Ford Mondeo Titanium X Sport.
Discussion
So this fairly recently acquired Ford Mondeo 2.2 TDCI Titanium X Sport is the oldest car I have ever bought. The car is the 200 PS model and has a peak 450 NM of torque.
I don’t normally buy new, I usually let them get a couple of years under their belt and let someone else take the big deprecation hit. My wife, mind you, likes to get hers brand new.
However, this well over 6 year old car is well beyond the age I would normally buy.
Since the 1980’s I have tended to hold onto my cars for a few years and run up fairly high miles with them, figuring I am getting a lowish cost per mile over the life of my ownership as yearly deprecation costs average much lower than buying new and replacing every three years or so. My last car did 160K, the one before 170K, before that 115K. I have an old classic sports car in the garage but even that has well over 100K on the clock.
I actually would not have changed to this car if some thieving scrotes had not cut off the Catalytic converter off my previous car taking it with all the sensors. They did this on the driveway at my home in the dead of night. My garage said it would cost £2300 just to replace and in addition the scrotes had bent and smashed a hole in my sill when jacking the car up, so even more expense.
So, given the age of the car and the mileage, the insurance company wrote it off and I bought this car within the week.
The reason I went for an older model is that I am now mainly retired and my yearly UK mileage is now low, 3 - 4k only. My main requirement for the car was to be able to transport me and the wife around 5000 miles a year on holiday in Europe in comfort and being able to load it up with wine etc for the return journeys. Having a new car just sat there, un-driven on the drive, most days seemed a waste. My wife has a new car, there is another in the garage for high days and this seemed to fit the bill, as the majority of my miles are now driven in Europe.
I bought the car cheaply. It was one owner from new and had been serviced on the button until the last overdue service. It had 10 service stamps, the first six at the main dealer and the last four at the same independent. I managed to knock it down a bit as I knew at this service the cam belt was due for renewal, not a cheap job.
So I got the car and it drives really well, it is the first diesel I have ever bought, though I have driven others. This one seemed free revving for a diesel. Actually I don’t think my current driving needs are suitable for diesel. Never having owned one I had never really looked into what driving a diesel involves, I kind of assumed it was little different than running a petrol. Since I got it however I have been digging into it and see there is a big potential issue with the DPF on these more modern diesels, more on this later.
It still looks pretty up to date in my opinion. It has an aggressive stance with its lowered sports suspension, sports body kit, discrete rear spoiler and large aggressive face.
The first thing I did was change the battery, it was still on the original one and actually everything seemed fine it started on the button etc. However, when sat in, engine off, with the stereo on after a few minutes the dash would flash a low battery warning the stereo would then switch off a couple of minutes later. Then after a week or so the alarm went off and kept going off about once every 24 hours. So new battery fitted, unfortunately 24 hours later the alarm went off again... bugger.
I checked online and apparently the bonnet catch sensor can play up after a few years on these Mondeo’s and it is the most common reason for unwanted alarm activation. So I removed the plug from the sensor and bridged it with a piece of wire to tell the ‘brain’ the bonnet was closed. 24 hours later the alarm went off!!
So I bought an elm scanner for £18 and downloaded Forscan onto my laptop and checked the cars ‘brain’. In there it records the last five events that have triggered the alarm and it told me it was the secondary battery backed backup alarm.
This is the trouble with modern cars, they load them up with a huge number of features that add complication and possibility of fault. Why a backup alarm on a Mondeo? They only put it on the top spec models but it is hardly a Ferrari is it, where I could understand it?
No doubt the rechargeable battery was shagged and the car was detecting a loss of voltage after being stood for a few hours and translating this as an attempt to remove the alarm/battery, triggered the alarm.
So I removed the fuse for the backup alarm and now no unwanted alarm! I now get an error code on Forscan saying the ‘brain’ can’t communicate with the backup alarm ..........good!
The main alarm continues to work perfectly with all the many sensors the car has.
Another example of ludicrous complication was the battery situation. After replacing the battery I still got the low battery message when sat in the stopped car using the stereo .......... hmm!
Again I went online and discovered this Mondeo has an active Battery Management System (BMS). The ‘brain’ monitors the condition of the battery, checks it against its other recorded parameters and if it feels it does not warrant charging it will turn off generation for a while, saving power and fuel. How much fuel can this save though, a thimbleful, how much extra power? I also discovered that disconnecting the battery does not clear the recorded parameters in the ‘brain’ it retains these until you do a ‘battery reset’ procedure. Who knew? There is no mention of this in the car manual.
So back to the scanner, checked the age of the battery and it was well over 2000 days old according to the ‘brain’! There didn’t seem any way in Forscan to reset the battery parameters but I did discover a physical way to do this.................
