12th Nov 2012, 05:08
This is the owner posting again. The car has been reliable since my last post, and now has almost 20,000 miles on it. The only thing that has changed recently is the blower fan/motor that blows air through the vents in the cabin has become a lot more noisy.
Unfortunately a replacement from Ford is £160 + VAT and £100 labour charge for fitting it, so I think I'll just put up with it being noisy. Shame that Ford can't even make a fan last more than 4 years... I hardly use the blower!
31st May 2019, 17:14
Owner posting again. The car now has more than 35000 miles and no new mechanical faults since. Bodywork wise, some rust appeared in the usual Ka places, around the rear wiper, petrol cap and on one of the sills, but all of this is minor rust really and mine is doing much better than other 2007 models I’ve seen. I’m probably going to replace the car soon, it’s served me well over 11 years of ownership and the cost of ownership wasn’t too bad. It’s still great fun to drive too of course, and these are still a great buy for first time drivers. I hope my experience has been useful to others looking to buy a Ka.
1st Jun 2019, 21:46
Thanks for the update. The Ka was a cool little car when it came out in the 1990s; unfortunately as you mentioned rust seems to be its biggest issue, and is killing off most of them, but mechanically they tend to be OK if looked after.
26th Jun 2019, 11:48
Owner again. Yes rust is indeed the biggest issue with these cars -- they were not galvanised from the factory; Ford built them to a cost. I bought mine new and the amount of underseal from the factory was minimal, none in some areas. The underbody is actually looking pretty good on mine because I had aftermarket underseal applied; it's just a few places where rust has come through on the main bodywork.
Mechanically it's pretty solid; the heater valve is faulty so the blowers make the cabin into an oven at the moment any time I go for a long journey.
My main concern with keeping the car much longer is safety. So many cars on the road now are quite large (think all the FWD '4x4s' that are on the UK roads these days) so it would be great to have something with more than 1 airbag!
I'm sure these will be a 'modern classic' not long from now, with good examples hard to come by.
26th Jun 2012, 05:02
This is the owner posting again. Got the rear bushes replaced, but the intermittent noise still persists! Other than that, my Ka has been extremely reliable for a long time now.