Ka Diary
– 81,317 – 12 November 2005 – Four Years On
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hilst
my last Ka Diary entry was posted up late because our camera wouldn’t
communicate with the computer, this one, yeah it’s late. I have a good reason, though. Two actually, both my work laptop and the
home laptop died within a fortnight of one another. I lost a fair amount of data, about as much as one can inside a
weekly backup. Not critical, then, but
annoying all the same. Because of the
time spent recovering (rebuilding) the home laptop this has put EnbthusiastiKa back
yet again... Sometimes I wonder if it
will see the light of day in 2005! Not
to mention my inability to update the website.
The
weekend after the kid’s eighty thousand mile service we were back at Eyres to
have the stereo removed. I had to spend
a fortnight driving with a gaping hole where the CD tuner usually lives. I didn’t appreciate how much I listened to
music during the work commute until it wasn’t there. After a couple of weeks I installed the new unit into the
dashboard. Unfortunately, between the
paint shop and me installing it into the kid one or two of the clips broke that
hold it in place so it all needs to come out for either some glue or a
replacement fascia bought and sprayed up to match the dashboard. Hopefully, we can recover the fascia! For now I’m just pleased to have something
in the dashboard. We went for a Sony CD
/ Tuner with MP3 playback functionality.
This means that I can burn a CD full of MP3s and have approximately six
hours of music rather than one hour.
This saves faffing about with changing discs so often. Our new unit has a motorised front panel and
a remote control unit. The remote
control feels like a gadget for gadgets sake, especially in a small car and the
funky animated graphics are a serious distraction at night. I love my gadgets, but hey if you’re going
to do a remote control, shouldn’t it be a Bluetooth enabled one by now? Fortunately it’s possible to turn the
graphics off (and the display even shuts down) and there’s no denying
the improvement in sound quality. We
need a subwoofer though. cough
watch this space cough
I put Optimax into the
tank one cold Wednesday morning. It
wasn’t a planned manoeuvre, I’d gone to my usual petrol station but didn’t spot
that at the pump I was at the 95 RON unleaded had a “out of order” sign on it. Since I was feeling too lazy to move along
to the next pump I just put Optimax in him.
There was a little difference in the kid’s behaviour. He wasn’t quicker but there was less of a
grumble under moderate to high load and at engine speed (in other words,
when labouring the engine). No
difference in fuel consumption (with a few caveats that I’ll come to in a
little bit).
Oh,
yeah, Kermy’s fuel consumption. As it gets colder, so the engine uses more
fuel - but the difference isn’t as great as using back roads rather than the
motorway for my commute. On the one
hand with Kermy equiped with cruise control he’s ideal for the motorway, but by
the same token with the Ford Racing
suspension, lightweight alloys and superb headlights he’s ideal for back
roads. I had forgotten how good the main
beam on the Morettes was until the hour changed and I’m driving home in proper
darkness. I had also forgotten how
quickly they attract dirt, which is thanks to how hot the glass (plastic)
lens gets and because of their shape.
Going back to petrol, there are three main routes I can take to the
office. The boring motorway route, the
slightly less boring main road route (plenty of sweeping bends and some
roundabouts) or the slightly exciting back road option (some gradients,
some tighter corners but many are blind).
When traffic is busy and Muppetry on the motorway I’ll detour to the
main road route. When traffic is still
Muppetry on the main road route I’ll detour to the back roads. The trouble with the back road option is
that I can’t resist a gooning opportunity...
This
brings me on to the kid’s lower suspension arms. The arms don’t need to be replaced, just the bushes but it’s more
economical to replace the lower suspension arms. The last time the arms needed replacing, yeah we could feel the
difference but it was more associated after we’d had it done rather than
before. Now, with the Ford Racing suspension there’s a
bigger difference. Oh and we also know
what to feel for too.
If
you have a Ka, or for that matter a Puma
or a Fiesta, how do you tell when
the lower suspension bushes need replacing?
There are some obvious clues.
One is creaking over speed bumps or perhaps during hard cornering. The creaking gets worse and worse!
Another
clue is a harsh and knobbly ride.
Kermy’s ride quality has noticeably deteriorated over the last thousand
miles or so; when the lower suspension bushes are in good condition the Ford Racing
suspension provides a compliant ride but at the moment Kermy feels unduly firm.
It’s
in the third respect where you may not spot it, because although the vanilla Ka handling traits remain the same
they’re exaggerated somewhat. The lower
suspension arms are designed to keep the wheels level with the road no matter
what the load on the suspension is and they do the job remarkably well. Once the bushes are unbundling, during hard
cornering the suspension is unable to keep the wheel level with the road and
grip suffers as less of the tyre makes contact with the tarmac. When grip suffers at the front we get
understeer, more so under load (or acceleration). Barrel into a roundabout at a decent pace
and you encounter understeer, lifting off reduces but does not eliminate the
understeer until more speed is scrubbed off.
Then the front wheels dig in, shifting the centre of gravity forwards
thus translating understeer to oversteer.
This is where it gets a bit exciting as the overloaded rear tyres let go
and it’s a classic “I’ve overcooked
it” moment. In the dry, the rear tyres howl their protest, which
certainly sounds dramatic. In the wet
there’s little change in the noise but it looks and feels dramatic.
On
the one hand, managing to correct the oversteer without losing too much forward
speed is hugely satisfying and brings a boyish grin to my face, but on the
other hand the Ka during lift off oversteer is unpredictable. A variance in the road surface, a drier or
wetter patch and you’ll snap into a half spin quicker than you can
correct. Quicker than I can correct at
any rate.
Thus
roundabouts and tighter corners now require rather more respect. In the dry Kermy squirms and wriggles under
power whereas in the wet, he does this and spins the inside wheel. It’s a bit of a mess really – much more a
mess than you’d expect with this
output.