AS Communal MK4&5 Mondeo Thread

[beko1987]

17 minutes ago, warren t claim said:

It depends on what version of engine is fitted.

What's the reliable one? The one that won't mind 8k a year (I really should get a pez but the longer drives I do will suck) 

My mate is finding out how much his pez one likes to drink. Certainly screaming it's head off above 85

[warren t claim]

2 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

What's the reliable one? The one that won't mind 8k a year (I really should get a pez but the longer drives I do will suck) 

My mate is finding out how much his pez one likes to drink. Certainly screaming it's head off above 85

Mk4a 2.0 diesel.

[sierraman]

On 12/11/2024 at 16:41, beko1987 said:

I keep looking at £1000 mk4 diesel estates now... Is that wise to do? 

Still not touched my friends car, I keep reminding him but he never comes over so 🤷 

Yeah they’re fine. I do 6000 pa in mine and it’s fine as I go on a long run every few weekends. 2.0 TDCI best, forget post 09/10 autos. Petrols so few and far between wouldn’t bother with. 1.8 TDCi ok if you don’t mind spannering to do the wet belt. Usual diesel advice avoid anything remapped. If it’s Euro 5 spec replacing the ‘fifth injector’ in the DPF probably wise before it causes a problem. 
 

Also wouldn’t be paying £1,000 for one as 90% chances it’ll be buggered. Probably £2,500 plus.

[beko1987]

2 hours ago, sierraman said:

Yeah they’re fine. I do 6000 pa in mine and it’s fine as I go on a long run every few weekends. 2.0 TDCI best, forget post 09/10 autos. Petrols so few and far between wouldn’t bother with. 1.8 TDCi ok if you don’t mind spannering to do the wet belt. Usual diesel advice avoid anything remapped. If it’s Euro 5 spec replacing the ‘fifth injector’ in the DPF probably wise before it causes a problem. 
 

Also wouldn’t be paying £1,000 for one as 90% chances it’ll be buggered. Probably £2,500 plus.

It'd be the 1k-1500k range I'd be able to afford, and that's after some saving. 

Noted though, thanks! Still can't get the Nissan quashqai out of my head but hopefully that'll pass

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, beko1987 said:

It'd be the 1k-1500k range I'd be able to afford, and that's after some saving. 

Noted though, thanks! Still can't get the Nissan quashqai out of my head but hopefully that'll pass

There’s some very ropey ones about. I’d just keep saving (easier said than done I know…) until you get to the £2k mark for a hatch. A £1000 one that’s bollocksed will cost you more in the long run. 

[beko1987]

37 minutes ago, sierraman said:

There’s some very ropey ones about. I’d just keep saving (easier said than done I know…) until you get to the £2k mark for a hatch. A £1000 one that’s bollocksed will cost you more in the long run. 

I think I still want an estate sized car. Easier for carrying my tent around (not that I did this last year) and easier to make into a 1 person sleep pod for shitefest etc. Plus taking the kids away for the weekend generates a surprising amount of shit and it's great to pack it all in the boot and shut the load cover still! 

Jury is out though, I am saving slowly in the background. Might fix the Xsara yet and spend on it but I need a plan B before Sept 2025. And I am a bit bored of the Xsara now... 

[sierraman]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

I think I still want an estate sized car. Easier for carrying my tent around (not that I did this last year) and easier to make into a 1 person sleep pod for shitefest etc. Plus taking the kids away for the weekend generates a surprising amount of shit and it's great to pack it all in the boot and shut the load cover still! 

Jury is out though, I am saving slowly in the background. Might fix the Xsara yet and spend on it but I need a plan B before Sept 2025. And I am a bit bored of the Xsara now... 

You might drop on but they’re pretty straightforward to repair. Timing belt relatively straightforward, can have some DPF problems but give it a good run regular and it’ll probably be ok. 

[Cookiesouwest]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

I think I still want an estate sized car. Easier for carrying my tent around (not that I did this last year) and easier to make into a 1 person sleep pod for shitefest etc. Plus taking the kids away for the weekend generates a surprising amount of shit and it's great to pack it all in the boot and shut the load cover still! 

Jury is out though, I am saving slowly in the background. Might fix the Xsara yet and spend on it but I need a plan B before Sept 2025. And I am a bit bored of the Xsara now... 

How about a cheap Picasso. No one wants them. Often giffer owned and quite well looked after. PSA diesel.

[beko1987]

1 hour ago, Cookiesouwest said:

How about a cheap Picasso. No one wants them. Often giffer owned and quite well looked after. PSA diesel.

On paper your right, but in my head no, never. I can see why no one wants them

I dislike them so much a Nissan fucking quashqai is higher up my maybe list 😂 Otherwise your right it'll just be my car in a different shell... 

