MOTOR CHAT

[zigzag]

Universal joint at bottom of steering rack on wife's Ka has gone all stiff, resulting in weird 'sticky' steering, very strange when your steering doesn't self centre coming out of a bend. Shall be getting the GT85 treatment for a few days. Alternative is a £150+ steering rack replacement plus 1.5 hours labour.

Crap just seems to go wrong with it every 6 months - entertaining drive is about the one good thing I can say about it. MPG is shite an aw'. Ford have been added to the 'f*** right off' list of car manufacturers.

 

[The Ken]

I won a spare set of steel rims for my Touran at the weekend - means I can keep the winter tyres on the current ones and fit normal tyres to these almost new ones - £26 for 4

 

[clockworkgazz]

Universal joint at bottom of steering rack on wife's Ka has gone all stiff, resulting in weird 'sticky' steering, very strange when your steering doesn't self centre coming out of a bend. Shall be getting the GT85 treatment for a few days. Alternative is a £150+ steering rack replacement plus 1.5 hours labour.

Crap just seems to go wrong with it every 6 months - entertaining drive is about the one good thing I can say about it. MPG is shite an aw'. Ford have been added to the 'f*** right off' list of car manufacturers.

I found my Ka to be good on the mpg and great fun to drive- never had any issues with reliability but this was 12 years ago.

 

[zigzag]

Funny you should say that Gazz, we had one about 8 years ago and it was superb, nothing went wrong with it. MPG was better too, even though it had the crappy old engine.

 

[jimihendrix]

Got some decent-ish quotes now - similar fully comp to what I pay 3rd party, fire and theft on the Pajero. Lots of the usual suspects were around the grand mark and the highest I saw was £4k - that's with 10+ years no claims bonus!

Rob - the sites "know" it's LHD once you put the reg number so there's no getting away from it. Lots of the classic/sports specialists were no different from the mainstream lot - seems you have to have it garaged and/or limited to a tiny mileage to get any real discount.

Have you tried Footman James for insurance ?, pretty sure you could get the Fiat on a classic policy, i was worried about the Beemer being group 16 insurance but got it very cheap on a joint classic policy with the VW Polo.

Both cars limited to 5K per year.

 

[jimihendrix]

Funny you should say that Gazz, we had one about 8 years ago and it was superb, nothing went wrong with it. MPG was better too, even though it had the crappy old engine.

So what engine is in the later ones ?, i remember when the KA first came out, used to deliver them on a car transporter, lifted the bonnet and was amazed to see a MK1 Escort engine

 

[zigzag]

I know, the old Kent engine, mental - we had that in the first Ka and I pretty much had the same reaction as you.

They moved onto the Duratec, which is the one we've got - I think it's still based on the Kent, but with OHC.

 

[Rumble]

They were one of the ones I tried jimi, but they were crazy expensive. It's gone on sheila's wheels now

 

[RobMac]

My next build project Ive got every thing but the frame so ........... I'll be selling off stuff to finance the new frame for me "choppa"

 

[Rumble]

Could you no just bolt it all to a spare cindercone frame?