Mondeos

Soldato
Joined
26 Apr 2003
Posts
5,746
Location
West Midlands
I need a good comfy car to get me around since I'm handing my company car back in two weeks. Seems like a Mondeo is the best all rounder. I do quite a bit of mileage so idealy like a diesel plus it'll be a bit better on the Motorway and A38 than a small engined petrol.

I've seen these two that caught my eye

Firstly a 2005 Mondeo 2.0TDCi 130 Ghia - £2700

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif...rd/radius/10/postcode/dy82ds/page/3?logcode=p

Secondly a 2004 Mondeo 2.0TDCi 130 Zetec - £1900

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif...rd/radius/10/postcode/dy82ds/page/3?logcode=p

The Ghia has had a new turbo too which is a bonus but then again it's also £800 more than the Zetec. Anything to look for with these kind of Mondeos?
Max budget is £2500ish which I think I can get the ghia to if I go for it.
 
I thought you had no job at the moment. Surely with no job your mileage is minimal so you'd be best to wait until you get a new job and then see if you need a particular type of car for it, how long the commute is etc etc? Why buy a Mondeo only diesel only to then get a job with a company car or a job 4 miles down the road or something?

You don't half seem to rush into things without really thinking about what you need :p

Oh and cheapo TDCi's are a liability, waste of money. Too many big common failure modes - turbo, DMF, injectors.
 
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[TW]Fox;19954128 said:
I thought you had no job at the moment. Surely with no job your mileage is minimal so you'd be best to wait until you get a new job and then see if you need a particular type of car for it, how long the commute is etc etc? Why buy a Mondeo only diesel only to then get a job with a company car or a job 4 miles down the road or something?

You don't half seem to rush into things without really thinking about what you need :p

Oh and cheapo TDCi's are a liability, waste of money. Too many big common failure modes - turbo, DMF, injectors.

I have a job thanks.
 
I have a job thanks.

Sorry its hard to keep up with the constant stream of threads in Motors about your life :p I thought if you rushed to the internet to tell us you lost your job you'd at least have made a new thread to tell us you'd got another, so assumed you still hadn't :p
 
Do you want this to be a thread about Mondeos or a thread about you because if I go looking for examples it'll end up being a derailed mess. You know very well you often post about random stuff thats happened usually resulting in the Monaro going up on Pistonheads for about the 5th time in a row :p

All I was doing was explaining why I thought you were unemployed, given you ignored my helpful advice and instead decided to snap at me.
 
Handbags away, gents ;)


On a more on-topic note, as has already been said, cheapo diesel Mondeos are a risk, however if you've already taken into account the 4 figure bills you'll be looking at, then they are an otherwise great car. Out of the two I'd go for the Ghia too purely for the better spec.
 
The Ghia has already had a new turbo this year. Just how often do DMFs or injectors fail? How is the 1.8 petrol on fuel in the real world?
 
It's not as if it's something exotic for which stomaching huge bills is worth it, its a diesel Mondeo, it exists purely to be cheap transport which it isn't with the risk of the DMF going or the turbo or something.

A petrol one would be a better bet, they seem to just.. work. I used to crack 40mpg on Motorway runs without too much of an issue in my 2.0 16v Mondeo and that was an older less capable engine.
 
Well it seems the petrol 1.8's are cleaper anyway. I'll have a look around. Is the suspension harder on a Zetec than a Ghia or LX?
 
If you look at 1.8s take someone to check for smoke when you rev the engine, otherwise you'll end up with one that starts making this noise:

 
If you look at 1.8s take someone to check for smoke when you rev the engine, otherwise you'll end up with one that starts making this noise:


Is that not just the inlet swirl flaps (afflicted early models)? If so, you can just take them out, my friendly mechanic took em off for me in an hour or so.
 
You always read on the internet horror stories of costs going through the roof with DMF's and Injectors going on them.

If you search for it, you will find lots on it and you will probably be put off.

My car has done 85k and not a sniff of that, its had a remap too. You need to make sure that the car has a full service history and plenty of reciepts too, obviously finding one thats already has the DMF replaced is a bonus.

If its a pre-2003/4 then check the bottoms of the doors for rust, also listen out for knocking at the rear (subframe bushes).
 
Is that not just the inlet swirl flaps (afflicted early models)? If so, you can just take them out, my friendly mechanic took em off for me in an hour or so.

Nope thats bottom end death rattle.
but good advice on removing the swirl flaps
 
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