2001 Ford Ka 1.6 Plus AC review from Argentina

The door wasn't soldered at the factory. I had it fix on the second week I owned it (the first week they dealer didn't got it right).

The clutch spring broke two time (each time required two weeks to get the part)

The low rpm regulator for the injection failed. The car kept working at 3000 rpm all the time.

The heater broke and the temperature set itself to the maximum all the time (this seems to be the most common problem for this car in Argentina).

The bearing for the back left tire failed just before the warranty expired.

I bought the car brand new November 14 2001.

Luckily at that time Ford offered a 3 years 100.000 km warranty for a small fee. Later on, if I have had to pay for all the problems I had with the car I wouldn't been able to own it.

The engine is really old. 1.6L 8 valves 4 cylinders. It had only 95hp, when you can get 110hp from Peugeot or Renault with the same engine size (120hp from rover and 160hp from Honda). It was later sold in Europe for the SportKa and for the StreetKa.

In city trails I got 10KM/l, at high-way at 130KM/h I got 12KM/l. It was really expensive to operate for such a small car (I've been told that the 1L model needs almost half the gas).

It was a fast car. I got 179KM/h meassured in the "Oscar Galvez" track, and 10.2s to go from 0 to 100KM/h.

The only good thing about the engine was that the nearly 90 per cent of the maximum torque is available between 1,500 and 4,500 rpm.

It had plenty of quality problems (see above) that can't be accepted for a 21st century car. The door just been not soldered at the factory could have cost a life if it felt. Simply put, unacceptable.

When I bought it I just wanted the cheapest car with conditioned air. My choices were the Ford Ka (1L and 1.6L), the Volkswagen Gol and the Chevrolet Corsa (every other car were more that 10% more expensive). I choose the Ford Ka since it was the only one that was built in Europe at the time (the Corsa had just change in Europe) and I though that that would meant better quality. Needless to say, I was wrong.

I just replace the car for a Peugeot Partner since my second son is about to born. With my first kid I had to flap one part of the back seat in order to be able to put his cart in the trunk. The shape of the trunk doesn't allow the cart to be put without flapping half of the back seat. I tried adding a roof carry extensions, but, since this is a Latin American Ford Ka, it doesn't have the proper holes to mount it. The worst part is that I realize about this after I bought the roof carry extensions, and Ford wouldn't return my money.

The best quality car my dad had was a 1.6L Ford Sierra, but it seems that a lot have happened since then.