You turn the engine off, turn the lights on and then within ten seconds press the rear fog light button five times and the hazard warning three times and then the dash battery light should flash a couple of times.
I did this, went back into Forscan and the battery age was now 0 days and now no more low battery warnings. Can a thimbleful of fuel be worth all this complication?
Anyway, whilst using Forscan I enabled the ‘auto lock’ feature that triggers just after you set off, normally the dealer has to do this. I don’t know why the car has the feature but it is not readily enabled by the owner.
I also discovered something else with Forscan, the only error showing was that the DPF was out of parameter. I checked the DPF codes and found that the ‘brain’ thought the DPF ‘soot load’ was over full and this was generating the error code. However, though the ‘soot load’ was indeed showing over full, the DPF ‘load’ was shown as zero! Also the DPF back pressure sensor reading was zero at idle and even though it did rise under heavy load it was always well short of 2 kPa. This should go up to about 14 kPa during normal running under heavy load and will get much higher if the DPF is getting full.
I had wondered why I had not detected a regeneration when driving it, actually I don’t think the car has attempted it. The trigger for regeneration on these Mondeo’s is the back pressure reading. As this rises past a certain point the ‘brain’ will try and clear the filter by regenerating. If it is unable to do this, because of say failed regenerations, it will send the car into limp mode to protect the turbo and injectors from the increased back pressure. This is a final warning that you must clear the filter.
DPF’s are not generically good for turbos and injectors and reduce power due to the restricted breathing.
I feel that the DPF has been cored on this, the thing is there and looks fine and all the sensors are there and working but it doesn’t add up in my mind to a functioning DPF. The car is breathing very well (too well!) and that is why I thought it was free revving for a diesel. Doing this coring procedure can produce about 10% more power due to the vastly improved breathing of the engine, so we are probably looking at about 220 BHP for the car, if what I suspect is true. It may also have have had some sort of remap as well if it is DPF deleted and may have been mapped to produce even more power, they often go together, it feels lively for sure on the move. No way to tell through Forscan though as far as I know.
However, I don’t know this for certain, it was not sold to me as such and it is just speculation on my part as the DPF is present and correct and its associated sensors are working. It has obviously been checked on its MOTs and is passing just fine with no issues, so I will let sleeping dogs lie.
I then checked the car into the local Ford main dealer and had a major service done, had all the fluids changed and also had them replace the cam belt and water pump, as they were due according to the mileage. I also bought a service plan covering the next two services and MOT’s, it cost £350. However, this is good value for me as it comes with free European breakdown and recovery cover. I estimate it would cost me £170 to buy this separately for the two years, bringing the real cost for this two year period down to £180.
I wanted the main dealer to do the service as I knew they would not be shy about pointing up any issues or potential issues. Indeed they told me it had a split cv boot and that the rear discs and pads were near end of life. I subsequently got these done at my local independent garage for £150.
The previous owner has also reverted to the standard Mondeo’s 16” wheels. These wheels and tyres are 7.5 Kg lighter than the 19” ones, this is a very significant 30 Kg saving in unsprung weight. This has the overall effect of improving the ride, making it faster to accelerate in any gear and lowering the car about 30 mm relative to standard Mondeo’s and the standard X Sports (they have lowered stiffened suspension but are jacked up by their 19” wheels), improving handling and probably top speed due to the reduced wind resistance.
It does cause the speedo to over read by about 9 to 10% though. I am ok with this though as my last car over read by a similar amount and it has become second nature to take account of this when on the move.
The car runs very well. Mk4 Mondeo’s were universally praised, for their steering precision and feel and overall handling, by reviewers, they were best in their class for driving satisfaction. The current models are not rated as well for driving as this generation.
I have taken it out a few times on roads I know well, with good sight lines and have experimented with pushing it steadily harder through corners trying to find what it its limits are and how the car feels. I do that, turn around and repeat the trip, slowly pushing harder. I want to check its response when I am actively looking for it and not have to find out in an emergency.
The car does handle well and the precise steering makes it easy to place in corners, the car lets you know what it is doing. The smaller lighter wheels help, the suspension can control them far better, increasing overall traction and any possible breakaway is flagged up more progressively due to the longer contact patch.
Make no mistake though you are always aware this is a very heavy car under tight cornering, flickable it is not. Comfortable it is, it rides imperfections very well in town and on motorways it is quiet and refined, again the smaller lighter wheels help here.
