The problem of having a Ford Mondeo is that when it goes into the garage you get a Ford Ka as a courtesy car.
I saw the thing in a horrible colour in the dealer car park and my heart dropped. I had to drive it for a day. I was at least hoping for a new fiesta.
Anyway, once in and I could forget a bit about the colour (although not fully, as loads of body coloured metal is visible inside) things improved a bit.
To my surprise it wasn't actually poverty spec and had a CD player and electric windows.
Once on the road I was surprised even more. Obviously it wasn't as fast as my Mondeo, but because you're nearer to the road, it's noisier etc, it really felt like it wasn't that slow.
I drove it like I stole it for the whole day. As there's no rev counter I drove it by ear and I can tell you that little 1.3 8v engine was screaming.
I always thought 8v engines didn't like to rev (I hadn't driven one before), but when giving it a booting coming onto the M1 it got to 90+ indicated in 3rd... I was quite surprised and changed up before finding the rev limiter (is there one?!) as it sounded like the engine was going to die.
Similar for 30mph in 1st and 60mph in 2nd..... the gear ratios are alarmingly like that of a larger car - I'm not sure the engine liked me for it, it certainly didn't sound nice, but it managed it.
I always remember one of my mates had one and would always moan about how slow it was and when I was in the car with him I couldn't have agreed more. Now I realise that while they're slow it is probably made a lot worse by them being driven by new drivers who are scared of pushing the engine, and that coupled with the lack of rev counter means the engines probably never get reved that much.
If you give them a real hard pushing they can about keep up with traffic.
It was certainly nice to get back in the mondeo at the end of the day though.
The main difference when you're driving at a normal pace is not actually at high speeds, but around town. In the mondeo you take it for advantage that 3rd gear is good for about 10mph to about 90.
In the Ka if you change into 3rd much before 30 it really struggles to pull anywhere.
Interestinly ragging the Ka so hard seemed to negate any potential fuel savings of driving a small engined car. When I collected the car it was on 1/4 of a tank and I was asked to return it with the same in. I put £7.50 in it straight away as a guess thinking if anything it's be a spot over. I did 50 miles and at the end of the day the needle was just under a quater... I know fuel guages aren't 100% accurage, but 50 miles from approx £7.50 isn't that dissimilar to the fuel economy you'd get from your average 2.5 litre barge - I guess most people tootle around at 50mph in these and never rev them much which is where the fuel savings come into play.
I saw the thing in a horrible colour in the dealer car park and my heart dropped. I had to drive it for a day. I was at least hoping for a new fiesta.
Anyway, once in and I could forget a bit about the colour (although not fully, as loads of body coloured metal is visible inside) things improved a bit.
To my surprise it wasn't actually poverty spec and had a CD player and electric windows.
Once on the road I was surprised even more. Obviously it wasn't as fast as my Mondeo, but because you're nearer to the road, it's noisier etc, it really felt like it wasn't that slow.
I drove it like I stole it for the whole day. As there's no rev counter I drove it by ear and I can tell you that little 1.3 8v engine was screaming.
I always thought 8v engines didn't like to rev (I hadn't driven one before), but when giving it a booting coming onto the M1 it got to 90+ indicated in 3rd... I was quite surprised and changed up before finding the rev limiter (is there one?!) as it sounded like the engine was going to die.
Similar for 30mph in 1st and 60mph in 2nd..... the gear ratios are alarmingly like that of a larger car - I'm not sure the engine liked me for it, it certainly didn't sound nice, but it managed it.
I always remember one of my mates had one and would always moan about how slow it was and when I was in the car with him I couldn't have agreed more. Now I realise that while they're slow it is probably made a lot worse by them being driven by new drivers who are scared of pushing the engine, and that coupled with the lack of rev counter means the engines probably never get reved that much.
If you give them a real hard pushing they can about keep up with traffic.
It was certainly nice to get back in the mondeo at the end of the day though.
The main difference when you're driving at a normal pace is not actually at high speeds, but around town. In the mondeo you take it for advantage that 3rd gear is good for about 10mph to about 90.
In the Ka if you change into 3rd much before 30 it really struggles to pull anywhere.
Interestinly ragging the Ka so hard seemed to negate any potential fuel savings of driving a small engined car. When I collected the car it was on 1/4 of a tank and I was asked to return it with the same in. I put £7.50 in it straight away as a guess thinking if anything it's be a spot over. I did 50 miles and at the end of the day the needle was just under a quater... I know fuel guages aren't 100% accurage, but 50 miles from approx £7.50 isn't that dissimilar to the fuel economy you'd get from your average 2.5 litre barge - I guess most people tootle around at 50mph in these and never rev them much which is where the fuel savings come into play.
