Ford Mondeo 1.8 TDCi: Test Drive

Date: 29 November 2007   |   Author: Tristan Young

Category: Upper medium Prices: £15,895-£24,395 Key rival: Vauxhall Vectra

This is a car that should be 100% business tool yet still keep drivers happy by being the perfect family car at the same time.

On the business front, the 1.8 TDCi Zetec scores well. The cost per mile figure comes in a shade over 30ppm thanks to an ultra low service, maintenance and repair cost of £1443, a reasonable £12,254 deprecation figure and a healthy fuel cost of £4719.

The 125PS 1.8-litre diesel fitted with a six-speed manual gearbox has easily enough power to haul either colleagues or the stereotypical photocopier equipment - or both - up and down the country's motorways all day every day, and an official fuel figure of 48.7mpg seems easily achievable, providing you're not spending every minute sat in town.

The new Mondeo is larger and of higher quality than its predecessor and as a result the driver's requirements will be totally fulfilled on the family front. It's also a great drive. The only difference we noted about the way the 1.8-litre diesel drives in comparison to the more powerful versions was that the throttle response was particularly slow. While this wasn't a problem in most conditions it became particularly evident when using the standard cruise control, when you could feel the car come on and off the power in a less than smooth way. The effect of this was to just make both driver and passengers fractionally uncomfortable.

One final complaint was that when lifting the rear hatch on our test car, rainwater ran directly into the boot, soaking the contents.

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