Ford model reference
Ford Ka
What our record holds on the Ka, sold in the UK 1996 to 2019: body styles, fuel types and the road tax a used one pays.
No reliability figure is published for the Ford Ka that this site could cite. What circulates instead is survey data from panels that select themselves, and warranty claim rates published by companies with something to sell.
Any percentage would be our own calculation. Which years count, and whether a facelift and a new generation sharing the Ka name are one model or two, both move the answer, and neither choice is anybody official's.
So the field does not exist. We do not average the other Ford models into a number and put it here, and we do not push a marque figure down onto the Ka. What is real and specific is the paperwork for one car.
No fault ordering is published for the Ka
A 2010 1.2 petrol at about 115 g/km is a band C car, £35 for twelve months in 2026/27.
That figure is a worked example for the year and engine named, not a rate for every Ka. Read the CO2 figure and the first registration date off the V5C before you budget, because both change the answer.
See every band for this tax yearStanding next to one
Buying a used Ka: what the record settles
Our record puts the Ka's UK sales period at 1996 to 2019. That range is the useful starting point, because everything about the cost of running one turns on where a particular example sits inside it. It came in one body style here, hatchback, with 2 fuel types: petrol and diesel.
The Ka was on sale on both sides of the road tax change of 1 April 2017, and that is the single most useful thing to know before you buy one. An example first registered up to 31 March 2017 is taxed on its CO2 figure under the lettered bands, so engine, gearbox and even wheel size can move two cars of the same year into different bands. One registered from 1 April 2017 pays the flat standard rate instead and its CO2 stops mattering. Two otherwise identical cars a year apart can cost noticeably different amounts to keep taxed, and only the V5C tells you which one you are looking at. The earliest ones predate 1 March 2001, and anything registered before that date is taxed on engine size in two bands rather than on CO2 at all. There is also a quirk worth knowing on the oldest examples: a car registered before 23 March 2006 cannot be charged above band K however high its emissions, so a thirsty old one can be cheaper to tax than a newer car a class below it.
For running costs the fuel matters more than the badge. On the diesels the emissions section is where a neglected car loses its certificate: the particulate filter is inspected and the smoke reading is measured against a limit, and a filter that has never had a long run to clear itself will not pass on a good intention.
None of that is a substitute for the record of the actual car. The invoices name what was replaced, when and at what mileage, and the same job appearing twice in three years says more about a Ka than any statistic about the model ever could. A mileage that goes backwards across a paperwork trail is worth walking away from whatever the badge is.
Ford has built and sold cars in Britain since 1911 and spent most of the past fifty years at or near the top of the sales charts. Its used market presence is enormous: the Fiesta alone ran for 47 years here before the last one left Cologne in 2023. The Puma has been the country's best selling new car for three years running, which means the next decade of used forecourts will look much like the past one did with Fiestas. That is context on the marque rather than on this car, and there is more of it, along with every other model line, on the Ford page.