2001 Ford Mondeo LX from UK and Ireland - Comments

Cigarette lighter not working. It took days to figure out where the fuse was. You have strip out the dash under the passenger's air bag to find it. Then you are confronted with about 40 fuse positions with not one of them marked to indicate what fuse does what. It is a process of elimination until you find the correct one. Once done you commence to rebuild the dash and glove box. You have to be very careful not to break the very flimsy plastic clips. This part of the design is rubbish. It is no wonder the dealers want charge ridicules amounts of money to do the simplest of jobs on the Mondeo.

The Windscreen water filler cap looks like the power steering oil cap. These two fillers can be mistaken and have been on my car. I found water in my power steering oil. I was told by the local, very unfriendly Ford dealership, this was a known problem and it was hard luck. Oh and the fluid used in the new Mondeo is not your ordinary transmission fluid used just about every car made on the planet, but a special very over priced fluid that only Ford sell at extortionate price.

My car has now on its second MOT test and like the first test it failed. It’s a 3 to 4 year old car for goodness sake and it failed the MOT test on two occasions. Now it’s off the road with a fault that cannot be fixed with any guarantee of success. I bought this car because I need reliable transport that will just work and can be fixed easily. The old 249,000 mile 18 year old FIAT Regatta (yes 249,000 miles) was just that sort of car. Just kept going. Its only reason to end it's days was the amount of welding needed and shame of drive up to places in what looked like a clapped out old car. The engine emissions were as low on the day I scrapped it, as the day it was new. Never changed the injectors on pump or exhaust systems or handbrake lever or cables. I now have a Ford only 4 years old and the handbrake will not pass the MOT test 4 years old Henry Ford are you not ashamed of making a car that cannot be fixed, because at the MOT failure my wife asked how much to fix it and the reply was 500 pounds min possibly a lot more if they could find the fault i.e. no guarantee of success!!! I have stripped the whole assembly down my self fitted new rear calipers, new calipers, the car is 4 years old for heaven sake. I have looked at the adjustments and there are none. There is supposed to be an automatic adjustment, but no one can tell me how it is supposed to work, the garages don't know so if they don't know then how is any body supposed to be able to make it work.

This fault is not a trivial one since it is an MOT failure. There is no damage to the cables no fraying, no parts missing no wear to any linkages, but it just does not work the standard set by MOT. So how has such a massive outfit like Ford Motor Company got the design of this system so wrong and unfix-able or adjustable? I am in the process of re-engineer this design and when I am finished I will be offering a good solid reliable fix for this car. This will be based on a simple lock nut adjustable cable end at the handbrake lever like the sensible designs we see in reliable cars.

So have had the Mondeo just over 12 months and totally fed up with having fix faults on it like trim falling off the window weather seal, the plastic bumper to wheel arch point, plastic clip broken make the car look ridicules with a bit of plastic sticking out the side that catches on women dresses etc. This car is only 4 years old remember.

The sub frame under the engine compartment is going rusty in a big way. I do my own oil changes and when I took the sump guard off to get at the oil filter and drain plug I was amazed at the rust I saw on the sub frame. It is only 4 years old remember. Oh and from previous professional services not all the screw had been replace that hold the sump guard on by the way and the oil filter cover, which is plastic, had the oil sealing 'o' ring missing. Amazingly it didn't leak. Of cause this part is not Ford's fault although the paper work did say it was serviced by a Ford dealership.

There are many other things I would like to impart, but as you will see I'm not at all happy with the car or the dealerships / parts / service. I am going back to Fiat who have a much more helpful dealership and good technical back up.

Oh and I stupidly bought a 2002/3 Focus for my wife MOT due soon... watch this space.

Its been working OK so far, but only done 7000 miles to date.

This car is not for a person who needs reliable transport with minimum down time when it goes wrong.

If you have it as company car well OK you don't have foot the bills or fix it your self because the garages say they can't do the job.

