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Beige Bargain Bucket - £550 - Aberdeen


Supernaut

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Here's a thread for my Mondeo.

It's a Ghia X 2.5 V6 manual with 120k miles on the clock and an MOT until August 2018.

 

Have some photos.

 

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It has its minor problems. It needs a good clean, for starters.

 

It also has some shitty aftermarket reversing sensors fitted that don't work, and seem to have interfered with the reverse lights themselves, so they no longer work too. I also don't like how slack the throttle cable is, but see no easy way of tightening it. However, I just had a quick look under the bonnet in the lovely NE Scottish September drizzle. I may have a better look another time.

 

Help with the reverse sensors / lights would be appreciated.

 

Also, the driver's door doesn't seem to unlock any more with the central locking. It was working fine yesterday. I actually have to put the key in like some sort of peasant!

 

 

Anyway, it's a lovely car to drive underneath the grime, and has only had 2 owners before me. The most recent owner had it from 2008 and provided me with a stack of annual invoices from the garage where he got it MOT'd and serviced every year. Let's see how it goes!

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So I had another bash at the reversing sensors. I just wanted to cast them adrift.

 

I was greeted by this mess under the ashtray / lighter just behind the gear stick:

 

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I just disconnected the plug that looked non-standard and connected up the standard-looking one, isolating all the wiring heading towards the back of the car, and...

 

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Success! :D

 

The crappy sensors that didn't work anyway are no longer powered, but I have working reverse lights now, which I think is far more important.

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Does it even have a throttle cable?

 

It does indeed, going directly to the flap on the intake. It's just got a hell of a lot of slack and no obvious adjuster. A lot of other cars (at least the ones I've seen) have a pre-tensioner thing like bicycle control cables have. While I was in there I noticed the HT leads are all pleasingly fresh looking.

 

I also discovered it has a 3.5mm jack in the glovebox. I plugged my phone in and set it to play some music, then hit the CD/AUX button on the radio, and got my non-CD-based music!

 

 

Reversing sensors are an insult to anyone younger than Kirk Douglas, stab their eyes out with a screwdriver.

If I can really be arsed I could keep an eye out in the scrappy for an unmolested Oyster Silver rear bumper. Meeeeeeeh.

 

One other thing I need to source for this car is a set of valve caps. It has none at all!

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That's scary. As I drove home yesterday, this was exactly the sort of thing I thought would make sense as a winter beater (though probably not as much as just soaking the Honda in anti-rot wax).

A part of me is still doggedly determined to go for an express visa in Canada, so I see this as being my last UK car (for a while anyway). I don't intend to still be in the UK when its MOT runs out. So not quite a winter beater, but not too far off. Saves me putting the Xantia through another MOT in February (if I sell it by then!).

 

As a side note, I got my IELTS certificate today. I can now officially speak English to an approved level. This is the first thing I need to start the application process properly.

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Anyway, I went off on a tangent.

 

DW, I'd recommend one if you can find a reasonably tidy one. The way it manages to combine ride and handling is almost (almost) French. Reminds me a bit of 1990s Peugeots in that respect, and that's a good thing! I was worried about it being slightly crashy on the 17s, but it seems fine. I remember you could get this shape of Mondeo on 18s though! That would probably be a bit much.

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That's scary. As I drove home yesterday, this was exactly the sort of thing I thought would make sense as a winter beater (though probably not as much as just soaking the Honda in anti-rot wax).

Shirley if you bought a Jag or Jap , you can offset everything it costs against tax as long as you treat it as project and write about it.

 

Or are you about to become editor of Mondeo Monthly?

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As for the fob, either the batteries need changing or the other thing that can happen is the little dip switches on the circuit fracture their solder or break off.

 

I dropped my key one day and the fob stopped working, when I cracked the fob open the little switch fell out.

 

If you have a soldering iron and your lucky you can just re ball the solder and it will work again.

 

If it doesn't work or the fobs buggered then you will need two keys to be able to program a new fob (the two keys don't need to be fobs , you need two keys to get into programming mode, a google will show you how if you need to).

 

Steve

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It does indeed, going directly to the flap on the intake. It's just got a hell of a lot of slack and no obvious adjuster. A lot of other cars (at least the ones I've seen) have a pre-tensioner thing like bicycle control cables have. While I was in there I noticed the HT leads are all pleasingly fresh looking.

 

Well, that's me schooled on V6 Mondeos. I assumed (wrongly, obviously) that all modern stuff was fly by wire, my mk6 Transit was.

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I took it out for a little blezz, just to put some fuel in it really. Got it up to temperature and blipped it a few times. The oomph from the V6 is addictive, but not scary. Just... nice.

 

However! All is not well. Since I fixed the reversing lights, the indicators are now flashing too quickly. Hmmmmmm. Can't be fucked right now. I'm ill and sore and tired and feeling old already. Is this the beige Mondeo ownership experience?

 

The puddle lights on the door mirrors are a nice touch though.

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Has fixing the reversing lights killed the rear indicators?

Didn't even check that...

 

Dodgy earths to rear lights?

Possibly, judging by how hacked up some bits of the wiring was. The rest of the shitty reversing sensor system is in behind the right-hand tail light unit.

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I take part responsibility for him getting it, he was on the fence after the viewing so I decided the best port of call was to have a 'few' pints and think it over. Because that's never ended up badly...

 

It's a fine thing, the rear is pleasant to be in and the seats are rather comfy...not LS400 levels, but still good! Not really anything else I can add to what Supernaut has said.

I'll be at him to get the front badge replaced, as in its current state it really bugs me...and it just so happens that there's one in good nick in the local scrappy.

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