Jon's SportKa type thread thing

[Rotary Junkie]

Do it. Do it now.

 

[G.T]

That's actually very true - I was going to mention that. The 1.3 does handle low revs very well and will cruise along at 30mph in 5th.

 

[mustangGT90210]

The SportKa is a 1.6 with 94hp, and actually does 0-60 in 9.8 seconds. Sounds mighty fine to me

I love america so much. I have yet to even drive a car that does 0-60 in over 8 seconds

Power hungry, long haired, American teenager, OUT!

 

[ExigeEvan]

I suppose that if you're going to get a £4k car you may aswell get one you can afford on fully comp...

 

[G.T]

http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-u...icleYearOfManufacture=2001&vehicleRegLetter=Y


Would be ultra reliable too. And the motor will be 100% better than most things too.

 

[Jondot]

I love america so much. I have yet to even drive a car that does 0-60 in over 8 seconds

Power hungry, long haired, American teenager, OUT!

Mmm, I know... You don't get killed for insurance quite so much either, as far as I'm aware. Damn you Britain!

I suppose that if you're going to get a £4k car you may aswell get one you can afford on fully comp...

That's the idea.

http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-u...icleYearOfManufacture=2001&vehicleRegLetter=Y


Would be ultra reliable too. And the motor will be 100% better than most things too.

Yikes, that 1.3 is quicker than our 1.6... Worth looking at I suppose, although I have a sort of strange hate for Yaris interiors.

It's just an odd mess of nasty grey plastic. Urrgh...

 

[Peterram430]

I love sportKAs

 

[mustangGT90210]

Mmm, I know... You don't get killed for insurance quite so much either, as far as I'm aware. Damn you Britain!

That's all relative. We're paying $1500/year EXTRA just to have me on the policy so I can drive my parents cars. It only goes up more when I finally get my own

 

[homeforsummer]

Cheapish- It's not. Not for what you get and not for it's age. The fact is the Ka is a very popular car and that inflates prices on them.

Reliable- Yeah, that's how it is when the engine design is pretty damn old.

Drive- Yes, I hear it is very good to drive, that's a definite plus.

Negatives
Only seats 4. No central rear seat. And if he barely fits in it then the person behind is going to have to be a double amputee.
Lack of flexibility. You might thing you'll never use it for more than pottering about.... Untill you start going camping in summer, road trips to friends in Uni and going to the beach.
You automatically join a club, the Ka owners club, you'll stick flowers on your car, slow down as you drive past shops and will avoid parrallel parking at all costs despite the fact you have one of the smallest cars on the market.

There's nowt wrong with a Ka for a first car at all. I've had a Fiesta for six years and it's been perfect. A Ka is only slightly smaller so shouldn't be that much less usable. And you don't need 5 seats, it's a city car. The more people you add to a tiny car the harder it becomes to drive.

And yeah, all that stuff up there about the 1.25 Zetec being much better than the 1.3 is tosh. I've driven both for a rather long period of time and day-to-day the 1.3 is the better car, I reckon (though, I would say that ).

It produces the same torque as the 1.25 but about 2000rpm lower in the rev range. Small-capacity 16vs have very little torque at all - they need the nuts revving off them to get anywhere. When you do rev them they do go a bit quicker and sound a bit nicer but to be honest, 90% of the time the 1.3 is going to be the more pleasant engine to use. It's equally quiet, equally smooth at low revs, and it's still pulling a car that's circa 900kg (i.e. bugger all by modern standards) so although the 0-60 time doesn't set the world alight it's easily quick enough to keep up with traffic around town.

And as Jon helpfully quoted from my ebay listing, you can sit all day on the motorway at 80mph doing 50mpg. I'd love to try the same test in the 1.25 but I reckon you'd be struggling to get that sort of economy from it.

And if someone can't overtake a truck doing 40mph you need to look at more than the power you have. 40mph is low enough to drop it into 2nd gear and there's more than enough power in 2nd to get past a slow-moving truck...

Laptop had to go off before I got to this bit: I'd support the SportKa decision too 👍

 

[Jondot]

That's all relative. We're paying $1500/year EXTRA just to have me on the policy so I can drive my parents cars. It only goes up more when I finally get my own

Mmm, and we're paying £1800/year extra to do the same. Or $3000, converted. For one car - a 1.6 90hp diesel. Not exactly a Corvette, in other words.