You can maintain a very fast pace with this car. It is not lightning fast off the line as the torque in the first two gears is electronically limited, presumably to control wheel spin, torque steer and the drivetrain. Indeed you have to concentrate and remember to give it a little beans when filtering into traffic at junctions when cold, especially in second, or you can be left with embarrassing laggy pickup. In this car, with its better breathing and smaller wheels, it probably hits 7 seconds to 60, might just sneak under this, though traffic light grand prix’s are not my thing. On the move though it pretty much flies in all the other gears as it has a pretty flat torque curve with peak 450 nm. Pressing the pedal at motorway speeds in the higher gears produces an impressive surge of power, I think it will be a highly suitable continental tourer.
The car is in excellent condition and came up very well after a clean and polish. Cleaned the interior and the leather and alcantara seats and other surfaces and it looks pretty fresh.
Compared to previous models, Ford put a lot more money into the quality of the interior with this, face lifted, end of line, Mk4.5 model. It has lots of leather and alcantara. All the top surfaces are good quality soft plastics, with a sprinkling of good leather like inserts and deep black gloss carbon fibre like inserts. It has very nice LED adaptive lighting and the light coloured, good quality, headlining does lighten and lift the interior a bit.
The interior is largely black and grey with the aforementioned glossy carbon fibre and leather inserts, a few silver alloy touches and with a red stitching theme bringing all the elements together.
I think it looks quite good, would have just liked a sunroof as well to lighten things up more.
Neat overhead storage.
There are places, like the door bins and glove box lid, though which have the harder cheaper feel plastics, why not spend just a little more to make these the same quality as the rest? Corporate penny pinching!
It would also have been good if they could have had a few of the switches in alloy instead of plastic, would have just upgraded it even more. Don’t get me wrong, the interior is of much better quality than a VW Passat of the same year but a fraction more money could have seen it alongside Audi.
The interior condition was just fine, only issue was a slightly baggy passenger side fuse box cover. The fasteners were not correct, so two correct fasteners bought for 75p each and the cover is back to normal.
The car is very big and roomy, rear passengers have a nice place to occupy with their own heating controls.
The front seats are fantastic, big with a supportive seat base, very comfortable. They are electric and are both heated and cooled. They heat up way quicker than on my previous car and get a lot hotter as well. Haven’t really been able to test the efficiency of the cooling yet.
I can get a very comfortable position. This is very important for me, if I do 500 miles in a day I don’t want to be crippled. On adjusting car seats I always set them first at their lowest position and then go from there with back rest, steering wheel, etc etc. I don’t know where this thing came from, that people like to perch high on their seats, van like. In a car I like to be low and ensconced, it lowers the overall centre of gravity as well, which is always a good thing in a car on the move.
The car is very well spec’d. Too well actually, like a lot of modern cars. Why automatic wipers, why automatic lights with automatic main beam control for instance?
It has to fit forward facing cameras to do some of this stuff. More complication, more things to go wrong. I switch them off. The wipers for instance, if on automatic they can switch on when frozen to the windscreen, potentially ruining them, more potential problems. What’s so difficult about you deciding when to turn them on? The lights automatically level, what is wrong with the old manual knob?
It has hill start assist, another thing that I turn off, never had a problem starting on a hill in over fifty years of driving. I have already mentioned the BMS thing and the additional alarm system.
Of course it has many good complications, the heated windscreen is just great in winter, as is the one push button for instant demist and defrost, works great and things clear in no time.
The touchscreen sat nav and infotainment system is much better than the one in my previous car. It does have buttons for the main functions though, which I like, who wants to be messing about in menus just to change the temperature? I like the way you can access all current TMC notifications by list and then interrogate any to see what the actual delay is. You can set it so that if you are on a route it will just show those TMC’s affecting that route.The system will actively adjust any set route to avoid the delays but will ask you first if you want to implement the change.
One thing I didn’t realise it did is that, even when you have not set a route, if you are travelling towards an issue the system will warn you and tell you what the issue is, very useful. The system will also always tell you what the current speed limit is and I notice that this updates in less than a second after passing the speed limit sign.
You can load all your music by USB, you have aux input, Bluetooth, Apple connect as well, all of which are controllable from the steering wheel controls and displayed in the Converse central display. So many ways to access your media.
The stereo system’s sound is very good but is not as good as my last car unfortunately, which had separately individually amplified speakers and a great integrated sub woofer in the boot.
The full colour ‘Converse’ instrument display is excellent, as well as having all the usual car computer functions constantly displayed, it can also display all sat nav instructions and you can change and set them from the wheel, including changing destinations, without having to look at the multi media screen, much safer. Same with all your music, phone, radio etc, displayed in Converse and controlled from the wheel if you wish. Running through the menus and sub menus whilst on the move becomes quite intuitive after a while, safer than using the touchscreen main display. It also has the good old ‘Eco’ mode with arrows advising you to change up and a display to tell you how ‘Eco’ your overall driving has been. Don’t take much notice of it to be honest.
