Faults:

After a few weeks of having the car the cam shaft gears went whilst I was going up a hill.

Alternator died on a trip to Geelong also killing the battery.

Back seat cracked needed to be re-covered.

General Comments:

For an older model car the engine is very reliable, fuel efficient and has a comfortable amount of grunt.

Engine is very easy for a mildly mechanically minded person to maintain and repair.

Parts are common and cheap, a trip to the local wreckers or to the local car care centre will turn up most parts.

The interior is quite nice for its age, although the square speedometer is annoying for monitoring exact speeds.

Upgrade options for the engine are quite varied, the various 202 engines Holden has produced allow a young rev-head to indulge in Do-It-Yourself upgrades.

Faults:

Radiator Blew.

Needed new water pump.

Cracked Windscreen.

General Comments:

Performance is very good, but takes a while for all 4 barrel's to open up.

Heaps of torque (318NM).

Power output of 118KW.

Seats afr comfortable.

Sounds Great.

Achieved a 0-100 time of around 8.5 seconds, which is quicker than my mates Vn commodore.

It's a Wagon too.

Faults:

The engine mounts broke.

Gearbox dropped out.

Gearstick flew out.

The muffler blew out.

Head gasket.

Steering arm was bent.

General Comments:

This car is a mean machine on the cook. The problem is that rubber is too dear.

I have a new diff in there so its all good at present.

Faults:

A few months after buying it the electric fuel pump died - fairly expensive to replace ($180).

Radiator needs replacing (it is a 17 year old radiator so it's not doing too bad). Radiator stop leak does the job for now.

General Comments:

The car is beautiful to drive, some people prefer the new car feeling where you don't really feel like you're driving the car. Where as with the older cars you know that you're in control.

Please note 70,000km is not a typing error.

Faults:

Exhaust manifold warped slightly, but I have replaced it with custom sizes extractors and a 2 1/4 exhaust system running out of a 3inch dumper.

Front shock leaking, but I replaced all four when I lower it.

General Comments:

The cars performs well for a fairly stock motor, blowing manual vl's easily.

It has a very torque motor.

Cornering wasn't to good, but now it performs well since it has been dropped 3 inches.

Faults:

The carbretter floods due to pressure build up in tank.

Ignition contacts melted.

Front seal replaced 2 times.

Noisy differental.

General Comments:

Goes hard and handles well.

A few problems, but what do you expect for its age?

I can work on it myself, try doing the same on a later model.

It's the last of the real Holdens before they went to a Nissan motor.

Faults:

Power steering pump failed due to a leak.

Power steering hydraulics are very noisy, needs replacing.

Pings a lot, mechanics can't fix this.

Erratic engine idle when the engine is hot.

Many leaks in the water cooling system.

Required a carburetor recondition (still not fixed 100%).

Numerous electrical problems.

Re-gas the air conditioning.

Window windup mechanisms break (very common).

Burns oil.

General Comments:

This car marks Holdens transition from a 25 year old carby to the electric/efi engine system. Holden totally screwed it up with the VK, that is why they used a Nissan engine in the next model, the VL.

The electrical system on the VK is totally crap, people have told me to replace it with the one on the previous model (VH). This also makes it hard to find causes of problems, like pinging.

It drinks petrol like there is no tomorrow, even more when driving around the city, I can sometimes get around 350km with a full 60 liter tank!

If you are going to get the VK, get it with EFI or the 5 liter V8 (not the 4.2 liter), or get a cheaper & more reliable VH.

But it is the best looking Holden, it is cheap to repair and easy to find second hand parts, since most of them end up at the wreckers. It also has plenty of power.