2003 Ford KA drinking coolant and developed misfire!!

Sounds like the head gasket is away. is there any kind of smoke or steam coming from the exhaust. also check the oil to see if it looks at all slugie round the cap and dipstik.

I would say the same - but do not delay before checking whether the head gasket is the culprit! If the gasket is allowing coolant to enter one of the engine cylinders, you may be only minutes away from causing damage that is beyond economic repair.

With the car safely parked and switched off, look closely at the tip of the exhaust pipe at the rear of the Ka. They can be a bit awkward to peer into so you may have to get on the ground with a torch. The interior of the exhaust pipe should be sooty grey or sooty black. Not a trace of moisture, shine or wetness. The very tip of the pipe should not have stains of oil or be dripping.

If you cant see where the water is leaking from , a pressure test of cooling system should show where leak is . It could be water pump leaking . If not , and still having problems a block test will tell you for certain if head gasket leaking .Every car produces water at tail pipe , especially at start up from cold so dont be misled by that unless it's excessive .

Right okay, i will have a look into it!

I topped the coolant up and the misfire has stopped for now, its a bit intermitant, doesnt always occur...

The engine was completely rebuilt less than 6000 miles ago so i hope its not the head gasket! Ive had a problem with the coolant system before where the flow limiter in one of the pipes that runs across the front of the engine was blocked and caused pressure to build up and didnt allow the coolant to flow round the engine.

Ive noticed now that it seems to be building up pressure and is releasing it when the engine is turned off after a short journey (its a lot louder than before or ive just started to notice it... it also makes a noise when the clutch isnt in and its just sat idling... Basically, it seems like its knackered !!

My girlfriends dad is an AA man, plugged his computer in and identified the misfire originally and was the guy that built the engine after the previous owner had a headgasket failure.

Also, one last point... looking at the engine block, the four bolts that attach the top cover on, there seems to be oil seeping out of one of them as its constantly oily, compared to the others which are bone dry!

May have to go to my gfs dads place and take it all apart, see whats happening its just finding the time at the minute!!

Any help and the responses so far have been really helpful though, i will try and have a look at the exhaust later on today!