It does squeeze in the sat nav direction indication at the far right of the display. It is surprisingly usable though for a quick check of what your next move is going to be.
There is voice control for all the multi media functions and it works well, but, apart from the phone, it is probably easier to use the other controls rather than having to access the various levels by voice. The speed limiter is another useful feature on our roadwork's infested motorways, sometimes just cruise control alone is just not suitable if there is a lot of traffic.
The all round parking sensors are of course very useful in such a large car, 4.8 metres by nearly 2.1 metres.
So pretty pleased with this so far. I now have a previously one owner car, with two keys, with a complete and excellent service history, it now has main dealer service history again. Major service just done, gearbox oil changed, all fluids changed, new cam belt, water pump, battery, rear discs and pads and new wiper blades front and rear..
So with all this together and with the scanner I bought, it owes me nearly £5600 and a bit of time for cleaning and polishing, pretty good result I think.
The car is cheaper on tax than my last car £195 to £315 and is a bit cheaper on insurance as well.
Of course there are more exciting cars out there and I did think about going full barge rather than part barge but I wanted more reliability and assurance than with a much older performance model. Mind you, this one does have decent performance and it is a very satisfying drive in nearly all circumstances, I think it will do particularly well when doing fully loaded continental touring.
I am off to France in June with my wife and also with my adult daughter along for the ride and a free holiday! So time will tell about whether I made the right choice.
I don’t normally buy new, I usually let them get a couple of years under their belt and let someone else take the big deprecation hit. My wife, mind you, likes to get hers brand new.
However, this well over 6 year old car is well beyond the age I would normally buy.
Since the 1980’s I have tended to hold onto my cars for a few years and run up fairly high miles with them, figuring I am getting a lowish cost per mile over the life of my ownership as yearly deprecation costs average much lower than buying new and replacing every three years or so. My last car did 160K, the one before 170K, before that 115K. I have an old classic sports car in the garage but even that has well over 100K on the clock.
I actually would not have changed to this car if some thieving scrotes had not cut off the Catalytic converter off my previous car taking it with all the sensors. They did this on the driveway at my home in the dead of night. My garage said it would cost £2300 just to replace and in addition the scrotes had bent and smashed a hole in my sill when jacking the car up, so even more expense.
So, given the age of the car and the mileage, the insurance company wrote it off and I bought this car within the week.
The reason I went for an older model is that I am now mainly retired and my yearly UK mileage is now low, 3 - 4k only. My main requirement for the car was to be able to transport me and the wife around 5000 miles a year on holiday in Europe in comfort and being able to load it up with wine etc for the return journeys. Having a new car just sat there, un-driven on the drive, most days seemed a waste. My wife has a new car, there is another in the garage for high days and this seemed to fit the bill, as the majority of my miles are now driven in Europe.
I bought the car cheaply. It was one owner from new and had been serviced on the button until the last overdue service. It had 10 service stamps, the first six at the main dealer and the last four at the same independent. I managed to knock it down a bit as I knew at this service the cam belt was due for renewal, not a cheap job.
So I got the car and it drives really well, it is the first diesel I have ever bought, though I have driven others. This one seemed free revving for a diesel. Actually I don’t think my current driving needs are suitable for diesel. Never having owned one I had never really looked into what driving a diesel involves, I kind of assumed it was little different than running a petrol. Since I got it however I have been digging into it and see there is a big potential issue with the DPF on these more modern diesels, more on this later.
It still looks pretty up to date in my opinion. It has an aggressive stance with its lowered sports suspension, sports body kit, discrete rear spoiler and large aggressive face.
The first thing I did was change the battery, it was still on the original one and actually everything seemed fine it started on the button etc. However, when sat in, engine off, with the stereo on after a few minutes the dash would flash a low battery warning the stereo would then switch off a couple of minutes later. Then after a week or so the alarm went off and kept going off about once every 24 hours. So new battery fitted, unfortunately 24 hours later the alarm went off again... bugger.
I checked online and apparently the bonnet catch sensor can play up after a few years on these Mondeo’s and it is the most common reason for unwanted alarm activation. So I removed the plug from the sensor and bridged it with a piece of wire to tell the ‘brain’ the bonnet was closed. 24 hours later the alarm went off!!
So I bought an elm scanner for £18 and downloaded Forscan onto my laptop and checked the cars ‘brain’. In there it records the last five events that have triggered the alarm and it told me it was the secondary battery backed backup alarm.
This is the trouble with modern cars, they load them up with a huge number of features that add complication and possibility of fault. Why a backup alarm on a Mondeo? They only put it on the top spec models but it is hardly a Ferrari is it, where I could understand it?