 

[junkyarddog]

That time of the year again,annual test.

Didn't get a clean pass this year unfortunately. 

Two rear tyres were worn on the inner edge,but not excessively(imo)but were getting thin,so two cheapy Massimo ditch finders later we have this...

Let's see if I can knock another 12 months out of the old girl!😁

[Bren]

Ours dipped it's MOT. Near side parking brake - not the side I fitted the caliper to. So it's another caliper - to be fair it looks like a lump of coal and when I fitted pads in the summer it looked past it's best then.

[sierraman]

22 hours ago, Bren said:

Ours dipped it's MOT. Near side parking brake - not the side I fitted the caliper to. So it's another caliper - to be fair it looks like a lump of coal and when I fitted pads in the summer it looked past it's best then.

Might just be the sliders, I used to use red rubber but it just doesn’t last, had no issues since I’ve switched to the ceramic shit. Sometimes the cables get very frayed on the ends as well, you find sometimes it wants the whole lot. Complete bitch of a job on the driveway, needs a ramp. Especially seeing as the adjustment is above the exhaust. 🙄

[Bren]

A new caliper and a fresh MOT certificate. It's been expensive this year - four tyres, battery, two calipers, a flexi,pads, trailing arm bushes, leak off pipes - I hope we get a rest for a bit.

[sierraman]

I had my rear bushes done this year, £200 Labour and £60 for some genuine Ford bushes. Wasn’t going to be farting around on the floor with the tool for that. Done the ARB D bushes and springs this year as well so should be good to go. 

[Bren]

12 hours ago, sierraman said:

I had my rear bushes done this year, £200 Labour and £60 for some genuine Ford bushes. Wasn’t going to be farting around on the floor with the tool for that. Done the ARB D bushes and springs this year as well so should be good to go. 

I bought the genuine ones as I had a bill for them being replaced a few years before and they had started to split - I had them fitted at mates rates - I would have paid going rate rather than buying the tool and doing them myself.

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, Bren said:

I bought the genuine ones as I had a bill for them being replaced a few years before and they had started to split - I had them fitted at mates rates - I would have paid going rate rather than buying the tool and doing them myself.

I cannot see the logic in paying £100 for a tool that may/may not strip the threads mid job when someone can fit them for you for another ton. I just don’t price a day off of my life that cheaply especially this weather. 

[Bren]

I concur.

[warren t claim]

9 hours ago, sierraman said:

I cannot see the logic in paying £100 for a tool that may/may not strip the threads mid job when someone can fit them for you for another ton. I just don’t price a day off of my life that cheaply especially this weather. 

I've just remembered the lad who borrowed my Cortina Void Bush tool never returned it to me.

Funny how a post can trigger a memory that's laid dormant in my mind for over thirty years.

 

[beko1987]

My mate had the battery go flat again yesterday. Went ove to help him this morning. And I found my battery charge I picked up years ago from the car boot and have never used

The lights didn't come on but the multimeter confirmed it was pushing volts so we left it for a bit and I noticed his passenger headlight was full of water 🙄

Unbolted that (very easy) and just tipping it up so the water found the drain holes worked well. We took photos of the part no for another day (my mate found a cluster for £60 iirc) and I noted the green crusty looking connector for another day

I'd meant to pack some contact cleaner and wd40 but forgot. Both bottom fogs are fucked too, but still work apparently. 

The next job I wanted to do was have a look at the radio fault again. But in a more brutal way. I failed but the plan was to find the live wire in here (which I thought I had) 

Chop it and feed it through an switch

Mounted somewhere handily on the dash

This totally failed. I got bored of finding the specific wiring diagram for his car, every forum post I read had different wiring colours or people answering a 2008 mondeo specific question with wiring colours from a 1992 Escort 😡 I got the multimeter out and the wire I cut had 12v on ignition, but isn't the wire that kills the power. 

We pulled the fuse in the end, and called 2 jobs out of 3 good enough. 

Anyone know which wire to cut to kill the radio? It's a cd6000. And do I actually want the ground wire not live? It seemed easier to try up top rather than find the wire from the fusebox that's directly affected by pulling the fuse, but I'll do some research and have a go another day. 

He's got a Bluetooth speaker in the cup holder now and it sounds fine. As I said to him, I'd rather have an annoying battery drain that can be disconnected and worked around than my airbag light 😂

We then turned the car on to idle and charge, when the most awful noise started from the engine bay. Having touched zero mechanical things we were a bit alarmed, but I found a metal heatshield for the alternator loose and wobbling. Bent it around the alternator bracket and it's nice and solid now. Noise stopped so who knows what it actually was 🤷

[beko1987]

Afternoon! I have a question! 

