Faults:

Water leak in the boot. I have the saloon model; is there anyone who knows what I can do other than lights, boot seals.

General Comments:

Amazing car to drive. Better than my 2.2 Vectra, and it's better on fuel.

Faults:

Oil cooler for the power steering started weeping oil. It sits under the front bumper in front of the radiator, so gets hit with a lot of corrosive muck from the road.

O/S/F coil spring went.

Neither job grounded the car, but both had to be done.

Not bad for a 151k mile car.

General Comments:

Lots of adverts promote their cars for style, performance, design, lifestyle, etc. Accompanied with pictures of the car whizzing along some beautiful road in Tuscany.

I use my car for getting to places. My kids are sick in it. My wife sticks her sweet wrappers in the door pockets. I transport stuff to the tip in it. I hoover it out and carry stuff to trade shows in it. I commute to important meetings in it. I do this in Britain, in the rain, in traffic jams on the M62, in stop-start traffic through city centres.

And through it all, the Mondy just gets on and does it. It is a supremely practical mode of transport. Cheap to buy, cheap to run, reliable.

If you want a lifestyle statement, buy something Italian and get ready for some serious garage bills. But if you want something for getting from A to B with some space and comfort, buy a Mondy and get on with life.

Faults:

Nothing so far, except for wear and tear such as the broken front headlight bulb.

General Comments:

I bought the car for around 1000 pounds, it came with almost a year of MOT and a year of Road tax.

History:-

The car is a two owner car, the previous being a lady and the car has 8 stamps on the service book, and it is all done by Ford.

Performance:-

Quite good, though could be more stable at high speed.

Handling:-

Lots of feedback when under steering.

Brakes:-

No ABS, but the brakes are very good.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, definitely, it is a fantastic car.

I recon if this car looks better or if it is wearing a more prestigious badge, it could retail for 3x the price.

Faults:

Suspension, drop links knackered - worn bushes.

Exhaust - uses 2 backboxes joined across the rear, this is a bad design as when the pipe breaks off the silencer, it drags along the ground, damaging the other silencer into the bargain.

Moosing - this is a real pain, it's a loud humming noise caused by resonation of the plenum chambers I think. Ford say that this is normal - cos they aren't bothered about after sales service!

Lack of power - This is intermittent, and usually the car is struggling after 110 MPH to do any more. Can't decide whether its the IMRC (Inlet Manifold Runner Control - Opens the Secondary 12 - 24 Valves over 3250 RPM) or the Auto Box at fault. It's a real pain, as the car is great at slower speeds.

Air-Con -- HA HA HA, what air-con? - Condensor punctured due to its bad positioning at the front of the car, Ford want £500 to repair!- air "CON"!

Starter Motor - Misses the flywheel on occasions - either faulty starter or teeth missing off the flywheel - VERY EXPENSIVE repair if it's the flywheel!!, Had a Cortina 2.3 V6 that did this as well - seems to be a common fault.

Heater blower - Resistor burns out so that it only works on Setting 4 - fastest one.

General Comments:

It's a beautiful powerful car with all the bells and whistles, and at 8 years old, it's only expected that a few faults like the above will appear.

I loved it to pieces - so quiet and sleek with a lovely leather interior, the sheer grunt of the Duratec V6, beating boy racers at the lights!

The automatic is so smooth, but it's a LUXURY rather than performance feature, as the torque convertor zaps the power and lowers the top end speed, but well worth it for a long cruise in the country.

The cruise control is another great feature (not on the ST24), and so are the heated seats and trip/fuel computer.

The starter was an inconvenience, but I lived with it.

The only reason I sold it was that it was SO THIRSTY ON FUEL it just wasn't funny! 19MPG round town and 33 MPG on a run, averaging 25 mpg on the whole.

Also, the Ford Dealers were so PIG IGNORANT and USELESS at giving good service - 6 weeks wait to get a duplicate PATS key, LONG QUEUES AT THE PARTS COUNTER - ONE MAN on, taking an eternity to get each part, and having the usual nonchalant attitude of "You have to use us or get another make of car!