No doubt the rechargeable battery was shagged and the car was detecting a loss of voltage after being stood for a few hours and translating this as an attempt to remove the alarm/battery, triggered the alarm.
So I removed the fuse for the backup alarm and now no unwanted alarm! I now get an error code on Forscan saying the ‘brain’ can’t communicate with the backup alarm ..........good!
The main alarm continues to work perfectly with all the many sensors the car has.
Another example of ludicrous complication was the battery situation. After replacing the battery I still got the low battery message when sat in the stopped car using the stereo .......... hmm!
Again I went online and discovered this Mondeo has an active Battery Management System (BMS). The ‘brain’ monitors the condition of the battery, checks it against its other recorded parameters and if it feels it does not warrant charging it will turn off generation for a while, saving power and fuel. How much fuel can this save though, a thimbleful, how much extra power? I also discovered that disconnecting the battery does not clear the recorded parameters in the ‘brain’ it retains these until you do a ‘battery reset’ procedure. Who knew? There is no mention of this in the car manual.
So back to the scanner, checked the age of the battery and it was well over 2000 days old according to the ‘brain’! There didn’t seem any way in Forscan to reset the battery parameters but I did discover a physical way to do this.................
You turn the engine off, turn the lights on and then within ten seconds press the rear fog light button five times and the hazard warning three times and then the dash battery light should flash a couple of times.
I did this, went back into Forscan and the battery age was now 0 days and now no more low battery warnings. Can a thimbleful of fuel be worth all this complication?
Anyway, whilst using Forscan I enabled the ‘auto lock’ feature that triggers just after you set off, normally the dealer has to do this. I don’t know why the car has the feature but it is not readily enabled by the owner.
I also discovered something else with Forscan, the only error showing was that the DPF was out of parameter. I checked the DPF codes and found that the ‘brain’ thought the DPF ‘soot load’ was over full and this was generating the error code. However, though the ‘soot load’ was indeed showing over full, the DPF ‘load’ was shown as zero! Also the DPF back pressure sensor reading was zero at idle and even though it did rise under heavy load it was always well short of 2 kPa. This should go up to about 14 kPa during normal running under heavy load and will get much higher if the DPF is getting full.
I had wondered why I had not detected a regeneration when driving it, actually I don’t think the car has attempted it. The trigger for regeneration on these Mondeo’s is the back pressure reading. As this rises past a certain point the ‘brain’ will try and clear the filter by regenerating. If it is unable to do this, because of say failed regenerations, it will send the car into limp mode to protect the turbo and injectors from the increased back pressure. This is a final warning that you must clear the filter.
DPF’s are not generically good for turbos and injectors and reduce power due to the restricted breathing.
I feel that the DPF has been cored on this, the thing is there and looks fine and all the sensors are there and working but it doesn’t add up in my mind to a functioning DPF. The car is breathing very well (too well!) and that is why I thought it was free revving for a diesel. Doing this coring procedure can produce about 10% more power due to the vastly improved breathing of the engine, so we are probably looking at about 220 BHP for the car, if what I suspect is true. It may also have have had some sort of remap as well if it is DPF deleted and may have been mapped to produce even more power, they often go together, it feels lively for sure on the move. No way to tell through Forscan though as far as I know.
However, I don’t know this for certain, it was not sold to me as such and it is just speculation on my part as the DPF is present and correct and its associated sensors are working. It has obviously been checked on its MOTs and is passing just fine with no issues, so I will let sleeping dogs lie.
I then checked the car into the local Ford main dealer and had a major service done, had all the fluids changed and also had them replace the cam belt and water pump, as they were due according to the mileage. I also bought a service plan covering the next two services and MOT’s, it cost £350. However, this is good value for me as it comes with free European breakdown and recovery cover. I estimate it would cost me £170 to buy this separately for the two years, bringing the real cost for this two year period down to £180.
I wanted the main dealer to do the service as I knew they would not be shy about pointing up any issues or potential issues. Indeed they told me it had a split cv boot and that the rear discs and pads were near end of life. I subsequently got these done at my local independent garage for £150.
The previous owner has also reverted to the standard Mondeo’s 16” wheels. These wheels and tyres are 7.5 Kg lighter than the 19” ones, this is a very significant 30 Kg saving in unsprung weight. This has the overall effect of improving the ride, making it faster to accelerate in any gear and lowering the car about 30 mm relative to standard Mondeo’s and the standard X Sports (they have lowered stiffened suspension but are jacked up by their 19” wheels), improving handling and probably top speed due to the reduced wind resistance.