 

[mustangGT90210]

It's about $3200 total for us. With 2 cars, a Ford Escape and a Mustang V6

 

[G.T]

Hah he has a very lead foot so he would have got it past the truck if he could have. Unless the road didn't have very many straights on it. Or the Ka actually had a loss of power because of the coolent leak it had. :/

 

[Jondot]

Hah he has a very lead foot so he would have got it past the truck if he could have. Unless the road didn't have very many straights on it.

Well by the sounds of the road it would have been dangerous to try anyway. If it's anything like the B-roads near me (I've driven one every day to get to school and back) you wouldn't be able to overtake safely in a CL55, let alone a Ka. It's not a case of no power, it's a case of no visibility - doesn't matter how fast you can go if you can't see what's coming.

Anyway, 40 isn't that slow for a B road... I'd only go about 5, maybe 10 mph over that anyway, so I'd have just put up with it.

 

[Famine]

$1,200 equivalent for 2 of us to drive 3 cars - MX-3, MX-5 and ST220.

Just over $300 equivalent just for the two of us on the MX-3 right now. Being old rules a lot harder than you might think.

 

[ExigeEvan]

A Ka is only slightly smaller so shouldn't be that much less usable.

When you're talking small cars to begin with that slightly becomes all the more relavant.

And you don't need 5 seats, it's a city car. The more people you add to a tiny car the harder it becomes to drive.

Many, many times I have been in cars seating 5. Perhaps I'm blessed with a strong social group and one that makes picking up others in the area easy, but if you can count 4 friends you'd go to the cinema with, the pub quiz or even college then that extra seat is worth it's weight in gold, or even petrol money.

And ofcourse more passengers makes it more difficult. Hell I have a friends that's 100Kg of rugby player, that's nearly 10% increase on the car when it's just myself in it. But I've driven with atleast 250kg of passengers in the car and only my acceleration notably suffers.

 

[Famine]

Which is why he should get the Alfa 156...

 

[Jondot]

'tis true, but you could argue that case for buying a Vauxhall Zafira. I'm just as likely to find 5 friends as I am to find 4.

I do get the need for extra seats. It's quite nice to have room for 5, but it's not essential for me. I'm forever going around with 3 passengers, but I rarely take 4. In fact I've only done it once, and that was for a short trip round the corner. So it's a consideration, but I could live without it.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Which is why he should get the Alfa 156...

And if he charges then £5 a trip he can afford insurance and maintenance

'tis true, but you could argue that case for buying a Vauxhall Zafira. I'm just as likely to find 5 friends as I am to find 4.

I do get the need for extra seats. It's quite nice to have room for 5, but it's not essential for me. I'm forever going around with 3 passengers, but I rarely take 4. In fact I've only done it once, and that was for a short trip round the corner. So it's a consideration, but I could live without it.

Then all of your criteria considered I'd say get the SportKa. 👍

 

[Jondot]

And if he charges then £50 a mile he can afford insurance and maintenance

Fixed

 

[mustangGT90210]

Hell you could live off that profit

 

[Jondot]

Just to write this down before I forget... Guess what I drove today!

The lovely Renault Clio 1.2 Extreme. Mmmmm. Don't lie; you're excited.

Didn't take it for a test drive with a pestering dealer - I drove my friend's one home. From Cardiff.


Positive thoughts:

• Seats are typically French
• Suspension is typically French
• It went along at 15 more than 70 quite happily all day long
• Stereo is reasonably good

Not-so positive thoughts:

• Clutch is indecisive, annoying, and about the length of a matchstick.
• Gearbox is absolutely horrid
• In 1st gear, it doesn't move.
• In 2nd gear, it doesn't move.
• In 3rd gear, it barely moves.
• The steering has absolutely no feel, and kept changing its behaviour from 'reasonably weighted' to 'stupidly light' at low speeds for no apparent reason.
• 4 reasonably sized people barely fitted into it
• To get it to actually move at low speeds, you have to drive so vigourously that the whole thing becomes horribly jerky. And even then it couldn't keep up with traffic very well.

I basically drove it straight down the M4 and then onto the M25, so we were going along at what I'd call 'BMW driver speeds' with relatively little drama whatsoever. In fact I quite liked it on the Motorway, presumably because all I had to do was sit there. On the smaller A-roads though... no. Didn't have any confidence that it was going to actually go where I pointed it, and that ruined everything. Actually that's not strictly true - the atrocious gearbox played a bigger part than I'm giving it credit for. There's absolutely no indication from it that you're in any sort of gear. At all. Could be in 1st, could be in 5th, could be in Huddersfield - who knows! And when you're driving along in 4th, the gearstick physically jumps backwards 2 inches every time you accelerate. Very odd.

I could sort of bear it on a motorway, but in town it's completely without joy. It's not chuckable (because you've no indication of where you're actually chucking it), it's not nippy (it had trouble keeping up with a 90hp diesel at in-town speeds the other day) and it's not easy to drive (gearbox, clutch, etceteras).


Don't like it. Not buying one.

 

[Famine]

Ahhh, the Extreme. 1.2, "Extreme" badge, Lexus lights and a square exhaust.

I note you picked up on many of the same things I referred to in my review of the car

 

[homeforsummer]

If the steering was doing that it's a dodgy one anyway and probably means the power steering pump is on it's way out. My brother has a very similar model and he'd have mentioned if it was doing stuff like that.

And if you don't like the space in the Clio then I'd avoid Fiestas like mine and KAs too, as they're smaller front and back than the Clio is.

And a 75bhp, normally aspirated anything is going to have trouble keeping up with a 90bhp turbodiesel anything

 

[ExigeEvan]

• 
  [*]Clutch is indecisive, annoying, and about the length of a matchstick.
  [*]Gearbox is absolutely horrid
  [*]In 1st gear, it doesn't move.
  [*]In 2nd gear, it doesn't move.
  [*]In 3rd gear, it barely moves.
  [*]The steering has absolutely no feel, and kept changing its behaviour from 'reasonably weighted' to 'stupidly light' at low speeds for no apparent reason.

• 
  Completely agree with these points. I briefly drove my friends Clio on some private property, got it up to about 30 and it just felt numb. If you are going to get a Clio, try the 1.5D if it's in budget. I began learning in one and a friend claims he gets 65MPG out of it, when he's ragging it.
  

  [*]4 reasonably sized people barely fitted into it

  You can fit 4 lads, with footie kit, and a petite female in it for brief periods. Though on the way home the petite female won't appreciate it.

 

[Ingram]

Right then, my last attempt at defending the Clio, due to the fact that mine will hopefully be up for sale within the week (so after then you can all slag it off as much as you like ) but for the same reason it'd be nice to have the fewest number of people possible thinking its a turd on wheels for now..

Not-so positive thoughts:

* Clutch is indecisive, annoying, and about the length of a matchstick.
* Gearbox is absolutely horrid
* In 1st gear, it doesn't move.
* In 2nd gear, it doesn't move.
* In 3rd gear, it barely moves.
* The steering has absolutely no feel, and kept changing its behaviour from 'reasonably weighted' to 'stupidly light' at low speeds for no apparent reason.
* 4 reasonably sized people barely fitted into it
* To get it to actually move at low speeds, you have to drive so vigourously that the whole thing becomes horribly jerky. And even then it couldn't keep up with traffic very well.

The steering isn't the most confidence inspiring if you are really going for it, though whether that matters or not depends on how often your daily journeys are spent driving at nine and ten tenths. Not sure about the whole 'weight changing' thing though, that may be a case of sparkling French reliability shining out of the car you drove.

I've very rarely needed more power, if you rag the balls off the engine it moves along fine (fun, too). It's pretty jerky when cold, but five minutes down the road its fine. A car with 75bhp is unlikely to keep up with a car with 90, but the solution to that is to get the 1.4, with 95bhp. That is, if you really need the extra power, but many have got by with plenty less.

The space? All I'll say is there is more than a Ka, but beyond that, well, I'm 5"8, so I found the Ka plenty cavernous enough too. Saying that, the SportKa would be a pretty sound choice. If you got one, I'd even buy you a sunstrip that says 'Wayne and Colleen' Put simply though, I just like my Clio more, though I have a sneaking suspicion I'm on my own there..

In fact the only car I would replace mine with out of the previous suggestions (and I may be about to do so) would be the 156. Rather than racking your brain about a decision, forget about the sensible things (i.e insurance, reliability) and buy a car because it looks pretty!

 

[Jondot]

Ahhh, the Extreme. 1.2, "Extreme" badge, Lexus lights and a square exhaust.

