For Sale For Sale: 53 plate Mondeo TDCi Zetec, 300 quid

[wuvvum]

This is one of my two Mk3 Mondeo TDCi Zetecs.  I've always said a man can never have too many Mk3 Mondeo TDCi Zetecs.  But I'm selling this one anyway, due to being pissed off with cars in general.

 

It's a good runner, drives well, seems to be averaging over 50mpg.  It's better equipped than the other Zetec, with cruise control and climate control.  It's also apparently the higher powered version - 130bhp as opposed to 115.  It certainly feels quicker than the other one.

 

It's MOT'd until February next year - no tax, obvs.  Everything works as far as I can tell, although the aircon doesn't seem as cold as it should be and some of the wires in the heated front screen have died - pretty much par for the course for a car this age.  It's done 177,000 miles; the engine seems fine (it had some recon injectors not so long ago), clutch and gearbox are good, but the DMF (I think) can give a bit of a rattle when depressing the clutch, and sometimes when labouring the engine at very low revs, so that's probably got a bit of play in it.

 

The main reason I'm selling is the mystery electrical fault.  It has an intermittent battery drain - switch it off and all will be fine for a while, then it'll suddenly start drawing 4.7 amps for no apparent reason.  This will then gradually drop over time until it fades away to the normal 0.1A you'd expect an immobiliser etc. to draw.  It doesn't do it all the time, which is making it even more frustrating to try and trace - some days I can leave it overnight and it'll fire up fine, some days it'll need a jump.  One time I left it overnight and it wouldn't start; went back to it two days later (having not touched it in the meantime) and it started straight up, which was really odd. 

 

It seems to only discharge the battery so far - I've left it sat for nearly a week and it still had life in the battery, just not enough to start it.  It had a new battery and alternator recently - although it's not clear whether the alternator was replaced to try and cure the battery drain, or whether it might have been fitted incorrectly and be causing the drain itself.  I have no idea, and I've lost patience with trying to find out.  The alternator works fine when the engine is running, and once it's fired up first thing it's fine for the rest of the day - it's a 72AH battery, so even a 5A drain is going to take a while to drain it to the point where it can't start the engine.

 

Anyway, it's getting late and I want to write another for sale post before I go to bed, so here's some pictures:

 

 

 

 

Car is in NE Norfolk.

[purplebargeken]

Very tidy looking car

[sierraman]

I had a similar problem years ago, turned out it was the switch for the boot compartment lamp, sometimes it wouldn't disengage so used to drain the battery with the lamp being on all time. Worth a butchers possibly.

[wuvvum]

Another bump and price drop.  Been using this a fair bit over the last couple of weeks and it's actually been fine - not flattened its battery once, always started straight up even when stood for five days.  This doesn't necessarily mean it's fixed though.  I found the receipt for the new injectors in the paperwork - £700, in April last year  .  Plus another £70 or so for a new battery at the same time.  Looks like someone's even better at losing money on cars than I am.

[wuvvum]

Now that the blue Mondeo is back on the road, I thought I might as well have another crack at selling this.  It's been on daily duties since the Rover ran out of test and it's been fine - the occasional battery drain is still there but I've taken to whipping the earth terminal off the battery if I'm leaving it parked up for any length of time - not being French, it doesn't shit itself when I do this, all that happens is the climate control resets itself to 22 degrees and I have to enter the code into the stereo.

[Sloth in a bowl]

I don't get the lack of love for this, yes it's a mundane-o but really, what more could you ask for in a £400 car?

 

Add a £15 battery isolator switch and all your drain issues could be solved as well.

[RichardK]

Car alarms tend to have a reserve battery built in, charged from the usual electrics. It's one reason why modern cars can remarkably re-drain a charged battery - like anything with rechargeable batteries they do fail, regardless of technology. This is why I hook up the moderns to a smart charger with the battery connected - and then wait, usually days, sometimes weeks, for the whole lot to stabilise. It's like the situation with the Rover 214 vs. the 300CE - the 214 can be left for three, four months and still start, such is the simplicity of the electrical system - same age of battery can't keep the 300CE alive for 3 weeks, because the 300CE's 1990s-era alarm is pretty much boned.

[wuvvum]

Yep, 5 speed.  It's quite well geared though - 60 in 5th is about 2,000 revs.  Driving it daintily I've had 65mpg (according to the computer) on my 15 mile commute into Norwich.