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Ford Mondeo: Season 6 cancelled


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14 hours ago, Craig the Princess said:

Tbf I though they had killed them off a year or two back. Can't remember seeing one registered after about 2017.

The fact that Grand Tour held a (very well orchestrated and quite beautiful) funeral for the Mondeo two years ago left me thinking the same thing.  It was a great bit of TV, although I await castration and beration for suggesting that something that is "OMG MSM/CLARKSON LOL" was well done.

In my sphere, I know of one recent car - one of the girls who works in the village runs a 19 plate Vignale estate and my GOD it looks handsome.  A really lovely car.  

I think what Ford have failed to really act on is the fact that buyers* today are more brand and image driven.  They also appreciate things that make their lives simpler.  Ford's image is still that of "what your Dad had" (A massive turn off for younger generations in any category) and, as suggested elsewhere, it feels like a premium price for a regular product.

Undoubtedly they will be working absurdly hard behind the scenes to claw back some market share, but cars like the Mondeo (First "World" Car) and the KA felt like genuinely great bits of design and engineering.  I've not seen anything that's made me go "wow" in 20 years now.

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1 hour ago, sutty2006 said:

Why buy a mondeo when you can buy a c class merc or an Audi A4 on tick that everyone can afford. I suppose that’s the way it’s going now. 

I think this is it.  As company cars are less popular the way cars are bought is down to the monthly cost which comes down to depreciation.

A BMW depreciates less than a big Ford so the monthly cost is less.  If there’s a premium badge that’s cheaper to buy, why would you have a Ford?

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34 minutes ago, garethj said:

I think this is it.  As company cars are less popular the way cars are bought is down to the monthly cost which comes down to depreciation.

A BMW depreciates less than a big Ford so the monthly cost is less.  If there’s a premium badge that’s cheaper to buy, why would you have a Ford?

I found a mondeo 4wd that would just about tow my caravan. But I’ve been doing research. The A6 allroad I have bought is more popular and more well known. The 4wd mondeo, there were 2 for sale in the whole of the UK. Not common enough for when issues arise, there will be no knowledge on repairing it. So the Audi won hands down. 
 

 

however! I do love a mk3 mondeo. 

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It does make you think, new cars are getting more and more expensive in relation to wages, given what is going on at the moment fewer and fewer people have the disposable income to go out and stick 300 down on a car a month. I can honestly see owning a car becoming a middle class pursuit in 15-20 years time once China has a complete hold on the Lithium market. 

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Ford brought this on themselves by making each generation bigger than the one before. Now it’s simply too large a car for the majority of drivers.  

The original Mondeo’s natural successor is the Focus. A current Focus hatch (4378mm long) is almost the same size as the Mark 1 Mondeo (4481mm) and the Focus estate (4669mm) is actually bigger than the Mark 1 Mondeo estate (4631mm).

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8 minutes ago, 406V6 said:

Ford brought this on themselves by making each generation bigger than the one before. Now it’s simply too large a car for the majority of drivers.  

 

 

 

 

The original Mondeo’s natural successor is the Focus. A current Focus hatch (4378mm long) is almost the same size as the Mark 1 Mondeo (4481mm) and the Focus estate (4669mm) is actually bigger than the Mark 1 Mondeo estate (4631mm).

 

Plenty big enough for me, I’ll be going for a Focus mk3 once they are cheap enough. Ideally the 1.6 diesel.

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Isn't the prevalence of soft-roader/SUV shite and model 'inflation' at least in part a result of new designs having to incorporate ever more stringent pedestrian and occupant crash safety measures ( e.g  greater gap beneath the bonnet and engine etc) rather than consumer driven demand?

Measures resulting in such monstrosities as the new BMW 4 series and Audi saloons with their massive grilles to break up the big fat bluff fronts?  SUV's being easier to hide this bulk in chubbier styling? 

