Faults:

Only been driving for 1K miles and found:

- Slight clutch judder

- Interior heat not that hot - Luke warm.

- Re-circulation flap going mental

- Fuel gauge didn't work

- Misting up in car

- Brakes squeak (horrid drum brakes)

- Slight play in the steering

General Comments:

I really wanted to hate this car - got it cause I needed long distance car that can cruise at 80 mph without getting a bottom ache, and will return quite good mpg.

It's hard to fault the car - the above niggles are annoying, but forget about them and the car cruises at 80mph on the motorways with ease, nice and smooth and not demanding to drive and not hard work like other cars.

Handles wonderfully. It is quite soft suspension with a bit of body lean, yet it's almost quite chuckable. When things lose grip, it does very predictable understeer, which is easy to correct, so thumbs up in the handling department.

No rust as you'd expect from galvanised bodywork.

Brakes are a bit annoying, I hate rear drums, on every car I've had with drum brakes, they've all squeaked.

Interior is rather spacious feeling. All controls work, electric windows a bit slow, but come on, this is a 15 year old car, as long as it opens! Wish it had the seats from the older 405 (1992 and earlier) as they were flatter and much more 'sofa' like. newer ones are a bit bucket like and not quite so comfy...can't understand why you'd put bucket seats in a diesel?!?!

Also, there's a spoiler on the car... quite a big one too - my car is the saloon and it is the standard one, but why fit it on a car that won't do much more than 100mph total... so very weird.

Think I'm getting quite good mpg at the moment, not as good as I hoped, but well, it's better than most cars at high speeds...

Must add (slightly off topic) on my old 405 I drove to Newquay in it (300 miles each way) and we drove at night and did the whole journey in one hit, didn't stop once. Got out the other end and my bum wasn't numb! Amazing!

This is my second 405, and I'd get another one... and another one (if a good example turned up!)

Faults:

I have a knocking noise on the front suspension when pulling off, and when coming to a stop. Any ideas? No one can find the problem.

General Comments:

I bought the car as a temporary measure. Originally we needed a large car for our camping gear, and were looking for a Mondeo Estate TDCI.

Now though we are going to keep the 405 as it's such a good car.

The mpg is fantastic! I get 850+ miles from a single tank of fuel.

Faults:

Heater fan stopped working (not fixed yet - occasionally works intermittently)

Remote locking / alarm sometimes leaves the Left indicators on permanently so you have to lock and unlock upto 5 times to get it to turn it off. Usually I use the key now its less hassle.

Fog lights were corroded beyond repair - a common problem.

The exhaust rattles at idle.

The speedo wobbles.

The clock didn't work - fixed by replacing the bulb behind the clock.

The rear left door was difficult to shut and creaked a lot, improved greatly by adding grease.

Little room to use the clutch (easily fixed by pulling the plastic cover off above the pedals)

General Comments:

I bought the car cheap (ish) as it had a few minor faults (speedo / exhaust / remote locking)

Generally very nice to drive, but flat before 2000rpm before the turbo kicks in. Lots of luggage doesn't bother it. Plenty of grip in the wet or dry.

Lots of nice touches e'g well lit interior when you unlock. Boot light as well. The stereo can be hidden by closing the front panel on the car (saves removing the face of it). Heats up the inside v. quick in winter (though the fan is not working now!)

Seating position for me (6ft) a little cramped from my legs to the bottom of the (nice leather) steering wheel.

Clutch is a bit heavy (probably the cable).

My stereo (which is prone to overheating) also overheats in this car.

Still annoyingly lacks the flick on /off main beam headlight switch for flashing other drivers, instead you leave your main beam headlights on (if your running lights are on).

Large tank and I guess 45+mpg, only used one tank and not sure if it will get 50mpg on this tank.