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.

11th Sep 2024, 07:46

Owner/author of the original review posting again. I sold the car in 2019. At that point it had about 40,000 miles on it, so really still very low miles especially given its age at that point (11 years). From what I can tell, the new owner didn't have a great time with the car. It failed its MOT (yearly UK test) on structural rust (despite my previous attempts to keep that at bay with undersealing). From what I can now tell, the car was scrapped, I don't know if it was involved in an accident but it's a shame it didn't last much longer after I sold it, only a few years.

I bought a used Honda Civic (2013 model) to replace it, and it's a world of difference of course. It's not a fair comparison so I won't bother going into detail on that, but basically, I couldn't bring myself to own another Ford after my hit and miss experience with the Ka. Ford have pretty much given up on passenger cars now - even the Focus and Fiesta have been discontinued in the UK!

There probably aren't many people looking to buy a Mk1 Ka anymore. They have reached that age where they are just not very suitable anymore. Much better cars can be found on the used market. I'll keep my fond memories of the Ka though - it really is the closest we'll probably ever get to a true modern replacement of the original Mini.