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30 minutes ago, inconsistant said:

So if the Mondeo has grow over its life to be the size of an old Granada, and the Focus is now the size of a Mondeo, does that mean all Ford cars will end up Granada sized given enough time and updates?

The current Mondeo is bigger than the Mk. 1 Granada and the Mk. 4 Zodiac. It's also bigger than my E60 5er. 

As cars go, with the growth of the models they keep having to slot something new in at the bottom. Put a Mk. 1 Fiasco against its current incarnation. 

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Re the mk4.5, Ford could gave sold a lot more, had they advertised the things properly.

I can't help but feel a good old side by side comparison with the 'premium' competition would have woken a  few up.

Does your 2012 BMW have cooled seats? Adaptive cruise control? Blind spot monitoring? Lane departure warning? Keyless entry? Keyless start? Elec memory seats? 200ps diesel? Reverse cam? DAB? 19" wheels? Etc

I'm sure some did. But not for the money and IMO, the mk4/4.5 was a way nicer looking car.

It amuses me to see stuff like adaptive cruise, keyless etc STILL an option, on even the top end fancy marque offerings.

But sadly we all know that most prefer a shitter Audi A4 with park bench seats, an interior greyer than a Monday morning, less spec than a treehouse and an engine with about as much power as my 70L air compressor. Then look down their noses at me, cos it's all about the badge, innit. :-)

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I've only had one Mondeo, a new company car in 2009 and it was a belter. Mostly because it had the 2.0 TDCi shared with PSA but it also took everything I threw at it, handled supremely well and was fairly frugal - what's not to like? 

I will be sad to see the Mondeo name and mid-size (even though its as big as a Granada!) saloon go from the Ford range, not a real fan of SUV's but the Focus is pretty much as big as an early Mondeo anyhow (or that's how I'm going to reason it out). NCAP and other regulatory bodies have forced the shape of modern motor vehicles and equipment they have, not always for the better!

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8 hours ago, garethj said:

I think this is it.  As company cars are less popular the way cars are bought is down to the monthly cost which comes down to depreciation.

A BMW depreciates less than a big Ford so the monthly cost is less.  If there’s a premium badge that’s cheaper to buy, why would you have a Ford?

How much longer can that go on, though?  Once the used car lots are full of BMWs, Audis etc year after year are they going to keep their value?

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My only experience with Mondeo's was when my ex wife made me buy a 1997 1.8LX from her best friend to help her out, as she was getting married. She made me pay over the odds, as it was her best friend.
She drove it for a month, then stole my Mégane, and left me to drive this piece of shit. Typical sheets of paint missing from the bumpers. Gutless, and wallowed about like myself after 8 pints
Thankfully, after 9 months, it finally grenaded itself on the M5. I pulled the head off, to find #2 had holed itself, and eaten all of its engine oil. It was quite impressive creating a cloud of smoke that covered all 6 lanes. The firemen were very impressed when they turned up to see billowing smoke from the exhaust, with the engine switched off.
The only car I never shed a tear for when it went on its final trip to China!

Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk



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They are still available on our company car list but I can't recall anyone ordering one since 2017.

Car buying trends are odd aren't they?

15 years ago there were Scenics, Zafiras, Picassos, Toyota Picnics and Versos, Multiplas,  Galaxys, S-maxes, Espaces, Grandises, Carens, Shuttles, Tourans  etc etc all over the place.

Where are they now?

I can only think of Citroën as making  a people carrier now. There are probably some that have passed me by. 

I get that it was no longer the done thing to pile kids on the back seat so the MPV became a thing, but what are those families doing now?

Were Picassos so bad that the birth rate has dropped so average families can now fit in a Kuga?

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2 hours ago, Timewaster said:

15 years ago there were Scenics, Zafiras, Picassos, Toyota Picnics and Versos, Multiplas,  Galaxys, S-maxes, Espaces, Grandises, Carens, Shuttles, Tourans  etc etc all over the place.

