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Ford Mondeo - Buying high mileage Mondeo - Annoyed Renault
Hi All,

Hoping for some advice on buying a car, just written of my 04 Laguna and am now limited to 2 weeks of courtesy car before I have to hand it back and am car-less.

I am not going to get another Laguna as have had so so many problems with it and has been a money pit over past 2yrs. Looked at Mondeo's before when I brought Laguna as need an economical estate. Given I have to pay excess etc... I am on a limited budget so am going to end up with a higher mileage Mondeo, 110k-140k probably. Can you experienced guys point out what I should be looking for with a Mondeo this sort of mileage, in general an 06 plate at that mileage is about £1800 on auto trader.

I understand as a diesel key things are full service history and type of driving, ie don't want something that has done lots of running back and forth before warmed up. What else should I look for when looking round the car of this sort of age/mileage and typical faults. As far as I can see online 125k and 145k are big services with lots of replacements (timing chain etc...) so if I am near those services want to make sure those have been done but is there anything else? Any key things to look out for on test drive'

Thank you in advance for all your help.

Will
An annoyed ex Renault owner
Ford Mondeo - Buying high mileage Mondeo - Collos25

Plenty of live left in the clutch as these are very expensive to replace.

Ford Mondeo - Buying high mileage Mondeo - Annoyed Renault
Cheers for that.
Where is typical bite on these cars, half travel point?
Cheers
Will
Ford Mondeo - Buying high mileage Mondeo - countryroads

Watch for very expensive injector faults, similar to Renault in that they are coded to the car and dont like high mileages. Most will have suffered from extended oil services due to fleet use so check for usual high mileage faults. Usual modern diesel money pits are common, DMFs, DPF if fitted, Turbo failure again due to oil services being too far apart. Unless you really really need or want a diesel, a lower mileage 1.8 or 2.0 petrol is in my opinion the cheaper car to run. My friend runs a 1.8 LX that is at about 175k miles and has proven very strong.

However, watch suspension bushes, wandering over bumps and shonky handling are common with high miles, not massively costly to mend but inconvenient and may fail MOT. Ford makes them out of cheese for nice compliance, but they dont last!