath it's heavy surface rust on every seam. I'm going to get a new rear wing section welded in, clean it up underneath and properly rustproof it, otherwise it will be scrap in 2-3 years.

 

One day they will be mega rare and rightfully, a classic car. But buying now? No. 4 cyl Corsa, 2002 Focus style Fiesta, bug eyed Micra (my choice), Polo etc etc. The Ka needs to be silly cheap to consider because it will rot away, fail the MOT and be unfixable. 

[LabRat]

As others have said, rust, shagged suspension, clattery old 1.3 pushrod lump (if its quiet, its probably fooked) and don't get one without power steering- my brother bought one as a snotter, it was so heavy that my old skoda felicia classic felt lightweight!

[Bren]

Only Ford could get away with selling something that lasts about as long as tools from poundland.

 

If it were any other firm their reputation would have been slaughtered.

[warren t claim]

I can only assume from looking at the area around the filler caps that this fairydust stuff that many have been converted to run on is highly corrosive stuff.

[Richard]

I used to work beside a woman whose arse was exactly the same shape as her Ka's arse.

[sofarsogood]

All of the above seems very familiar. My mum had one 1.3 KA 2 or squared or something. It drove great like a little go kart I thought especially, compared to my SIIA Land Rover. Lift off oversteer easliy achieved. I replaced the air flow meter, that was the only time it ever broke down but could still be driven with it disconnected if I recall. In the end the leaking power steering rack, slipping clutch and rusty sills was enough to persuade my mum to get rid. Sold it on Bumtree for about £300 and the phone rang constantly but this was about 8 years ago. Verdict great if you get one thats not already ruined.

[Ghosty]

How about a £10 Kia Pride?

[tooSavvy]

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201408206757818/sort/default/channel/cars/make/ford/page/1/keywords/sportka/model/ka/postcode/ne286rl/onesearchad/used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew/radius/1500/usedcars?logcode=p

 

My Savv is more appealing [to me, aneehoo...] 

 

 

 

TS