The Mondeo shares its platform with the S-Max and Galaxy, so the decline in sales of those models too will have been a factor.  Presumably the S-Max and Galaxy won't last much longer either, although that won't be so newsworthy because nobody ever talked about S-Max-Man.

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Ford, probably since the early 80's have struggled with big* cars which is a shame as they make them really well. 

I loved my mk1 mondeo derv, and it was far from a prime example yet it ferried me back and forth to Scotland with consummate ease always returning at least 40mpg at 80-90mph. You'd be hard pressed to believe it was 20yrs old then. I even towed my caravan back from there to Swansea and aside from me running out of fuel it was faultless. Only really sold it as I got bored and it was a bit of a shed to look at. 

Ford could have badged the whole range differently like citroen with ds and seat with cupra but I doubt it would have mattered much. 

I bought a c class and must admit I didn't even consider a Mondeo. 

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At some point as a business you’ve got to pick your battles, Ford at the moment seem to do small to medium cars and SUVs well like the Kuga. There’s fuck all point selling 1200 of anything. Can’t say I’m a big fan of the Mk5 to be fair, it’s just too bloated, you see a shit load of them in America but they’ve the space. I’ve had countless Mondeos by now, the sweet spot in terms of size is in the Focus, the Mk2 is that bit too small but the Mk3 will do nicely. I don’t know how I’ll feel about it in 10-15 years time, the new Kuga doesn’t look that bad, I’ll be old and decrepit by then so something upright might suit me. 

Flip side of the same coin, at least the new ones have a fairly unstressed 2.5 petrol coupled to a motor to take the strain. Whatever happens I’ll be in there with a thousand quid in my hand trying to fix the fucker so it’s horses for courses. 

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27 minutes ago, vaughant said:

Ford could have badged the whole range differently like citroen with ds and seat with cupra but I doubt it would have mattered much.

I believe (BICBW) that at one time they were thinking of introducing the Lincoln brand into the UK as a big car - but then they bought Jaguar.

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It strikes me that the tiller at Ford has been a bit wayward for the last 15 years or so, and that the Blue Oval has kind of lost sight of the Mondeo's USP. In fact, Ford's USP, really.

Back in the Mk1 Mondeo, then Mk4 Fiesta, then Ka, then Focus era, when Mr Parry Jones was in charge of chassis settings and people like Jackie Stewart were wheeled in for advice, Ford struck gold, and word quickly got out that these were ace cars for people who liked to drive. On top of that, Touring Cars and historic motorsport connections gave the brand at least a whiff of mystique. Those who fancied a 3 Series but couldn't quite stretch to one (pre PCP, obvz) could swallow their pride and say "well, a Mondeo is nearly as good..." and in many ways, it was. 

And, of course, at that time, there were no "premium" small cars around, so Focus was an easy winner against Golf Mk 4 for drivers, and a quantum leap over the Escort. It wasn't light years better than a 306 or ZX, but the masses were so intrigued by the New Order that its success was guarunteed.

Since then, of course, PCP has erupted and steep list prices have become irrelevant, so the premium brands have flourished. Ford should have clung onto that "great to drive" ethos, providing an alternative to premium tackle that would have people feeling smug about choosing the underdog. And, to be fair, nothing they've made in the last decade (apart from the EcoSport) has been pish to drive, but Ford just hasn't properly capitalised on that fact. TBH Ford UK's decision-making capacity seems to have been taken away and Dearborn is at the helm, what with the global motoring scene gradually becoming ever more homogenous. 

Ultimately, all the competing formats will fizzle out leaving VHS as the victor.

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12 hours ago, sierraman said:

You say that but the (now focus Mk1 sized) Fiesta is consistently one of the UKs best selling cars. 

The Fiesta's market has never really changed, though. It always used to compete with the Polo, Seat Ibiza etc, and still does. That class has endured (and grown in more ways than one), while other sizes have withered. Plus its name – by far the longest running in Ford's recent history – carries enough stock to be worth something. It's still the default choice for thousands.

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