Ford Mondeo Titanium X

[DpM]

Hi all,

First time on this forum and also my first time at a Ford dealer and sitting in a Ford Mondeo Titanium X this afternoon. I have had an Audi A4 (54) 1.9 TDI Sport for about 3 years and I have loved it. Time is coming up when I'm looking for a change and the default would be a new Audi A4... second choice would originally have been some BMW probably (but I've gone off that idea) - and one of my mates told me that the smart money was on the new Mondeo. Now I'm looking for a bit of guidance / honest opinions if that's what I can find in here.

I've specced-up an A4 2.0 TDI S line (with a fair number of gadgets 'cos that's what I like) and it's coming out between £31k and £32k. I went down to the Ford dealer today and had a right good run-through the Mondeo Titanium X they had on the floor... I must say both my girlfriend and I were really impressed. You get so much as standard with the Mondeo that you have to select as options on the A4 - it's almost amazing... things like cruise control, folding and heated mirrors and several others.

I really liked the touch-screen DVD navigation - with Audi it's done using a wheel. I liked the bluetooth for the phone - very simple to use - but do you pair each time and can it handle multiple phones, can you get text messages, or not? I liked all the buttons on the steering wheel - especially for the cruise control. I loved the big 5" screen for the Human Interface - this looks better than Audi's DIS to me. I also, sadly, really like the air vents - dunno why really, but they're better than the Audi ones. The keyless entry was also pretty cool - worked the way I wanted it to work - but, sadly, the dealer told me it doesn't 'remember' the air-con. settings for each driver - I do get that with the A4. The voice control - although being demo'd and not exactly playing ball all the time - looked good and you can change the climate settings via the voice control - you can't do this with Audi and voice control is a further £325. The Sat. Nav. system in the Ford is also full postcode-based - the Audi one (I believe) is still partial postcode then street name based.

Things I wasn't so hot on...

• Front and rear parking sensors - with the Mondeo it is done via beeps, just the same as my A4 today, but in the new A4 you get a graphical interface via MMI.
  
• Audi's MMI (Multi Media Interface) that allows me to hook up an iPod or a USB 2.0 powered 160GB hard disk with MP3s and see the details on the screen.
  
• I really like Audi's CVT (Continuous Variable Transmission) and I've not yet considered what an auto-box might be like in the Mondeo - any views on this?
  
• The buttons - I must say they weren't bad at all in the Mondeo, but the Audi ones are more tactile for sure - I guess the Germans just "do better plastic"..?
  

There are things Audi have as options that I cannot get on the Mondeo, like side-assist and funky LED running lights (hey, that's the girlfriend's influence!) but most of the technology is there... adaptive headlights, bluetooth, touch-screen, Human Interface - and a lot of it is included as-is in the Titanium X.

...so, with all that said - this is looking like a really nice option. Sure, it's not so good on the environment (180-something kg vs. the A4's 154) - but it's thousands of Pounds cheaper and it is also really, really big - it felt massive, I must say.

So - are there a few people on this forum driving these around? Are they as good as I currently think they are... and is there anything I should be wary of?

Cheers, DpM

[mintalkin]

if its a tdci and depending on age the main worries are dmf failure,injectors and egr valve getting choked up causing black smoke