Mini review.
in [Tuning]
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From: Tim S Kemp on 22 Feb 2010 15:48 Mondeo: Big. Steers nice. Lots of space. Looks nice. Cheap interior. Diesel: Unrefined, especially at low revs. Auto: Just don't. Drove a manual one a few weeks ago (when merc was off road due to pothole damage) and it was fine as long as you kept it above 2000 rpm, or there was no go and risk of stalling. Now, with merc yet again off road due to pothole damage, I have another, but this has an autobox. Vibration at 1500-2000 rpm is awful on these engines, unfortunately that translates to 50-70mph in top. By 3000 the noise starts to get to you. There's not a "right gear" at 70, you want to be at 2500rpm but it's higher than that in 5th and lower than that in 6th. And sluggish??? The lockup is about 1500rpm, the boost doesn't kick until about 2000 rpm. So you pull from a junction with nothing, then nothing, then nothing, then whoosh. All the time wondering whether the noise and vibration can get worse, which if you nail the throttle to the max it does. Or if you drive like a granny it does as well as it changes to 2nd and drops back into the low RPM range again. Of course if it's wet when you do this the traction control kills the newly found power and drops you back into the low revs, crawling across a junction. I can see the most useful feature on this car will be the side impact bars. Right turns need forward planning and preferably booking weeks in advance, overtakes need manual mode. -- And remember kids, RAID is safe and the UPS never fails, and Cisco routers never develop intermittent faults, and external hard drives never fail with only a month's use, and the DNS is reliable and resilient, and the mailserver is protected from all forms of attack, and the replacement UPS will be reliable as the first one was an unusual failure. No one will ever guess /that/ password, the aircon can't fail 285V is close enough to 230, and the QoS on the PWan won't obstruct the tagged traffic.
From: TJ on 22 Feb 2010 18:19 "Tim S Kemp" <news(a)timkemp.karoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:ctKdnfVBoMPqcB_WnZ2dnUVZ7vudnZ2d(a)eclipse.net.uk... > Mondeo: Big. Steers nice. Lots of space. Looks nice. Cheap interior. > Diesel: Unrefined, especially at low revs. > Auto: Just don't. > > Drove a manual one a few weeks ago (when merc was off road due to pothole > damage) and it was fine as long as you kept it above 2000 rpm, or there > was no go and risk of stalling. Now, with merc yet again off road due to > pothole damage, I have another, but this has an autobox. > > Vibration at 1500-2000 rpm is awful on these engines, unfortunately that > translates to 50-70mph in top. By 3000 the noise starts to get to you. > There's not a "right gear" at 70, you want to be at 2500rpm but it's > higher than that in 5th and lower than that in 6th. > > And sluggish??? The lockup is about 1500rpm, the boost doesn't kick until > about 2000 rpm. So you pull from a junction with nothing, then nothing, > then nothing, then whoosh. All the time wondering whether the noise and > vibration can get worse, which if you nail the throttle to the max it > does. Or if you drive like a granny it does as well as it changes to 2nd > and drops back into the low RPM range again. > > Of course if it's wet when you do this the traction control kills the > newly found power and drops you back into the low revs, crawling across a > junction. > > I can see the most useful feature on this car will be the side impact > bars. Right turns need forward planning and preferably booking weeks in > advance, overtakes need manual mode. > > > > > -- > And remember kids, RAID is safe and the UPS never fails, and Cisco routers > never develop intermittent faults, and external hard drives never fail > with only a month's use, and the DNS is reliable and resilient, and the > mailserver is protected from all forms of attack, and the replacement UPS > will be reliable as the first one was an unusual failure. No one will ever > guess /that/ password, the aircon can't fail 285V is close enough to 230, > and the QoS on the PWan won't obstruct the tagged traffic. A very interesting review of a diesel auto and one with traction control. You have put me right off. I have a diesel and the only vibration is at idle, anything else is fine. Mine has a 5speed manual box and I find it sits at just over 2000rpm in 5th at 70mph. Unfortunately at 30mph 3rd feels like it is the wrong gear at 2000rpm and 4th knocks it back to 1300rpm so there is no acceleration and the car seems to vibrate more. So a bad combination seems to be a diesel auto with traction!
From: Tim S Kemp on 23 Feb 2010 02:57 "TJ" <nospam(a)virgin.com> wrote in message news:hlv3dc$nq5$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... > A very interesting review of a diesel auto and one with traction control. > You have put me right off. I have a diesel and the only vibration is at > idle, > anything else is fine. