KA mpg?

real world 30mpg for journeys like that.

Birmingham - Portsmouth/Caen - Le Mans & return using motorways and 70mph where possible - avg 55mpg! Local journeys not checked.

Driving style on local short journeys (indeed anywhere) determines one's mpg.

Daf

Have a run to Edinburgh coming up, would be pleased with those figures. Thanks for the replies all.

Rog

On Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:32:02 +0000, Rog stammered:

A chap called Dervman who used to post here and in uk.rec.cars.modifications used to keep obsessive track of the mpg of his

1.3Ka. IIRC it averaged about 39mpg, but he drove particularly carefully. It was not as economical as his 1.8 diesel Mondeo MK1 that he owned before it.

Those old 'Kent' based lumps were horribly dated - which didn't help when all the modern emissions bits were bolted on.

Always amused me, as when I had my first Cinq. Sporting, I could drive it like I stole it and nigh-on match a carefully driven Ka's MPG.

crazy too that my A40 Farina in 1975 did 40 mpg and had more room than a KA, had great all round visibility (unlike a KA) and could be serviced easily, a couple of screwdrivers to change the headlight bulb for instance. A starting handle for emergencies, a two part tailgate meant anything could go in the back. IIRC I paid 40 quid for the car. (three 40's)

[...]

How did the handling, performance, and more particularly the brakes compare? How would it protect you in a crash? How many engines would it have needed in 100K miles? And although easy to service, what was the interval, and how much needed to be done?

I certainly wouldn't want to drive a Mk1 A40 in today's traffic conditions; the brakes were woeful even when they were new. The Mk2 was a little better in that respect, but still behind the standards of the day.

Chris

I'd bet you'd spend far more time servicing one in 100000m than you'd spend servicing a Ka.

At the time it was perfectly adequate in performance etc. I agree it would seem slow and spongy now. But it was a fairly heavy car and had quite enough performance for normal traffic even today. It had bumpers that could be used too ! I don't remember doing much other than points on it in two years. It had already been around the clock before I got it, I did about

10k in it, didn't even change the oil. If you want to get into crash protection then I hope you change your car every few months, or it will always be behind the times. I have not had any major collisions since the age of 12, so although I should be wary of crashes and crash protection it does not figure too high on my list of priorities.

However, why doesn't a KA do about 70 to the gallon? I expect it weighs about the same as the A40 and technical advances should have improved efficiency a vast amount. The KA that I have driven have been very unpleasant, I cannot understand why anybody would buy one if they had test driven it first.

[...]

A40 = 761Kg Ka2 = 908Kg

Add to that the overhead of the emissions control, and the fact that although they are similar engines (4-cyl, OHV), the Ka produces more than twice the power of the A40, and it becomes clearer where the fuel goes!

I liked the A40 in its day; it was quite a useful and fun car. I learned to drive in one, and my ex-wife ran one for a year. However,my Dad bought a two year-old, dealer serviced, low mileage one. In three years, it needed a replacement engine, (ran big ends), it broke a half-shaft, needed a dynamo, a front suspension rebuild, an exhaust system, and constant attention to the (mechanical) rear brakes. (It was a Mk1.) It was regularly garage-serviced BTW.

None of those things were out of the ordinary for any of the cars of its era, but you would be extraordinarily unlucky, and quite a bit upset, if a modern car needed that level of work in the first five years of its life.

Chris

I am a bit peeved that my wife's Lexus needs it's first exhaust repair: it is only 15 :)

[...]

Heh! That's pretty amazing for those of us of a certain age; when exhaust centres first became common, the quality was so poor that bi-annual replacement wasn't that uncommon!

Chris

I find that cheap replacement exhaust bits still only last two years on certain cars.

Had a series of Minis back in the Sixties, could do 45mpg at an average of 45mph along the A40 from Stratford to Castlemartin, Pembroke.(memories.....)

4 speed box, engine revving its balls off and all your spare time doing swivel joints, brakes, subframes etc. But didn't have to take the front wheel off to change the headlamp bulb :) Rog

Apparently the price in 1962 was =A3693. 5 decades on that's probably equivalent to =A320-25K. Forget the cosmetic fluff and safety guff, cost is where the really important technical advances have been made.

Nope, not according to this:

693UKP in 1962 is equivalent to 12,162UKP in today's value. A bit more than a Ka costs, but nowhere near 25K.

The real advances are in safety; if you extrapolated the casualty figures from the sixties into the amount of vehicle miles covered now, it would be frightful.

Chris

This is an extract from French statistics

like the main developments in safety are pretty much independantof car design.

wow, what happened in 1972? before that it was an exact side by side graph showing that deaths rose with vehicle miles.

It seems that in 1972 they brought in a road safety manager, speed limits, compulsory seat belts and drink drive limits.

So as you say, little directly to do with car safety design since everything from about 1960 had seat belt points, even if the car came without the belts!

interesting paper on it all, and other countries that managed similar reversals in trend.

[...]

The crossover point on that graph shows there were reductions in mortality in the early seventies; the French started making seat belts compulsory in 1973, so I would argue that to some degree it shows design

*is* important.

Chris