Ford Ka ???

[Night-owl]

Hi

I am looking at buying a Ford Ka as a second car, can anyone tell me what sort of price Im looking at?!
I have seen two for sale locally, one for £500 R reg with 70.000 miles or another for £900 which is a P reg with 69.000.
Is this a good price?
Could I get a decent one or maybe a 306 from Ebay cheaper???

[harveybobbles]

One of my (not so noisey) neighbours has a Ka and they love it. Great for buzzing about in. 1.3 engine is getting a bit dated now and suffer tappet problems.

To conclude:

Cheap, cheerful and fun!

Ps try and get one with PAS!!

[Keith]

They are in my opinion a fantastic car, they do suffer from a lot of common problems (heater valve failure, suspension wear, etc) but for what is intended to be a shopping trolley they are great fun to drive.

Long distance motorway driving is a pain, but not undoable, I've covered over 600 miles a day in ours more than once. Lack of luggage space is the one downside to it.

At those prices, they should be a fantastic cheap car, you've no cambelt to worry about, but check for regular oil changes and that the tappets/valves have been adjusted, spark plugs should be changed a lot more than recommended. Most parts are cheap such as a lower arm (common MOT failure) is £18 pattern or £106 Ford! Tyres are sub £30 at Costco, etc

[cake21]

Completely biased - I have a little KA and I love it :j
People always let you out too :)

What does PAS mean? :o

[anewman]

What does PAS mean? :o

Power Assisted Steering. Not sure why harveybobbles advised PAS (unless manual steering has known fault issues) as chances are these cars won't be too heavy to steer, and PAS may be an extra thing prone to faults.

[Thunderbird]

What does PAS mean? :o

Power Assisted Steering, in which, a hydraulic pump will assist the steering process, making the steering wheel lighter to handle.

EDIT:I have not seen your post, anewman :rotfl:

[cake21]

Thanks both Thunderbird and anewman! I think my KA might have that because it's incredibly easy to steer, even compared to other little cars :D

Night-owl, I found the used car listings on www.autotrader.co.uk (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/www.autotrader.co.uk) useful for seeing how much I could get for my budget - even if there wasn't anything nearby at the moment.

[BillScarab]

Get a Ka, they are excellent little cars. The true successor to the original mini.

BTW why are you thinking of a Ka or a 306, they're abit different in size?

[debred86]

Love my Ka too!!! had an R reg one to start off with, had very few probs with it, but it had no power steering, i now have an 03 Ka and i can tell you power steering is wonderful!! it might not be a big car but power steering makes it a hell of alot easier to park.

The prices sound ok, i traded my R reg in and got £500 for it it had about the same mileage (it mite b my old one lol!).

[bestpud]

We have one and I can highly recommend them too.

Very nippy, cheap to run and actually quite spacious inside - only four seats though! It runs along happily at 70mph but I second the poster who said it may not be the best for frequent long runs. Fab to park as well - almost turns on itself!

Only downside is it can be noisy inside the car (as in the body work doesn't seem to block road and engine noise as well as some cars).

We don't regret buying ours anyway! It is a 04 and we paid £3k for it last year with a full service history and only 14k on the clock.

I don't know about the price tbh but there are lots about so don't be tempted to buy the first one would be my advice.

[harveybobbles]

The reason why I mentioned PAS was the early ones (circa P reg)never always got it as standard.

[blue_haddock]

There are numerous problems with cheap KA's though - they are extremely prone to rust, the steering racks (man and power) are frequent failures, suspension items such as lower arms also take a fair bashing and the spark plugs have a habit of seizing inside the head of the engine.

Unless you know what your looking for i would suggest taking along someone who does know what their doing.