I maintain my car because I cannot afford the time garages take to do the work and I can be sure it will be done correctly and only have my self to blame it all goes wrong.

As a car it is fine, but it’s not reliable and never seems to be fixable in a short time frame. Parts are an issue as well, but that's another story. But remember my car is only 4 years old and it's failed the MOT twice now!!! That should just not happen. My old FIAT Regatta I had from new was years before MOT failures stated to occur and these were body rust issues on a very old car.

This is an excellent, very interesting review.

It is so frustrating to be caught out by designs so poor even a first-year apprentice wouldn't accept, that these shoddy designs must be deliberately engineered to fail (usually when the car is out of warranty) so that when a car is a few years old it is no longer worth keeping on the road.

I noticed this trend in about 1972 with the Mk III Cortina with a propeller shaft that had a pressed-in universal joint.

Part was "lubed for life" which meant it was a short life and the UJ could not be replaced except by buying a completely new prop shaft assembly which cost about 40 pounds at the time. (Then almost one week's take-home-pay for the average man.) A new UJ should have cost about 5 pounds then.

I don't know what the solution is as Fiat now have lots of bad reviews here also.

Since you are capable of doing your own repairs, you might find an older BMW or Mercedes more satisfying to own.

That's what I've been doing for years. And I avoid dealers like the plague.

Most other makes seem to be taking the biodegradable route.

How old is it?

Nine years. BMW750iL.

Will run for another 10 years, I expect.

I took an earlier model up to 265,000 miles with no problems from engine, gearbox or diff.

Fabulous cars.

2001 1.8 LX, owned from new, 104,000 miles, no problems whatsoever.

Ford dealers are useless though. Don't touch them with a bargepole. I've serviced mine myself from day one. The service book contains the full schedule, so it's easy to follow, and I wonder how many of the "checklists" are actually followed when you take it to your Ford dealer. Once you shift all the stupid plastic covers, it's a conventional engine with a good layout for DIY maintenance (which is probably why they bury it all in plastic!)

Interesting comment about a used BMW or Mercedes. My friend did just that and bought a 2001 BMW 330i at the beginning of last year (2004). In just 35,000 miles, it's broken down twice with coil pack failures, the second one causing an electrical spike which then fried the ECU. It has also had an oil leak from the gearbox, a wheel bearing failure, and a new starter motor. And yes, it was an Approved car from a main BMW agent.

There are no guarantees with any make of car. Look at each car individually, assess carefully and go from there.

To the Mondeo owner who does his own servicing, doesn't that invalidate the warranty?

Interesting about your friend's 3 series.

I also owned a BMW850i, ran it for a year with no problems at all.

A friend liked mine so much he bought one.

Paid twice what I paid for mine, then he had a 500 pound bill to fix the rear suspension which scared him so much he sold it.

You are right, I suppose, it's a bit of a Lottery esp with used cars.

Many thanks to all who commented, very interesting and heartening words.

You will be pleased to know another MOT outfit was more understanding about a very long travel hand brake and passed it after I packed the cable abutments. Its back on the road again.

Oh and its only 4 years old if you didn't get it the first time... Ha Ha.

"The Windscreen water filler cap looks like the power steering oil cap"

Except the power steering cap is (on mine at least) marked "POWER STEERING", with a big picture of a steering wheel, and the washer filler cap has a big picture of a windscreen with a spray of water going up the middle. Oh, and all the things you need to check or top up regularly are marked in bright yellow!

It's about as idiot-proof as an engine compartment gets. Quite honestly, anyone who cannot fathom it must get really confused in day to day driving.

Please don't waste your time redesigning the handbrake cable system, this was an easy repair and easy diagnosis, 1st off the handbrake system on the early new shape mondeo indeed has a auto adjust cable system that is housed within the handbrake lever itself, this was a poor design that did not work to how ford expected and infact led to a recall of most vehicles (if your vehicle came under the recall campaign it would be fixed free by fmc, to find out if there are any outstanding recalls on your vehicle,goto your local dealer and ask for an oasis report showing outstanding recalls on our vehicle this should be carried out f.o.c.) eitherway the fix is to fit a new lever the lever includes a short cable that fixes onto the two rear cables, this short cable has an adjustment on it, simply adjust this cable until it pulls the cams on the rear calipers off their stops by 1mm, this will be a perfectly adjusted handbrake.

