1997 Ford Ka 2 from UK and Ireland - Comments

Initially I had a strong smell of petrol, which was rectified by the dealer under warranty.

After 18 months I was informed by another dealer that the brake discs and pads needed replacing after only 10000 miles. Being someone who at the time didn't know much about cars I went ahead with this work and now realise it only needed pads and I was in effect 'conned'

At 4 years and approx 40 000 miles I had to have the engine rebuilt due to a design fault with the cam shaft. Stupidly I did nothing about this and should have tried to get the £900 it cost to repair back from Ford.

Other than that it has required very little doing to it, new rear brake shoes and new electric window switch come to mind.

Another on going fault with engines of this ilk is that they cut out after heaving braking. But a friend in the know advised me how to clean the air inlet sensor, which when done cures the fault immediately.

Oh, and it had a leak in the front passenger foot well as well. Huge thing, used to fill it with water. Was coming from around the engine management system, but Ford didn't want to know.

I loved my KA, little more I can say. It drove well and it got me to where I wanted to be.

Performance was low if there were too many passengers, but it worked well and I would have another if I didn't need something bigger.

I only had to get rid of this car because it was written off by someone driving into me.

Working for quite a few years as a motor mechanic, I would like to inform you of a reason for replacing both disks and pads. It is true that the disks don't wear as quickly as the pads, however the old pads would have worn a slight groove in the disk and the pad would be shaped accordingly, if you put new pads on the old disk you would not have a decent level of braking until the pads would wear into the disks which could take a few thousand miles. This is why the dealer will always advise both disks and pads be replacing!