My daughter is looking to buy a 69 plate Ford KA+ 1.2 Ti-VCT Active. What we can't find out is if this has a wet belt or not. Does anyone know or point us in TBF direction of where we could find out? The car is 5/6 years old and only has 4 service stamps so am worried that it might not have been serviced enough to keep the belt in good shape. Many thanks.

Hi,

It is easy to determine the belt type on this engine. Older 4 cylinder used a dry belt. Newer 3 cylinder uses a wetbelt.

I would expect a '69 plate to be the newer type with wetbelt, unless there was a very long gap between build date and registration date.

The Ka+ was facelifted in 2018 and the engine changed from 4 cylinder to a 3 cylinder, so as Tom says, a 69 plate is almost certainly the latter.

There has been some confusion/lack of information on this as the 3 cylinder is part of the "Dragon" engine family but, unlike the 1.0 and 1.5 versions found in the Fiesta and Focus, uses a wet belt rather than the chain cam drive in those cars. (They still have a wet belt for the oil pump drive, though.)

(See this extract of a post on another forum:

Hi, don't know if this reply will be in time to help you, but i can 100% confirm that the 1.2 ti vct engine in a KA+ is a WET BELT.
I've found this out the hard way sadly. Bought a 2018 KA+ Active for my daughter just under 2 years ago and at the time i was led to believe it didn't have a wet belt. Fast forward to November this year (2025) and the belt failed, stripping nearly 1/3 of the teeth off it, mileage on the car was just under 68,000. Car has been serviced regularly, but i don't know if the correct oil was used before i bought it.

Hope this helps people to learn about this engine as i have found very little information on the internet about it.)

There are some shots of the 3 cylinder in this EBay listing:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/127673415279?

Thanks everyone. There is conflicting information out there. I was under the impression that the 3 cylinder had a chain.

Sadly the 69 plate car has now sold so no longer available but have found a 2018 car that I am investigating. This does have 3 cylinders so does anyone know if this will have dry, wet or chain?

24 minutes ago, richard280166 said:

Thanks everyone. There is conflicting information out there. I was under the impression that the 3 cylinder had a chain.

Sadly the 69 plate car has now sold so no longer available but have found a 2018 car that I am investigating. This does have 3 cylinders so does anyone know if this will have dry, wet or chain?

As above, if its a 3 cylinder it will be a wet belt.

The Ka+ was originally known as the Ford Figo and built in and for Brazil, later India. We have very few Ka+ owners on here, and sales in the UK were low, never achieving the popularity of the early version, hence little information about it.

Just a simple photo of the engine in that car will settle the discussion.

The KA+'s she was looking at have both gone but have found a Fiesta 67 plate 1.2 zetec. We think this is a dry belt but have attached an image of the engine bay. If someone could confirm if this is a dry belt or not. Thanks.

14 minutes ago, richard280166 said:

found a Fiesta 67 plate 1.2 zetec. We think this is a dry belt but have attached an image of the engine bay.

Yes, the 1.25 is a 4 cylinder engine with a convential dry cam belt. It's generally regarded as a reliable engine.

We had 1.25 Fiesta for some years, and found it good fun to drive.