This car is one of the best I have owned, keeps going, is a good all round workhorse, will suit family or general driver.
Ours is a second generation Ford Mondeo 1.8 Zetec, and my only real regret is not getting in with the first generation. I suppose I was bothered by the 'Mondeo man' thing for a while, but to Ford Mondeo I will be loyal from now on, as long as the newer ones haven't messed up what's good so far (always possible). My main reason for wanting to move on from this one is the relatively low fuel economy, it gets a good deal under 40 miles a gallon, which these days isn't so great, and I understand is quite a bit better in the 3rd and 4th gen Ford Mondeo.
Lots of things have always impressed me about my Ford Mondeo, I still smile about them. The first is the windscreen with this instant clearing thing, takes just over a minute to get completely clear even in the worst weather, that's just brilliant. Aircon is good, although it has needed regassing a couple of times, perhaps because I use it quite a bit.
I've always found it really handy to have the big old box in between the front seats for storing stuff. I get really confused now when I'm driving a smaller car like my parents Corsa, just don't know where to keep my sunglasses and hat.
One little downside is that the 1.8 in this Ford Mondeo feels a little like it's lacking a bit of power. I have driven some really small cars before, like 1 litre engines, and they're really light so they fly about. Maybe all the features in the Ford Mondeo weigh it down a bit, or maybe it's another engineering thing, but it's not quite the beast you might want for a modern 1.8. That's something else I'll be looking out for when I upgrade.
Other thing I couldn't leave out is the boot. It's just massive. It's always easily big enough for all my work gear, but it gets the real test when we go camping and take a nice big 6 person tent in it, plus all our camping gear and food and things. It's a bit tight in the end but we just use all the space, totally adequate.
I was certainly pleased to begin with that I'd bagged a car with so many features and general all round classy feel for about ten grand less than an equivalent Audi. But, after a year or so, I began to be a little disappointed by and the Ford Mondeo Titanium's reliability reputation didn't really come through for me. I couldn't say it's left me stranded or fallen to pieces, but it's had some trouble which I wouldn't expect from what I consider to be something of a premium car.
To start with though it's got many good points. Fancy features like the automatic rain sensing windscreen wipers (which generally work well). The clever bluetooth setup that lets me activate a range of things including make phone calls by voice control (this took me a good while to get round to working out though). Enormous space. I had an old Jaguar before this, and the headroom in the back of the Ford Mondeo is a real contrast.
In terms of power I've rated this quite high but I think if I had any smaller an engine then it would feel tiresome. I know Ford Mondeos get some flack for being boring, and maybe it's because of the lower end ones.
Two basic problems then, like I said neither one fatal, but annoying. The first is an odd rattling from under the dash somewhere. It's around the centre but I can't work it out myself, and Ford don't seem particularly bothered.
The second problem is that the interior isn't all that well secured, and bits of it seem to be coming loose. It hardly gives the impression I'm after to clients, so I spend quite a bit of time just sort of trying to bodge them back on. It's not exactly the sort of thing I want to be paying Ford to do, much less showing up on the repair paperwork for when I sell it.
My husband and I tend to split the use of our Ford Mondeo, depending on what we're doing that day. I run a cleaning business and he's mostly an at-home dad, so for me it's good as a company runaround, with bags and bags of space for cleaning gear, and for him it's an excellent family runabout.
The best thing on both these scores is that it gets the same fuel efficiency as a much smaller car, so we've been saving a lot on that. The downside is that it can feel a little sluggish pulling away sometimes, but neither of us is that fussed. That might bother the salesman type who is supposedly the typical Ford Mondeo owner.
I think the reason for both of these -- i.e. that it gets such good fuel usage and also suffers at low speeds -- is that the RPMs seem quite low most of the time. I don't tend to notice that sort of thing on a car but seriously, going along at 70 with RPMs at about two and a half thousand seems pretty low to me.
Another neat feature on our Mondeo TDCi Titanium is the parking sensors, front and rear on ours (can't recall if we paid extra for that). They generally work well, no big grumbles.
Likewise the heated seats, which can also be cooled seats. At this time of year that's a big plus. You can have all the AC fans blowing you and you'll just have a cold front and sweaty bum, but with the cooled seats it's a different story.