It does cause the speedo to over read by about 9 to 10% though. I am ok with this though as my last car over read by a similar amount and it has become second nature to take account of this when on the move.
The car runs very well. Mk4 Mondeo’s were universally praised, for their steering precision and feel and overall handling, by reviewers, they were best in their class for driving satisfaction. The current models are not rated as well for driving as this generation.
I have taken it out a few times on roads I know well, with good sight lines and have experimented with pushing it steadily harder through corners trying to find what it its limits are and how the car feels. I do that, turn around and repeat the trip, slowly pushing harder. I want to check its response when I am actively looking for it and not have to find out in an emergency.
The car does handle well and the precise steering makes it easy to place in corners, the car lets you know what it is doing. The smaller lighter wheels help, the suspension can control them far better, increasing overall traction and any possible breakaway is flagged up more progressively due to the longer contact patch.
Make no mistake though you are always aware this is a very heavy car under tight cornering, flickable it is not. Comfortable it is, it rides imperfections very well in town and on motorways it is quiet and refined, again the smaller lighter wheels help here.
You can maintain a very fast pace with this car. It is not lightning fast off the line as the torque in the first two gears is electronically limited, presumably to control wheel spin, torque steer and the drivetrain. Indeed you have to concentrate and remember to give it a little beans when filtering into traffic at junctions when cold, especially in second, or you can be left with embarrassing laggy pickup. In this car, with its better breathing and smaller wheels, it probably hits 7 seconds to 60, might just sneak under this, though traffic light grand prix’s are not my thing. On the move though it pretty much flies in all the other gears as it has a pretty flat torque curve with peak 450 nm. Pressing the pedal at motorway speeds in the higher gears produces an impressive surge of power, I think it will be a highly suitable continental tourer.
The car is in excellent condition and came up very well after a clean and polish. Cleaned the interior and the leather and alcantara seats and other surfaces and it looks pretty fresh.
Compared to previous models, Ford put a lot more money into the quality of the interior with this, face lifted, end of line, Mk4.5 model. It has lots of leather and alcantara. All the top surfaces are good quality soft plastics, with a sprinkling of good leather like inserts and deep black gloss carbon fibre like inserts. It has very nice LED adaptive lighting and the light coloured, good quality, headlining does lighten and lift the interior a bit.
The interior is largely black and grey with the aforementioned glossy carbon fibre and leather inserts, a few silver alloy touches and with a red stitching theme bringing all the elements together.
I think it looks quite good, would have just liked a sunroof as well to lighten things up more.
Neat overhead storage.
There are places, like the door bins and glove box lid, though which have the harder cheaper feel plastics, why not spend just a little more to make these the same quality as the rest? Corporate penny pinching!
It would also have been good if they could have had a few of the switches in alloy instead of plastic, would have just upgraded it even more. Don’t get me wrong, the interior is of much better quality than a VW Passat of the same year but a fraction more money could have seen it alongside Audi.
The interior condition was just fine, only issue was a slightly baggy passenger side fuse box cover. The fasteners were not correct, so two correct fasteners bought for 75p each and the cover is back to normal.
The car is very big and roomy, rear passengers have a nice place to occupy with their own heating controls.
The front seats are fantastic, big with a supportive seat base, very comfortable. They are electric and are both heated and cooled. They heat up way quicker than on my previous car and get a lot hotter as well. Haven’t really been able to test the efficiency of the cooling yet.
I can get a very comfortable position. This is very important for me, if I do 500 miles in a day I don’t want to be crippled. On adjusting car seats I always set them first at their lowest position and then go from there with back rest, steering wheel, etc etc. I don’t know where this thing came from, that people like to perch high on their seats, van like. In a car I like to be low and ensconced, it lowers the overall centre of gravity as well, which is always a good thing in a car on the move.
The car is very well spec’d. Too well actually, like a lot of modern cars. Why automatic wipers, why automatic lights with automatic main beam control for instance?
It has to fit forward facing cameras to do some of this stuff. More complication, more things to go wrong. I switch them off. The wipers for instance, if on automatic they can switch on when frozen to the windscreen, potentially ruining them, more potential problems. What’s so difficult about you deciding when to turn them on? The lights automatically level, what is wrong with the old manual knob?
It has hill start assist, another thing that I turn off, never had a problem starting on a hill in over fifty years of driving. I have already mentioned the BMS thing and the additional alarm system.
Of course it has many good complications, the heated windscreen is just great in winter, as is the one push button for instant demist and defrost, works great and things clear in no time.
