Driving people around in the new Mondeo can be quite tiring. It’s not that the car is tiring; it’s the people. Everyone gets in wanting to be derogatory, only to find themselves very impressed by something. So I spent the week being told what I already knew. The new Ford Mondeo really is a very good car.
I don’t know why Ford didn’t call it something else. Had it been called the Ford Excellent, everyone would have just been impressed and I wouldn’t have to be subjected to the surprised to be impressed and then the embarrassed to be impressed stages. For some the Ford Mondeo will be a guilty pleasure. The Ford Excellent would have been a boastful pleasure. Which is what the Mondeo deserves to be.
The last Mondeo I drove was a basic specification on an 02 plate (see James Ruppert’s review of the previous generations later in the magazine). It felt well screwed together, sprightly and airy. It was, even after five years, still a pleasure to be in. It wasn’t exciting or remarkable, but there was nothing wrong with it. Which is perhaps what was wrong with mainstream family cars of the last decade and why BMW has raced ahead. Everytime you drove an ‘everyday car’, you could almost hear your parents telling you as a child that you don’t need a trendy new sweatshirt; there’s nothing wrong with the brown jumper your Nan knitted you.
So as Ford did with the Focus in 1998, rather than take a step forward they have taken a giant leap. The previous generations of Mondeo felt like evolutions. This is something totally different.
I took our test Mondeo back to Ford’s UK home, Dagenham. This provides Motorway, 40mph limited and speed camera-laden A-roads, and the docklands light speedway, as I like to call it. Mainly because I don’t know the real name for this series of short dual carriageway stretches punctuated by roundabouts.
This route tested the Mondeo in almost every motoring context and it never put a foot wrong. Stop-starting in the traffic of the A13 provided plenty of opportunities to check out the technology. As well as a main digital screen in the centre console, there is a smaller screen that summarises all the key information the driver needs. This, plus the 16 buttons on the steering wheel make the Mondeo feel like a jet fighter. It is only daunting for a short time, because the touch-screen radio and satellite navigation are the best on the market. Not just easy to use, but enjoyable to use. It is a design that helps the driver focus rather than distracts.
The (albeit expensive) optional extra to have variable crusie control was oddly thrilling. Essentially you can set your speed and the distance you want to be from the car in front and it will then perfectly maintain this for you. So you set it up and wait, feet flat on the floor, to see if it works. A bead of sweat momentarily forms as a car pulls into the lane in front of you. But Mondeo brakes for you. Then a gap forms in front of you and you go up hill, so it accelerates to compensate. If I have a long motorway journey, there is no car I would rather do it in than this new Mondeo.
This isn’t a good cruiser just because of the technology, the seats and driving position are very comfortable. Firm but not hard. Comforting but not squidgy. The 2.0 TDCI diesel is a powerful, economical and refined engine at motorway speeds.
Off the motorway, the Mondeo is supple going into corners or roundabouts. You have to give it quite a lot of steering input if you are moving briskly and the steering can feel a little light at those times. But that is the price you pay for being able to turn this incredibly long wheelbase car around easily in any tight space. Despite a distance of something like half a mile between the wheels, parallel parking, multi-stories and u-turns are as easy in this car as they are in some small hatchbacks. That sounds like an exaggeration but it is not.
On and off the docklands roundabouts, the car has to put power down while changing direction and crossing from one road camber direction to another. It is difficult for the computer trying to select gears to make sense of, but this automatic gearbox was unfazed, delivering power smoothly and effectively. It is better than the gearbox of some premium German cars.
The styling of the car is not thrilling, but it is handsome. It has broad and long-lasting appeal. So mainstream car buyers will hopefully take to it. But the good news is, with blacked out windows, one of Ford’s brave metallic paint jobs and alloy wheels, it has youth appeal too. A group of lads in a customised BMW actually wound down their windows to check it out.
This appeal is not at the expense of practicality, the head and legroom is good. The boot is so enormous you can actually put fully grown men in it. I know that because we tried it.
Summary
A comprehensive all-rounder that doesn’t just do everything. It does everything well.
Test car details
2.0 TDCi Titanium X
OTR: £22,945
0-60: 10.6
MPG: 39.8
Words: Matthew Tumbridge