I note you picked up on many of the same things I referred to in my review of the car

Actually it was standard (thankfully) and doesn't have the Extreme badge. Which is why I protested for weeks that she'd bought a Dynamique.

Mmm, I just took a look and there are certainly some similar points.

If the steering was doing that it's a dodgy one anyway and probably means the power steering pump is on it's way out. My brother has a very similar model and he'd have mentioned if it was doing stuff like that.

I think it's just that it took me by surprise. Above 30 it tightens up to reasonable levels, which is why the lightness shocked me at lower speeds. Be consistent, damnit!

And if you don't like the space in the Clio then I'd avoid Fiestas like mine and KAs too, as they're smaller front and back than the Clio is.

Indeed. I mean no small car is going to be massive, but still. We had to play a game of seating tetris to make sure everyone fitted in, and it was a squeeze even then. Leg room in the front was the main issue to be honest.

And a 75bhp, normally aspirated anything is going to have trouble keeping up with a 90bhp turbodiesel anything

Oh please The 90bhp lump in the C4 is horribly sluggish low down. But it would be - it's a diesel. I was kind of expecting a low-geared supermini to at least feel like it had something under the bonnet. My sister had a 70HP Ka and I'm sure it moved quicker in the lower gears. Hell I learned in a 1.2 Corsa and even that moved quicker (although it was useless above about 60 - win some, lose some...).

Part of the problem is that 1st gear is basically useless. It's good for about 0 to 3mph, and beyond there you need 2nd. So you spend most of your time faffing around changing up rather than actually making progress. Makes nipping across a road a hassle and doesn't inspire confidence that you'll actually make it there in time.

Completely agree with these points. I briefly drove my friends Clio on some private property, got it up to about 30 and it just felt numb. If you are going to get a Clio, try the 1.5D if it's in budget. I began learning in one and a friend claims he gets 65MPG out of it, when he's ragging it.

You can fit 4 lads, with footie kit, and a petite female in it for brief periods. Though on the way home the petite female won't appreciate it.

Numb. That's the exact word I'd use for the whole thing. And I don't think a more powerful engine would fix that, somehow.

We managed myself, my long-legged friend, a medium sized guy and a short girl with an overnight bag each, plus some food and drinks. I suppose it was bearable, and the boot's actually not bad. It's just that I had to have my seat stupidly far forward in order to get anyone behind me. I'll let this point go, as I suppose it didn't do badly for a car of its size.

Right then, my last attempt at defending the Clio, due to the fact that mine will hopefully be up for sale within the week (so after then you can all slag it off as much as you like ) but for the same reason it'd be nice to have the fewest number of people possible thinking its a turd on wheels for now..

Yeah, sorry It's not that bad, I just wouldn't want to live with one. A few hours in it was fine, as I could get out of it and then it sort of... went away.

The steering isn't the most confidence inspiring if you are really going for it, though whether that matters or not depends on how often your daily journeys are spent driving at nine and ten tenths. Not sure about the whole 'weight changing' thing though, that may be a case of sparkling French reliability shining out of the car you drove.

I wouldn't have the confidence to 'really go for it' in the first place. I was driving around a moto service station car park and it unnerved me

I've very rarely needed more power, if you rag the balls off the engine it moves along fine (fun, too). It's pretty jerky when cold, but five minutes down the road its fine. A car with 75bhp is unlikely to keep up with a car with 90, but the solution to that is to get the 1.4, with 95bhp. That is, if you really need the extra power, but many have got by with plenty less.

The one I drove is pretty jerky full stop. Or rather it is when my friend is driving, but she actually attempts to go quickly. She fails, but still.

As I say, I think it's the gearbox. It's all geared for much higher up, I would suspect (its motorway performance was admirable to say the least for a 1.2 litre car with 4 people on board).

The space? All I'll say is there is more than a Ka, but beyond that, well, I'm 5"8, so I found the Ka plenty cavernous enough too. Saying that, the SportKa would be a pretty sound choice. If you got one, I'd even buy you a sunstrip that says 'Wayne and Colleen' Put simply though, I just like my Clio more, though I have a sneaking suspicion I'm on my own there..

Don't remind me :S

Yeah, I just didn't like lots of little bits with it. If someone gave me one, fine, I'd be perfectly OK driving it every day for the purpose of getting me places. But I couldn't buy one with any more excitement than I would have experienced while buying a train ticket.