The only other minor problem was that the boot didn't always want to close properly. Again that was sorted reasonably quickly under warranty, fortunately as we were flying off on holiday, so it was done when we got back.
Normal sort of car for someone like me in sales or other rep work. Bought the Mondeo Zetec TDCi myself cheaper second hand, declining a company offer as I wasn't sure whether I was staying. Should have taken the company offer as it might have been easier to shift it or get repairs done when things went wrong.
Mostly fine in terms of reliability, but mostly fine isn't good enough. Engine death within its first 3 years seems like a substandard car. Not sure if it was actual death as dealer took it back to do the work within warranty, but still, hardly a good sign. Braked dust also seems to be collecting on the wheels pretty fast, not my driving's fault.
On plus side, huge huge huge boot for a car this size, swallows all my sales gear (usually large numbers of carpet swatches), car is generally comfortable for long journeys, sort of classy and quiet for transporting clients and bosses.
The clever windscreen is a decent feature, just never gets steamed up. Easy to forget about that until you get into a car without it.
The Mondeo 1.8 Zetec is reasonably agile car overall. Good in the bends and on the straights. Not a great deal of power from the engine, especially low speeds, but for the fuel economy it's an ok compromise.
Cruise control is a big plus for someone who does long journeys, makes those much easier.
Unsure I'd recommend this in the end, might look to Asian cars next.
You'd think a popular car would be a reliable car, but it turns out it's just a well marketed car. I've seen similar things said about the KA, that it's fun and nice to drive at first, but then falls to bits just after the warranty expires. Our Ford Mondeo TDCi Titanium was bought new in 2007, and sure enough it gave us some happy years of trouble free motoring, just the occasional electrical problem swiftly sorted out by Ford. Well there was one thing I never liked, and that was the generally low amount of torque, even for a diesel, hard to get up inclines.
Anyway generally trouble free, but then after about three years and maybe 20 thousand miles, the problems started in a big way. The air conditioning packed up, and needed redoing or something. The steering rack also needed doing shortly after. When you search around for these faults online it seems quite common, you get into almost support groups of people out there going through the same things! Anyway it hardly gives me much confidence for the future.
There have also been more and more little but annoying electrical problems, like warning lights that you eventually learn to ignore cos they're just going off for no reason, locks that don't always want to lock.
It seems a real shame because the Mondeo is actually very pleasant to drive otherwise, extremely comfortable, reasonably responsive (although see my previous note about hills), nice and quiet, and economical. It's got a good sized boot, always able to get all our stuff in it, not sure about golf clubs or that sort of thing but I'm sure it would manage. There are some nifty little features like the headlights that turn as you steer. But
overall it's underwhelming, not what it's cracked up to be, and causing me too many trips to the garage to replace and repair what are basically just design flaws, and ones that seem all too common.
The Mondeo 1.8 TDCi is a fantastic car in all respects has everything on it that you could possibly want. Only downside is my wife finds it difficult to drive because of it's size.....certainly a man's car
I have ford mondeo ghia 1998cc Auto for the last ten years. I travelled in this car virtually most tourist attractive locations in the UK. And believe me , it has given me an extremely comfortable,reliable, affordable and enjoyable service in all these years. Its spacious interior and reliability have forced me to keep it- despite its age. If I have to change my car in future it has to be a MONDEO. Buy it and you will never regret.
I've always been a Ford Mondeo man, and when Ford released the new one, I bought it straight away. I went for the economical 1.6-litre variant as I'm getting on a bit and wanted some high miles per gallon figures. And I'm pleased to announce that I get them - quite regularly.
The boot in the Mondeo is fairly enornous and will happily swallow the luggage for a weekend away. I think that Ford really stepped up on the build quality front for this car, as the plastics, seats and dash all feel and look spot on.
If you're into comfy family buses that will rarely go wrong or cost you anything, the Mondeo is the car for you. There's plenty of kit, the tax is low, as is this insurance. It's just a belter.
G
It has go inaccurate reading of the fuel gauge.
My drivers door locking mechanism was playing up and I had to replace the washer jet pump because that had also died.
I even heard from other users that, their cars cut out without warning with loss of brakes and power steering, engine won't re-start and flashing glow plug light. Now that is dangerous.