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Ford Mondeo - Cracked piston - fuzzled

I have a 5 year old mondeo 1.8 TDCI which has only done 80k miles and has a cracked piston. To repair it by putting in a new engine would be £4500, and a second hand engine would be about £1000 cheaper! Basically this car is scrap as the cost to repair is more than the car is worth! Please be aware that a leaky injector lead to this, and seeing as these cars are reknown for this problem! Dont buy this car!!

Ford Mondeo - Cracked piston - fuzzled

Under further investigation all injectors are fine! so we are truly stumped as to why the piston cracked. Any ideas?

Ford Mondeo - Cracked piston - thunderbird

Could be a manufacturing defect.

If the only problem is the cracked piston (ie it has caused no other damage) simply replace it, no need for a new engine.

Edited by thunderbird on 17/01/2013 at 14:04

Ford Mondeo - Cracked piston - Collos25

I have never heard of your original wrong diagnosis causing such a problem so I do not know were you got your information from I am not saying it does not occur but not very often if at all.

There are a number of reasons why a piston can crack one is a faulty piston ring it could be the piston itself has a fault in its manufacture.If there is no other damage to the engine ie crankshaft,cylinder or any top end damage then it can be repaired reasonable easily and very much cheaper than you say. If the engine is writeoff then a secondhandhand engine could be sourced and fitted at a reasonable price.

A quick look on EBay shows complete engines with all ancillaries from 350 to almost brand new engines at 1800

Edited by Collos25 on 17/01/2013 at 14:15

Ford Mondeo - Cracked piston - skidpan

Some early 2.0 TDCI Mondeo's had a problem with melting pistons caused by the fuel filter allowing dirt through to the injectors which caused the injectors to spray fuel in an unsuitable patter. But that was solved in 2002 by changing the fuel filter spec (service recall) at the first service. A cracked piston is very different to a melted one though and the damage was much more widespread.

If its only cracked and no other damage has been done a new piston should sort, if Ford sell such things today.