The touchscreen sat nav and infotainment system is much better than the one in my previous car. It does have buttons for the main functions though, which I like, who wants to be messing about in menus just to change the temperature? I like the way you can access all current TMC notifications by list and then interrogate any to see what the actual delay is. You can set it so that if you are on a route it will just show those TMC’s affecting that route.The system will actively adjust any set route to avoid the delays but will ask you first if you want to implement the change.
One thing I didn’t realise it did is that, even when you have not set a route, if you are travelling towards an issue the system will warn you and tell you what the issue is, very useful. The system will also always tell you what the current speed limit is and I notice that this updates in less than a second after passing the speed limit sign.
You can load all your music by USB, you have aux input, Bluetooth, Apple connect as well, all of which are controllable from the steering wheel controls and displayed in the Converse central display. So many ways to access your media.
The stereo system’s sound is very good but is not as good as my last car unfortunately, which had separately individually amplified speakers and a great integrated sub woofer in the boot.
The full colour ‘Converse’ instrument display is excellent, as well as having all the usual car computer functions constantly displayed, it can also display all sat nav instructions and you can change and set them from the wheel, including changing destinations, without having to look at the multi media screen, much safer. Same with all your music, phone, radio etc, displayed in Converse and controlled from the wheel if you wish. Running through the menus and sub menus whilst on the move becomes quite intuitive after a while, safer than using the touchscreen main display. It also has the good old ‘Eco’ mode with arrows advising you to change up and a display to tell you how ‘Eco’ your overall driving has been. Don’t take much notice of it to be honest.
It does squeeze in the sat nav direction indication at the far right of the display. It is surprisingly usable though for a quick check of what your next move is going to be.
There is voice control for all the multi media functions and it works well, but, apart from the phone, it is probably easier to use the other controls rather than having to access the various levels by voice. The speed limiter is another useful feature on our roadwork's infested motorways, sometimes just cruise control alone is just not suitable if there is a lot of traffic.
The all round parking sensors are of course very useful in such a large car, 4.8 metres by nearly 2.1 metres.
So pretty pleased with this so far. I now have a previously one owner car, with two keys, with a complete and excellent service history, it now has main dealer service history again. Major service just done, gearbox oil changed, all fluids changed, new cam belt, water pump, battery, rear discs and pads and new wiper blades front and rear..
So with all this together and with the scanner I bought, it owes me nearly £5600 and a bit of time for cleaning and polishing, pretty good result I think.
The car is cheaper on tax than my last car £195 to £315 and is a bit cheaper on insurance as well.
Of course there are more exciting cars out there and I did think about going full barge rather than part barge but I wanted more reliability and assurance than with a much older performance model. Mind you, this one does have decent performance and it is a very satisfying drive in nearly all circumstances, I think it will do particularly well when doing fully loaded continental touring.
I am off to France in June with my wife and also with my adult daughter along for the ride and a free holiday! So time will tell about whether I made the right choice.
Edited by Tigger2050 on Sunday 15th April 15:27
R12many said:
What a great write up! I'm looking for something to replace my X Type 2.2 and these fit the bill nicely. I'd prefer the 2.0 Ecoboost petrol version but the diesel is an option.
The Ecoboost would be good if it were not for the fact they are Powershift only and I believe this can also develop issues if you are mainly doing city stop start driving.Another good thing about this model is that it has a supplementary electric heater which you can use to warm the interior whilst waiting for the engine to warm up, which takes a bit longer with diesel than with petrol.
R12many said:
I'm after an auto as the car will be a distance/motorway hack and I'm fed up stirring the pot on the Jag!
Do the rear seats fold down?
All these Mk 4.5 face lift models are hatchbacks, huge boot and easy access. The rears seat fold 60/40 and the rear seats bases can flip forward to create a pretty flat loading space.Do the rear seats fold down?
I've always rated these cars & they're great family cars, I had use of a 2.2tdci TXS auto after 130k of great service (it had 170k on it) the powershift gearbox was surprisingly still on it's original clutches & going strong as far as I'm aware.
I thought it was that good, when it came to me getting a decent cruiser whilst returning good fuel numbers I went for a 210 Mondeo Vignale my only complaint so far has been that the (this is no fault of the car I've just been spoilt when it comes to BHP) cars lack of go in certain situations, but an adjustment of driving style has remedied this.
I thought it was that good, when it came to me getting a decent cruiser whilst returning good fuel numbers I went for a 210 Mondeo Vignale my only complaint so far has been that the (this is no fault of the car I've just been spoilt when it comes to BHP) cars lack of go in certain situations, but an adjustment of driving style has remedied this.
Excellent write up, some really excellent tips.
What does the Sport give you over the Ti X, and how would I ensure full leather? Was it just an option? Half is not for me.
And most for sale seem to be the 2.0, is it worth spending the extra money (and time?) hunting out the 2.2? What carried over to the next gen?