The simple version - The driver seat in my mates mondeo has a spring sticking out and he says one of the adjustments doesn't work. Cloth seat, probs airbags but not heated etc. 

This seat would bolt up and plug in wouldn't it? 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305912130075?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=-QDus94xQs2&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=QOvj0cTJQtq&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

That's his most immediate annoyance with it. The dash cluster keeps saying there's a stop light fault. All the lights work, but before blaming it fully on whatever the cluster fault is, it needs all the lights and holders looking at to rule out/clean up. Ignoring that for now. 

He washed the key 🤣😱 And fucked it. Apparently he then ordered a spare key set off ebay and cobbled enough together so he can lock it with the new key and start the car, but the old fucked one has to be on his keys as well for the immobiliser. I guess that's going to cost a bit to sort... 😬

We still haven't serviced or washed it. We did discuss that on Thursday though so thags as good as done*

My switch bodge is working too! As long as he taps the button as he turns the car off the bsi must shit itself and think it doesn't exist and most crucially turns the power off to it nicely and the car shuts down gracefully everywhere else. He has a decent Bluetooth speaker he's used before, or he says he just pushes the switch and enters the code if he's going more than a few miles. But no more dead battery issues so far 🤞

[Homersimpson]

3 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Afternoon! I have a question! 

The simple version - The driver seat in my mates mondeo has a spring sticking out and he says one of the adjustments doesn't work. Cloth seat, probs airbags but not heated etc. 

This seat would bolt up and plug in wouldn't it? 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305912130075?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=-QDus94xQs2&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=QOvj0cTJQtq&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

That's his most immediate annoyance with it. The dash cluster keeps saying there's a stop light fault. All the lights work, but before blaming it fully on whatever the cluster fault is, it needs all the lights and holders looking at to rule out/clean up. Ignoring that for now. 

He washed the key 🤣😱 And fucked it. Apparently he then ordered a spare key set off ebay and cobbled enough together so he can lock it with the new key and start the car, but the old fucked one has to be on his keys as well for the immobiliser. I guess that's going to cost a bit to sort... 😬

We still haven't serviced or washed it. We did discuss that on Thursday though so thags as good as done*

My switch bodge is working too! As long as he taps the button as he turns the car off the bsi must shit itself and think it doesn't exist and most crucially turns the power off to it nicely and the car shuts down gracefully everywhere else. He has a decent Bluetooth speaker he's used before, or he says he just pushes the switch and enters the code if he's going more than a few miles. But no more dead battery issues so far 🤞

On Fords (80's/90's) it used to be quite common to strap a key to the steering column under the cowl and have new blanks cut so you could open the doors and turn the ignition on and it read the key in the cowl for the chip.

 

Saved the cost of programming a key on a £200 Sierra.

[sierraman]

3 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Afternoon! I have a question! 

The simple version - The driver seat in my mates mondeo has a spring sticking out and he says one of the adjustments doesn't work. Cloth seat, probs airbags but not heated etc. 

This seat would bolt up and plug in wouldn't it? 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305912130075?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=-QDus94xQs2&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=QOvj0cTJQtq&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

That's his most immediate annoyance with it. The dash cluster keeps saying there's a stop light fault. All the lights work, but before blaming it fully on whatever the cluster fault is, it needs all the lights and holders looking at to rule out/clean up. Ignoring that for now. 

He washed the key 🤣😱 And fucked it. Apparently he then ordered a spare key set off ebay and cobbled enough together so he can lock it with the new key and start the car, but the old fucked one has to be on his keys as well for the immobiliser. I guess that's going to cost a bit to sort... 😬

We still haven't serviced or washed it. We did discuss that on Thursday though so thags as good as done*

My switch bodge is working too! As long as he taps the button as he turns the car off the bsi must shit itself and think it doesn't exist and most crucially turns the power off to it nicely and the car shuts down gracefully everywhere else. He has a decent Bluetooth speaker he's used before, or he says he just pushes the switch and enters the code if he's going more than a few miles. But no more dead battery issues so far 🤞

I’d get rid of it and buy a German car to avoid these problems in future. 😂

On a serious note I’d just go to Timpsons, last time I checked it was about £70-80 for a spare key cutting and programming. Seat will drop straight in but disconnect the battery for 30 mins to let the pyro shit discharge itself. 

[BorniteIdentity]

It’s a time of change in the Huntingdonshire taxi market. The infamous Steve of Steve’s Taxis sold up last year or so, being bought by Panther Taxis off of Cambridge.

