My mrs has got a Mazda 121 (Fiesta), it's an R(98) GXi with a 1.3 engine (is this the engine used in the Ka?).

About a month ago she came home and told me that the car revved up when she was changing gear. It only cleared when she pulled over, stopped the engine and started off again. I checked the obvious, making sure the throttle cable spring was working as it should, all seemed normal there.

It didn't do it again until a few weeks ago when I was driving it. I was driving along normally, going up through the gears when I pressed the clutch and the revs didn't drop as you'd expect but stayed up and didn't seem to drop. Obviously this wasn't doing the clutch any good when engaging the next gear at high revs and low speed. It carried on doing it and would even pull itself along the road without slowing down when in gear. The only way to force the revs down was to bring it right down to around 1000rpm with the brake, then the idle would settle on its own when coming to a stop... only for it to stick again when we'd got going again (hard to explain but it wouldn't stick by revving it up at standstill after forcing it down, only after it had got stuck again going up the gears). To clarify, the engine speed isn't rising by itself, it's just not dropping as it would normally.

Once we'd got to our destination and stopped it didn't do it again until a day or two ago.

I've had idle speed control valve and air flow meter suggested to me. Any one else had a similar problem?

 

idle speed control valve is the most common thing, give it a clean first

 

idal speed control valve it sounds like to me mate try taking it off and cleaning it with carb cleaned or break cleaner its realy easy to get at its fixed to the side of the manifold buy 2 8mm bolts.

 

Cheers guys. Just been out and cleaned it, I couldn't believe the amount of crap that came out of it when I sprayed the brake cleaner in. Nice and easy fix (fingers crossed).