Mondeo ST TDCI

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Dont know how many times this guy has to say its not for him its for hiis bro and he warrants a diesel on his annual mileage.
Also because all of the above mentioned "catastrophic failures" diesels seem to be able to have does that automatically mean that every diesel car is going to have every single failure possible and almost certainly bankrupt you if you buy one ?

No me thinks not
 
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He could be buying it for the pope and the advice would still stand.

I have first hand experience of running a diesel over 30K a year thankyou - this week it dropped a £600 bill on me when it went in for a routine service. £350 of that would not have happened on a petrol, as it was a fault with a diesel-only part.

All i'm trying to do is make sure he goes into this with his eyes open. If he is still determined to get a diesel then so be it, but at least he will know the pitfalls and potential problems.
 
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I see where you are coming from that diesels will be more prone to faults and failures. And with having more expensive parts that can go bang than a petrol.

But I'm sure I could ask about a 2.0 petrol mondeo and be given plenty of horror stories too.

The amount of diesel cars out there now, you would think that some of them must have a life free of problem otherwise why would people continue to go about buying them? My dad has a 1.9 octavia diesel, which has covered 90k+ miles and has never had a mechanical problem in his lifetime. The only thing that has ever got wrong was a fuse (electrical problem) and this could have also gone wrong in a petrol.....
 
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Well that's the chance you take with any car at all. You might buy a Mondeo TDCI that runs for thousands of miles without fault. But you might also buy one that goes through injectors like it's going out of fashion.

At the end of the day it's your/your brother's decision. All people here are trying to do is make it clear that when you buy a more complex car, you *can* be buying into something that is more prone to throwing problems, which will eat into any fuel savings.

Don't take this as diesel-bashing, it's not. It's just about making sure you know what you're doing and what could or could not happen with any car.

This thread is really no different to the type of threads we sometimes get where someone wants to buy a 7 series for £3K. The principle is, that with any car you buy, if you're responsible for maintaining it you need to be clear about what that entails, otherwise 6 months down the line we get a thread titled "OMG I hate my car, can't afford it etc.".
 
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At the end of the day it's your/your brother's decision. All people here are trying to do is make it clear that when you buy a more complex car, you *can* be buying into something that is more prone to throwing problems, which will eat into any fuel savings.

I fully understand this. But I would personally think with such a high annual mileage the risks of diesel ownership would NOT outweigh the benefits of cheaper running costs.

Worst case scenario i suggest my brother buys a petrol mondy, and it goes bang!! Then he's got bills to pay, and his economy is far worse off.
Best case scenario he gets the diesel and no problem occur..

Isn't every car a risk game, obviously the diesel being more of a risk to an N/A petrol car of equivalent age and spec...

The turbo in my Focus ST could go bang at any time, and it's safe to say I certainly don't have the spare cash at the moment to have that fixed. So should I buy a Civic Type R in case of this occurrence???
 
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But I'm sure I could ask about a 2.0 petrol mondeo and be given plenty of horror stories too.

The point is though that the horror stories people tell you are related to components NOT fitted to the petrol. So sure, you could buy a petrol and the rear subframe goes or the doors leak water or the aircon packs in but then all that could happen on the diesel, too. But you won't need a turbo or injectors or a DMF on the petrol Mondeo, which is kinda the point everyone is making.

It's additional complexity that causes the issue.

That said I'm not sure that with near 20k its right to avoid diesel - perhaps just buy the right diesel, of which I am not sure the Mondeo is. It has more than its fair share of issues.

The turbo in my Focus ST could go bang at any time, and it's safe to say I certainly don't have the spare cash at the moment to have that fixed. So should I buy a Civic Type R in case of this occurrence???

Whether its smart to buy something like a Focus ST if you can't afford to fix it is a completely different matter for a completely different thread.
 
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[TW]Fox;21582821 said:
That said I'm not sure that with near 20k its right to avoid diesel - perhaps just buy the right diesel, of which I am not sure the Mondeo is. It has more than its fair share of issues.

What would be the right diesel?

I just assumed with the Mondeo getting rave reviews, that a diesel mondeo would be the car of choice...
 
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What would be the right diesel?

I just assumed with the Mondeo getting rave reviews, that a diesel mondeo would be the car of choice...

I'm thinking that something like the engine I hate the most in the entire world might be a good choice - the VAG 1.9 TDI. It's noisy, its slow, it shakes the cabin like a small earthquake but it seems to be one of the most reliable diesel engines around.

The Mondeo is an excellent car and gets many recommendations but it took them years to actually get the diesel engine right reliability wise.
 
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Thanks Fox

A more reliable derv engine is a good shout. I wasn't aware of the reliability of Ford diesels compared to the PD engines...

Is there a 130 pd engine? Is that the "quickest". He seems to be wanting to keep, (I say this with holding a lot of laughter) the "speed" of his A3 diesel...
 

Imy

Imy

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I wouldn't be considering a petrol @ 25k miles a year and most certainly not the ST220.

As for diesels the ST isn't going to be the most economical as diesels go and it doesn't seem to be amongst the most reliable diesels either. There are a couple on my commute that I see and from the outside they are hard to tell apart from the ST220 unless you're following behind one and happen to remember the ST220 has 2 exhaust pipes.

I'd consider another diesel car personally.
 
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