This has meant a change in rolling stock; a lot of Corolla estates are now spotted across St Neots where I live, replacing the famous red MK4/5 Mondeos.

With permission of @warren t claimi will try to capture the changing tide over the next couple of years. There’s a lot of stuff coming up to retirement which I’ll try and snap. its weird; I’ve lived here twenty years this weekend and I’ve seen the slide from MK3s (and the odd MK2) to 4s and 5s. Always red, and nearly always with that odd black boot trim. (There’s an odd 17 plate that’s all red which I will try to snap for prosperity)

I love my adopted home, and the red Mondeos are as much a fixture as the market on a Thursday and the pissheads in ‘spoons at 9.30am. I will miss them. 

[warren t claim]

The Mk4 is becoming a rare sight here on Wirral due to age and lack of Euro 6 engines.

[junkyarddog]

There was a Guy that worked on those Taxis that had a YouTube channel.

Think he went out to Asia.

 

[sierraman]

8 minutes ago, junkyarddog said:

There was a Guy that worked on those Taxis that had a YouTube channel.

Think he went out to Asia.

 

No he’s back now. 

[BorniteIdentity]

1 hour ago, BorniteIdentity said:

It’s a time of change in the Huntingdonshire taxi market. The infamous Steve of Steve’s Taxis sold up last year or so, being bought by Panther Taxis off of Cambridge.

This has meant a change in rolling stock; a lot of Corolla estates are now spotted across St Neots where I live, replacing the famous red MK4/5 Mondeos.

With permission of @warren t claimi will try to capture the changing tide over the next couple of years. There’s a lot of stuff coming up to retirement which I’ll try and snap. its weird; I’ve lived here twenty years this weekend and I’ve seen the slide from MK3s (and the odd MK2) to 4s and 5s. Always red, and nearly always with that odd black boot trim. (There’s an odd 17 plate that’s all red which I will try to snap for prosperity)

I love my adopted home, and the red Mondeos are as much a fixture as the market on a Thursday and the pissheads in ‘spoons at 9.30am. I will miss them. 

A quick bit of perving suggests that mondeo has probably ticked over 400,000 miles. If not then very soon. 

[beko1987]

9 hours ago, BorniteIdentity said:

It’s a time of change in the Huntingdonshire taxi market. The infamous Steve of Steve’s Taxis sold up last year or so, being bought by Panther Taxis off of Cambridge.

This has meant a change in rolling stock; a lot of Corolla estates are now spotted across St Neots where I live, replacing the famous red MK4/5 Mondeos.

With permission of @warren t claimi will try to capture the changing tide over the next couple of years. There’s a lot of stuff coming up to retirement which I’ll try and snap. its weird; I’ve lived here twenty years this weekend and I’ve seen the slide from MK3s (and the odd MK2) to 4s and 5s. Always red, and nearly always with that odd black boot trim. (There’s an odd 17 plate that’s all red which I will try to snap for prosperity)

I love my adopted home, and the red Mondeos are as much a fixture as the market on a Thursday and the pissheads in ‘spoons at 9.30am. I will miss them. 

 

 

9 hours ago, junkyarddog said:

There was a Guy that worked on those Taxis that had a YouTube channel.

Think he went out to Asia.

 

Ive watched some of his videos before! 

[beko1987]

On 26/01/2025 at 15:42, sierraman said:

I’d get rid of it and buy a German car to avoid these problems in future. 😂

On a serious note I’d just go to Timpsons, last time I checked it was about £70-80 for a spare key cutting and programming. Seat will drop straight in but disconnect the battery for 30 mins to let the pyro shit discharge itself. 

I think he's messed up the pcb in the key too though, as the central locking doesn't work. 

He only key locks it when he parks in London to go watch the football. I think that's the only time he turns the radio back on too 😂

I keep seeing high milage 2007-10 mondeo titanium x estates cheap (£12-£1500)... Should I keep ignoring them? 

[sierraman]

Just now, beko1987 said:

I think he's messed up the pcb in the key too though, as the central locking doesn't work. 

He only key locks it when he parks in London to go watch the football. I think that's the only time he turns the radio back on too 😂

I keep seeing high milage 2007-10 mondeo titanium x estates cheap (£12-£1500)... Should I keep ignoring them? 

Not necessarily, they’re a very good car. Providing it’s got no clutch/DMF issues and it runs fine it should be ok. Trouble is at that money a lot of them will have been worked or run on a shoestring. You don’t want to be on the back end of something that’s done 220,000 miles, the interior looks like it’s housed farm yard animals and it’s been fucked about with. I’d pay another £1k or so and you’ve something that’s a fighting chance of seeing a few years out. But that’s true for any £1,200 car - 80% chance its total junk.