Car Talk

Ford for me all day long. I've driven mondeos for 23 years. Fantastic car. Reliable, great to drive and incredibly versatile. I've had my latest from new three years ago and would have changed it last year, but now they've stopped making them I'm going to keep it as long as it lasts.

 

I am a lifelong Ford man too. A long line of very reliable cars I have owned

 

At last I’ve found Mondeo man

 

I’ll set the record straight. Ford cars are crap ! When you get a model of a car with a design fault and the new “improved” model with the same design fault that tells you a lot. Focus steering pump for one and fiesta front suspension for another. Two successive models carried the same component fault to the next gen model. Yes I was an engineer.

 

I had a Mark 1 Focus for years. Fantastic car that never once let me down. It was still running well when I sold it for £400 at 15 years old. The only reason I got rid was to get a car with a bigger boot for transporting music gear. I've now got a Skoda Octavia, ie a VW Passat in a different skin, which is also an excellent car.

 

I have a Ford van and a Ford car. Nice enough to drive but the build quality is terrible. And they rust like an old skip.

 

Cars are way more straight forward than football players.

Everyone should just buy one of the five most reliable cars.

But they don't because of largely arbitrary reasons.

 

Agree nothing wrong with the drive experience Roger in fact my focus was nearly as good as a golf. I made the wrong choice due , perhaps to unaffordability at the time. My comments are based around engineering qualities , materials etc are poor and designed to be life limited imho.

 

I had a volkwagen passat and a transporter for years, the quality between them and the transit and cmax i own now is completely different. Don't get me wrong the electric parking brake on the passat is one of the worst things i've ever seen on a car but everything else was way above the fords.

 

VW , Skoda and Seat and a posh version the Audi, all the same design specs. They just use slightly cheaper materials to shave costs in various models.

Our family, were very much brought up on Fords and mostly brand new ones at that. All serviced like clock work but when basic yet essential components that could never be classed as basic wear and tear components in a million years, fail it, gets beyond a joke. There will always be people like yourself who have a great experience of certain brands and entirely appropriate as well. Two totally different experiences of the same brand.

 

That may be true of some models but it hasn't been my experience with mondeos as I've said. And with the back seats down you've got a small van which is great for going to the tip or moving your kids when they move house. Otherwise it will get you to London in comfort and in no time. But everyone wants a SUV nowadays so it looks like their time is up. Other family members have had similar great value from fiestas. I've no time for VW after their emissions cheating.

 

My T Roc has automatic, electronic handbrake ( auto hold its called) its faultless in operation.
I had a Merc company car, C series I think and it had a little paddle thing to pull out of the dash . It worked fine. The release however was a button you press with your foot in the well.... bloody awful!!

 

They got caught, so did Vauxhall or GM to give it its US name. The others didn’t. I’m swapping my SUV next week. I buy a car to be a car not to use as a van . That’s my choice, others think differently and I can’t knock em for that. Each to their own but I’m talking about the “ Engineered” aspect of a vehicle to clarify.

 

Yes, fair enough, but I can only speak of my personal experience. When it's not a 'small van' the mondeo is a lovely saloon car for me. And I've never had any mechanical problem at all over 23 years. Maybe I've just been lucky.

 

My dad still has a mk1 focus, that was when Ford did design some nice cars. The design was fresh and not like anything else, i still enjoy driving it now. The focus after the mark 1 were as bland as any car ever designed.

 

Yes Mk1 Focus was quite a revolutionary design and still wouldn’t look too much out of place in today’s ensemble.

 

Car buying is quite fascinating. I often look at certain, quite popular, cars and think why would anyone want that? The truth is that we all make car buying decisions for a host of different reasons and one man's meat etc. I'm in the very fortunate position of being able to buy almost any car I liked if I wanted to, but I don't want to because I'm not really that interested and I couldn't justify to myself spending a fortune on a mere car. I only want to go from A to B in what's comfortable and functional. That's what the mondeo offered me which is why I stuck with it for so long. Now it's gone I haven't a clue what to buy.

 

You can have my 18 yr old Honda Civic, there's a few bits of trim hanging off but it's a great little runner... I'll put a full tank of superunleaded in, should double the value

 

You could do a lot worse than a Skoda Octavia. Even without the seats down the boot is massive. Very comfortable, reliable and goes like the clappers. I love it.