General comments / opinions on the reliability of these please!
I had a test drive of one of these and really liked it.The inside was a bit plastic and it wasn't drastically fast, but for a basic sensible saloon car it just felt. angry. Like it wanted to corner hard and overtake things.
Nice compliant ride, firm handling, and running a Mazda timing chain V6 with a simple manual box in a NZ-new chassis seems like a pretty solid formula, to my laymans' view of things. In fact it seemed slightly too good for something that is the same price as any number of 2 litre automatic Jap imports with higher mileages; makes me wonder if there's a catch!
I have heard some people say avoid Mondeos in general, because of poor resale value and non-specific concerns about reliability. Is there anything in these views!
(Or is it just because Mazda 6s and Honda Accords have prettier dashboards, more buttons, and nice beige carpet!)
mellisa2000,
Nov 14, 4:52am
They are a good car, not a bad drive and go ok. REPLACE the water pump and the thermostat and housing before you drive any where though. They are fragile plastic.
phillip.weston,
Nov 14, 5:24am
^^ I think that only applies to the earlier Duratec V6 engines in the Mk1 and Mk2 Mondeos, am pretty sure the Mazda sourced V6 in the Mk3 doesn't have the dodgy plastic impeller water pump.
phillip.weston,
Nov 14, 2:03pm
yes that's the Mk3. The 4cyl also has 'Duratec' on the engine cover. It appears that the V6 engine in the Mk3 is indeed based on the Mk2 engine.
mopsy3,
Nov 14, 2:23pm
I had one of these and loved it. However, it was gutless until it got going and it sucked gas like it was going out of fashion. I went from an AUIII XR8 to this and it used just as much petrol if not more. I recently drove another one and still loved the drive of it but if you want instant power these are not going to provide it for you.
richardmayes,
Nov 14, 4:09pm
No, I'm under no delusions that a little V6 might pull like a big 6 or a V8 or anything like that!I don't mind using revs to get the power out, which is the other reason manual is a selling point for me.
(This thing had surprisingly more bottom-end grunt than I expected though.)
Thanks for the comments so far chaps.
drew2009,
Nov 14, 5:16pm
Is the one you are looking at a 2.5L or 3.0L V6 OP! The Mk3 (2000-2007) 2.5L V6 engine was carried over from the mk2 mondeo and shares the same faults of crap cooling system, weak head gaskets, poor design ect. You see plenty of them in the local mondeo wreckers. The 3.0L V6 engine was however specially developed and was the same engine from the Madza 6 and MPV and was alot better.
richardmayes,
Nov 14, 5:29pm
This is a 2.5 litre.
That doesn't sound good. but presumably if you don't overheat it, you don't have problems with the head gaskets!
drew2009,
Nov 14, 6:02pm
Sometimes it is because the car has overheated, but have also seen a couple of instances where it has been just random, They are extremely sensitive to even mild overheating. for example: A mates V6 one blew a lower radiator hose, which caused the car to overheat only once before it was parked up, was towed home after overheat, we went to start it and it had blown a head gasket right thru into the cylinder, we fixed it with a new gasket and then it blew again 15,000kms later for no apparent reason! I have owned two four cylinder mk2 ghia versions and they had the same problems as well, one went through two head gaskets in 4 years. I used to make a good earn as a backyard mechanic fixing them up as they are fairly easy to do. All this leads me to believe its more a fault with the design of the cooling system rather than owner neglect.
drew2009,
Nov 14, 6:12pm
If it doesn't have to last very long and its cheap enough you may be allright, Id consider buying one, spending no money on it except radiator additives and oil and selling it after a year. They are sort of at the point where they don't devalue much more.
richardmayes,
Nov 14, 7:42pm
The ones I've looked at have been $11k to $13k. which is enough money to sink into a car that I'm doing my homework!
(I've only ever owned old bombs before, but I can see I won't have time for old cars and their problems/bills over the next 4-5 years while the baby's little. So the intention in going shopping for a 10 year old Mondeo or similar with <80,000km on the clock is to hopefully get several years of uncomplicated motoring - and a boot that can fit a pram. )
chris_051,
Nov 14, 11:42pm
Would rather get an alfa 156 v6 6 speed for that price
mellisa2000,
Nov 15, 5:27am
Good car, yes mk3.
craig04,
Nov 15, 11:03am
You could get a VX Calais Supercharged for that money,
richardmayes,
Nov 15, 5:33pm
I know.
I don't think I could handle the extreme speed though.
a.woodrow,
Nov 15, 5:40pm
But spend more to get it chipped and a set of extractors fitted
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