To quickly run over the other problems experienced on mondeo hanbrakes: The cables seize and so do the callipers. You will know when this has happened because you will feel either the handbrake will feel really tight and the performance on it will be dreadfull or the handbrake will pull on OK, but will have no resistance against it,giving it a floppy feeling, to find out what is causing the fault inspect the cams on the callipers with the handbrake off they should be against the stops or approx 1mm off the stops, you will find if you have a fault the cams are allways a good 1-2 cm off the stops when handbrake is released (whichever side is like this that is the side that is faulty -- note it could well be both) now simply unhook the cable from the caliper on whichever side is faulty; if the cam stays where it is the caliper is faulty; if the cam returns to the stop the cable is faulty - replace whichever is faulty.

Final bit on mondeo rear brakes if a rear wheel is seizing on and you have checked the cables and calipers as above and founf them to be OK then you will find the rear pads are stuck in the calliper slides and need removing cleaning and replacing or renewing.

Newshape mondeo rear brake system unfortunatly is a very poor fault but apart from this and the rear bed bushes (which now come seperate from the bed and should not cost any extra labour) newshape mondeo is a fantastic vehicle and very little go wrong with them in big numbers (this unfortunatly cannot be extended to the tdci version as there is still a major flaw in fuel system design.

The 2001 mondeo diesel I had was astonishingly poor. One of the dozens of problems that it had was that the handbrake lever came up too far. So far, that I had to drive it all the time with that stupid arm rest/ box lid thing open all the time so that I could comfortably use the hand brake. It did pass the mot like that, and it was a company car so I was not responsible for the presumably astronomical garage costs.

I had to borrow a 2007 mondeo (same shape) this week as my Zafira (fantastic car) was having a dent repaired. I was not surprised to find this one the same.

I would implore anyone NOT to buy a mondeo they are trouble. In My previous job we had a fleet of them and many people complained of the same problems. Mine was taken to Ford at Southampton when I left, and not given to another employee despite only having done 65000 miles. I like to think that from there it was pushed in the sea.

I have had two Mondeos, an 01 and an 04, both diesels.

The 01 had the handbrake problem. It had a Ford recall where the main dealer put a kit consisting of some kind of "blocks" at the rear calipers, no use of course.

The 04 is a much nicer car, but keeps warping the brake discs. It's had 2 sets and has only done 65,000 miles.

My Mondeo is 2003.2 litre petrol.& many, many problems :)

I have had the ford mondeo for nearly a year in that time I have had major problems with all areas of the engine, oil line, head gasket, fuel consumption, you name it I've had a problem with it. my mondeo is 2001 model and all these issues have happened in the last month. tappets and other small issues still cost a bomb to repair and when more than one thing goes wrong it becomes a problem in it self. I would never again buy or recommend buying a ford mondeo lx to any one.

I returned to the UK 2 years ago and bought this on an auction.

I had no problems, besides what one can expect with ALL cars.

Normally I drive at least 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, and I only had problems with general wear and tear + a few small bits and bobs that's gone wrong, I never had any major issues.

Even though I like it there is one downside... I find it to be too thirsty on petrol.

However nothing is perfect in this world, so I am still happy with it... something must be less than 100% somehow, I have not come across a perfect car yet because they don't exist.

I can't believe it took me days to figure out how to access the internal fuse box. All you have to do is look in the owners manual (page 148) and unclip the glove box and it's right there. RTMF - Read The Manual First.

Hey people do you know how much a drive shaft for a Ford Mondeo LX costs?? A rough estimate would be good including labour costs at the garage. Thanks...the front left's knackered...