All generations and engines together · 128,026 MOT tests in the 2025 data · typical mileage at age 7: 87k
Middling among saloons and estates, by age and by mileage. Watch suspension and corrosion. A fair used buy, provided its MOT history has no repeating suspension advisories.
Split by first-registration year. Cars registered in a changeover year can belong to either generation.
Owner folklore from forums and the motoring press, with how well each report stands up. Most of it never shows up in an MOT, which is why this section exists at all.
Injectors on the TDCi diesels wear and fail one at a time rather than all together, showing up as rough running, smoke, a limp mode, or a non-start. Owners report it from around 50,000 miles, and Honest John notes it as a shared weak point across Ford, Volvo, Peugeot, Citroen and Mazda diesels using the same engine family. A single injector runs roughly £500-600 fitted, and cases of two or three failing in sequence over a few years, taking the bill past £1,700, are on record.
Cars fitted with the PowerShift dual-clutch automatic (offered on 2.0 TDCi and some petrol variants) get reports of hesitation pulling away from junctions, jerky low-speed shifts, and occasional loss of drive or a 'transmission limited function' warning. Some owners have seen it on cars as low as 32,000 miles. Ford recommends a fluid change roughly every 3 years (around £250), but that alone doesn't cure it for everyone; a control module or clutch pack replacement runs into four figures.
A rattly, clattering idle or a shudder on take-off on a manual diesel usually points to the dual mass flywheel wearing out, and it can take the clutch with it. Honest John's reader reports show failures as early as 17,000-34,000 miles as well as further out, which is well short of what you'd expect from this part. A flywheel and clutch replaced together typically costs £460-£1,700 depending on engine and labour.
A joint in the wiring loom, brazed under the driver's seat, can fail and cause random electrical faults: stalling, failing to start, or dash warnings with no obvious cause. Ford issued a bulletin covering the brazing problem, and the fix (re-braze the joint) doesn't always hold; some cars have needed the dashboard out for a repeat repair, and one dealer told an owner they'd replaced around six looms on other Mondeos. It mostly affects cars from the 2007-2014 generation.
Diesels used mainly for short runs struggle to complete a full DPF regeneration, and the filter clogs with ash or soot over time. The warning light can come on repeatedly even after a reset, and a full replacement DPF runs to roughly £1,300 or more before fitting. It's not Mondeo-specific to this filter design, but it's a recurring theme in owner reports on cars doing mostly urban miles.
A creak or knock from the rear, worse over bumps or when cornering, is a long-standing owner complaint traced to worn trailing arm or subframe bushes; some cars have had months of failed diagnosis at multiple garages before the bushes were identified. This lines up with suspension being the standout MOT failure category for this model. The twist is that the noise often starts well before it's bad enough to fail an MOT, so a quiet test drive doesn't rule it out.
Ranked from this model’s own MOT record, then from what owners report.
Saveable checklistThe physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
The physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
The physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
Drawn from the reports above rather than the MOT data. These are the model-specific ones.
Computed from DVSA MOT results, all of Great Britain, 2025. Nothing here is opinion.
Share of tests where each item was recorded. The dark tick is the class average across all tracked models; bars are scaled within each group.
The rows that judge the model rather than its keeper. 44,989 tests in this band.
Tyres, pads and stone chips say more about how the car was driven and maintained than about how it was built.
Same segment (Saloons & estates), best MOT record first. Compare before you shortlist.