Hi all

Any advice much appreciated.

I'm in the process of choosing a new car. My budget is around £1500. I do about 15k to 20k a year. I'd like to get a mondeo but am in a bit of a quandry as to which one. My budget means early 2000 year and fairly high mileage. I'm thinking of keeping the car for 1yr/1yr 1/2 before selling and buying again with the hope of avoiding big service bills. For this approach and budget am I better getting a petrol over a diesel? Bit scared of more mechanical probs on the diesel but I'm doing about 50 miles a day on the motorway. Any thoughts much appreciated.

Cheers

Luka.

If you are doing that kind of milage you are probably better off with the diesel,

the 2.0L mk3 TDDI OR TDCIs are the ones to go for, the DMFs are soft on both and the injectors are soft on the TDCIs, these items are expensive to replace but a high milage example will probably have had these done at some point, a TDDI can do 300K+ miles

its pot luck and you could have one that breaks down in a month or runs forever with almost no mony spent on them, but they are good cars and comfortable mile - munchers, good midrange torque makes them "fast" on motorways , most "modern" cars can have similar faults and can be just as expensive (or more) to repair, spare parts are plentyful and easy to get

Thanks for the reply. Yep agree its hit and miss. Just think if I only hang on to the car for a year and a bit and buy again, with a petrol I might avoid some of the diesel risks and that could potentially out weigh the mpg savings?

A petrol car can go wrong too - big time - and with the sort of milage you are doing i would personally favor the diesel - on a long run you will probably get quite a few more mpg out of the Mondeo diesel than a petrol, (i run a diesel Mondeo now, but i used to run a petrol one)

My mate just bought a mk3 diesel for £600, hes in the forces and he wanted a car he could leave for long periods without worry, if it broke catastrophicly?, it would still be worth £200 in scrap - hes had BMWs and Audis before - and now he understands why i like my Ford so much

Maybe you can "pick one up" a bit cheaper too, so your budget covers repairs as well?