Now on the lookout for a new car Mondeo estate seems to be the defacto standard as massive motorway mile muncher. Anything major going to be a big bill on a 2010 model.

Alternative suggestions welcome.

what sort of mileage ? DPF ?

Everything I am looking at seems to 80 to 110k, kee[ readin about dpf and conflicting info. Motorway mileage cars should be ok etc.

Its a long time since I have bought an unwarantied car so a little worried.

Nobody sells a Mondeo until it has the best part of 100k on it. Buy an older one with similar mileage and spend a grand on sorting it. Total cost 2 grand.

I bought a 3 yo with 80k motorway miles, sold it a few weeks ago at 12yo with 185k, never had a single thing go wrong with it, was even still on original clutch.

Bobbins.

I bought a 2008 Mondeo (2.0 TDCI Zetec hatch) in 2011 for 7.5 grand. It had 32k on it. It’s been perfect for the last 2 years and 50k.

Soon to be replaced with a Focus ST though, because I fancy a hot hatch again.

Mate had one – was bullet proof, and the previous owner had used it for towing too. The only thing that caught him out was he needed to replace rear shocks and the model he had had the self leveling rear suspension, which made the job quite expensive as the cost of the shocks were something like £200 insteat of about £80. Other than that a very practical car and was reliable for him.

Bobbins. +1

Bought an ’07 Titanium X estate 18 months ago with 40K on it for £7K

i have a 2003 hatch, 2.0tdci, 154000 on original clutch, never broken down, all its had done is wear and tear items and routine servicing.
it is starting to rot away before my eyes now tho.
i would buy another.

Why not a V70?

176k here on an older 52 plate model.
You would never know from driving it though.

A £7k 40k mile model should be a safe bet.

I would have thought Ford had sorted the much lauded Injector/DMF issues that apparently plagued the older models.
Of course, it could be that given the Mondeo outsold anything else by quite a margin, the net is going to be full of horror stories, & the many millions of other Mondeo’s built & sold were/are mostly fine. 😕

My company Mondeo estate was traded in at 2 years old and 80,000 miles a few months ago. Got £9000 from a Landrover dealer who said it would go straight to auction. Never missed a beat and drove like a new car. I also put 100,000 miles on a previous model 130BHP diesel which I bought at 5 months old for (IIRC) £11,500 when the new price was £19,000. Highly recommended. The only grumble I had with the estate was parking it. Very nimble on the road, but much more of a handful in a car park!

I have just bought an estate and I am very pleased with it. My neighbour did 300k in his petrol Mondeo and my cousin’s diesel is on 200k!

Nobody has mentioned a JesusMobile Skoda yet. Standards on here are slipping. 😉

Very nimble on the road, but much more of a handful in a car park!

Much bigger than the hatch or just worse back end visibility?

Think I’d go older and less miles, rather than paying an age premium for a high miler, personally. Mine is mechanically rock solid but they do pick up wear and tear from use, tired dampers and upholstery and such.

Oh and get one with a proper engine 😉

Bigger than the hatch – To paraphrase Greg from Masterchef, ” Cars don’t get much longer than this!”

Very nimble on the road, but much more of a handful in a car park!

Much bigger than the hatch or just worse back end visibility?

TBH I didn’t get that remark, I never found my mkIII estate any more or less difficult than any largish car might be. Altho I’ve never had much problem with spacial awareness that might be required to park, parallel park etc

The hatch is a pain to park as well. Both that and the estate are big ol’ cars.

Find one with rear parking sensors would be my choice if I was buying another.

The hatch is a pain to park as well

Have never had any problems with mine tbh. It’s only two inches wider than the Focus I had before and the driving position in relation to the rest of the car seems almost identical. The only real concern is the length which is about 5ft longer than the Focus. Practiced a few times reversing up to walls and getting out to see how close it was

Highlight was the winter of 2010 when I handbrake turned it into an approximate space on the car park at work. Imagine my delight when the snow melted later on and the Mondeo was perfectly between the lines 🙂

I’ve got a mk3 estate and it doesn’t physically fit in any of the parking spaces at my work or my local supermarkets- sticks out for miles at the end, and fills them almost completely left to right, so a fat lass wouldn’t be able to get in or out. So yeah, parking can be a bit of an issue sometimes. (on the plus side, it’s scabby and dented so I don’t mind just abandoning it in a ditch if need be)

Yeah, it’s the length that’s the problem (fnaar).

Plus mine has a spoiler which makes it difficult to work out where the arse end is. I’ve got used to it now, but at first I was forever parking so close to a wall I couldn’t open the tailgate.

The way the front drops off as well, makes tight maneuvering a bit of a ‘use the force’ exercise.

For £7k I’d find a low mileage mk3 ST TDCI estate rather than a peasant spec mk4.

Looking for a replacement for our 185K Mk3 estate at the moment. Keep having my head turned by the 2.5T… more bang for your buck, but more buck per mile, per tax disc, per insurance policy.

What price fun?

Don’t believe the harder to park-thing. I jumped into a Vauxhall Insignia from my Citroen C1 and I could park it on the dot/first time whereas I’ve always struggled in my C1. Weird. Same with other ‘big cars’.

7 grand MK4s

All of these are better spec’d and better cars than a Mk3 ST TDCI.

Has anyone got a mk4 estate with parking sensors fitted and could post a picture of their positions?

I have bought a set but have only managed to find two photos of them fitted and they are different! one had them fitted below the light that is on the corner of the bumper and the other one had them mounted above the light!