 

[homeforsummer]

Oh please The 90bhp lump in the C4 is horribly sluggish low down. But it would be - it's a diesel. I was kind of expecting a low-geared supermini to at least feel like it had something under the bonnet. My sister had a 70HP Ka and I'm sure it moved quicker in the lower gears. Hell I learned in a 1.2 Corsa and even that moved quicker (although it was useless above about 60 - win some, lose some...).

Speaking as someone who drives a low-capacity 8v car rather than a low capacity 16v car, I can confirm that the 8vs will all do better at low revs than the 16vs. The spread of torque is wider (if not necessarily as high) and starts lower down the rev range. At low speeds in high gears there aren't many cars I've driven that have an urge - everything is much the same. Fifth gear at 1000rpm, it wouldn't surprise me if my car could match the BMW 318ti and VTEC Civic that I've driven when searching for a replacement. Both of which murder mine on power but when the engine is just a bit above tickover then the gap is much smaller.

A 90bhp turbodiesel should be able to match/beat them all even from low revs. The Cordoba TDI I drove recently pulled fairly well even from very low revs and once above about 1500rpm it took off. The HDI C4 is a more modern unit so I'd be surprised if it was less tractable than one of VWs first direct injection turbodiesels.

Part of the problem is that 1st gear is basically useless. It's good for about 0 to 3mph, and beyond there you need 2nd. So you spend most of your time faffing around changing up rather than actually making progress. Makes nipping across a road a hassle and doesn't inspire confidence that you'll actually make it there in time.

If you remember your driver training you'll remember that 1st gear is only required for pulling away You should very rarely need to go below 2nd gear in any driving, given that 2nd will be low enough to crawl along at a handful of mph at just above tickover. And if the traffic is slow enough to require first then it won't be fast enough to require 2nd either...

 

[Jondot]

Speaking as someone who drives a low-capacity 8v car rather than a low capacity 16v car, I can confirm that the 8vs will all do better at low revs than the 16vs. The spread of torque is wider (if not necessarily as high) and starts lower down the rev range. At low speeds in high gears there aren't many cars I've driven that have an urge - everything is much the same. Fifth gear at 1000rpm, it wouldn't surprise me if my car could match the BMW 318ti and VTEC Civic that I've driven when searching for a replacement. Both of which murder mine on power but when the engine is just a bit above tickover then the gap is much smaller.

Good A Ka should be 'nippier' then.

A 90bhp turbodiesel should be able to match/beat them all even from low revs. The Cordoba TDI I drove recently pulled fairly well even from very low revs and once above about 1500rpm it took off. The HDI C4 is a more modern unit so I'd be surprised if it was less tractable than one of VWs first direct injection turbodiesels.

Well it beats the Clio That's my point - I'm not expecting miracles with it; it's a diesel. In fact no - it's a de-tuned diesel designed to slot into a low tax-bracket. The Cordoba might have had an older engine, but it weighed less and had more power. Don't get me wrong, at slightly higher speeds it's lovely - moves very nicely indeed. But it won't pull out of junctions particularly quickly. Enough for the bloke not to crash into the back of you, but still.

If you remember your driver training you'll remember that 1st gear is only required for pulling away You should very rarely need to go below 2nd gear in any driving, given that 2nd will be low enough to crawl along at a handful of mph at just above tickover. And if the traffic is slow enough to require first then it won't be fast enough to require 2nd either...

Yes, but I'd quite like it to move more than 3 inches before you have to change up. Couldn't they have just made it a little longer to save you having to change up 0.5 seconds after engaging it?

 

[homeforsummer]

You just have to not be scared at using more revs They're quite free-revving engines in the Clio and Meganes of the same age and they'll spin to the red-line quite happily. But again, you only need first for a few mph anyway. I probably change to second at around 5mph in my car, and I'm fairly sure the Clio will do more than that in first...

 

[Jondot]

You just have to not be scared at using more revs They're quite free-revving engines in the Clio and Meganes of the same age and they'll spin to the red-line quite happily. But again, you only need first for a few mph anyway. I probably change to second at around 5mph in my car, and I'm fairly sure the Clio will do more than that in first...

Not without a fight it won't Anyway, I'm probably just used to a nice low-revving diesel. I didn't want to go much over 4500rpm as it wasn't my car and it sounded like an angry food blender.