What does the Sport give you over the Ti X, and how would I ensure full leather? Was it just an option? Half is not for me.
And most for sale seem to be the 2.0, is it worth spending the extra money (and time?) hunting out the 2.2? What carried over to the next gen?
Croutons said:
Excellent write up, some really excellent tips.
What does the Sport give you over the Ti X, and how would I ensure full leather? Was it just an option? Half is not for me.
And most for sale seem to be the 2.0, is it worth spending the extra money (and time?) hunting out the 2.2? What carried over to the next gen?
If you want full leather then you need to look for the Titanium X.What does the Sport give you over the Ti X, and how would I ensure full leather? Was it just an option? Half is not for me.
And most for sale seem to be the 2.0, is it worth spending the extra money (and time?) hunting out the 2.2? What carried over to the next gen?
Croutons said:
What does the Sport give you over the Ti X, and how would I ensure full leather? Was it just an option? Half is not for me.
The Sport has stiffer and lowered sports suspension, it has 19" wheels, a full sports body kit and rear diffuser, a rear spoiler, it has the black honeycomb aggressive grill, xenon headlights with heated headlamp washers, on the higher power models it has twin straight exhausts with SS finishers.On the inside it has a unique upgraded red stitched trim, with carbon fibre inserts, unique leather steering wheel and alloy pedals.
On some models you could have full leather seats as an option but not on the Sports, seats are leather and alcantara only
If you don't like the idea of the alternator being switched off when the battery is full, then I think you are going to have trouble finding your next car! Its not so much about real world fuel economy (although indirectly it is) but about fudging CO2 under official tests (and so lower tax and benefit in kind) and giving an artificially inflated MPG figure for that one time in a hundred that it ran through the tests with no alternator load. More modern engines go even further than this, to the extent of having electric coolant pumps that only turn on now and then.
Why automatic wipers and why automatic lights? Well, look at the average driver. Now imagine that half the drivers on the road are more stupid than that. Also, because if they aren't on the list, then people really do buy the competitor's car that does have them instead. Automatic self-levelling headlamps are a legal prerequisite of HID (xenon) headlamps I believe.
I like that the centre console isn't fussy and cluttered like the Focus or Fiesta's, and my overall impression of being in one is that they feel like a car for grown-ups. One that the engineers had the dominant hand in, unlike the more recent Ford models. I think on balance I prefer the version with smoked indicators at the front (final model year?) but that's a very minor thing.
The Mk 4.5 Mondeo has a reputation as being one of the best cars Ford has made in a long long time. Very underrated, and I have to say a really good choice for a long distance drive across Europe. Somewhere on here, a PHer taxi driver wrote a blog about the starship mileage he did on his Mk 4, and his regrets when he was forced to get a newer car (council rules, not car failure)
I'm surprised the tyre fitters didn't fit higher profile tyres on the smaller wheels, and so retain the same rolling radius. That way you keep more road contact area, and increase the refinement.
Why automatic wipers and why automatic lights? Well, look at the average driver. Now imagine that half the drivers on the road are more stupid than that. Also, because if they aren't on the list, then people really do buy the competitor's car that does have them instead. Automatic self-levelling headlamps are a legal prerequisite of HID (xenon) headlamps I believe.
I like that the centre console isn't fussy and cluttered like the Focus or Fiesta's, and my overall impression of being in one is that they feel like a car for grown-ups. One that the engineers had the dominant hand in, unlike the more recent Ford models. I think on balance I prefer the version with smoked indicators at the front (final model year?) but that's a very minor thing.
The Mk 4.5 Mondeo has a reputation as being one of the best cars Ford has made in a long long time. Very underrated, and I have to say a really good choice for a long distance drive across Europe. Somewhere on here, a PHer taxi driver wrote a blog about the starship mileage he did on his Mk 4, and his regrets when he was forced to get a newer car (council rules, not car failure)
I'm surprised the tyre fitters didn't fit higher profile tyres on the smaller wheels, and so retain the same rolling radius. That way you keep more road contact area, and increase the refinement.
Excellent write-up, well written. As a potential buyer your efforts are much appreciated!
These shape mondeos still look fresh, looks to be a good example you have bought, if it was a petrol, it would be my ideal car. Can't think of anything else that matches it for bang vs bucks. IIRC, GlasgowRob swore by his, good thread on his ownership experience too.
Great thread +1
:-)
These shape mondeos still look fresh, looks to be a good example you have bought, if it was a petrol, it would be my ideal car. Can't think of anything else that matches it for bang vs bucks. IIRC, GlasgowRob swore by his, good thread on his ownership experience too.
Great thread +1
:-)
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