1999 Lancia Kappa LS 2,0t

Summary:

Lots of speed and space for almost no money

Faults:

Oil pipes to and from the oilcooler and the cooling pipe from the turbo to the radiator had to be replaced at 11000 because of bad corrosion.

In between I got a few electrical faults. Luckily it has got nothing to do with the engine or other things that could prove to be hazardous while driving. After all it's Italian ;-)

Changed the air conditioning fluid last year because it was of no use anymore. Seems like I have the same problem again after only a year?

General Comments:

Incredibly low 2nd hand price.

Same space in the cabin as in a regular Mercedes S-class.

The car can easily do more than 10km on 1liter of petrol (mixed) - that's more than the manufacturer promises. That's not seen very often these days.

Turns from luxurious family cruiser to mean machine when the needle passes 2750 rpm and turbo kicks in.

220hp/310Nm don't come much cheaper than this.

Last summer the car drove 5000km (Denmark-France-Italy-Denmark) in 12 days without any problem at all.

The cooling system is extremely efficient. Constantly the engine is held at the same temperature no matter if its driving at high speeds or stuck in traffic.

A Volvo T5 (the model with 225hp) is a bit faster from 0-100km/h. But the Kappa is faster on the 1km distance. There is a quite large amount of good old fashion turbo-lag, but when its over it just don't seem to stop accelerating.

The car is quite silent. Only when accelerating hard the engine gets louder (great sound though). That's how all cars should be made.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 21st April, 2005

3rd Mar 2006, 10:01

This is just the kind of review I needed to help make a buying decision. Thanks a lot.

30th Sep 2009, 16:41

I wrote the info about my car above (Lancia Kappa 20V Turbo)...

I also had to change the rear dampers after about 150.000km, but fortunately they are not the electrical kind so they are just about half price of those.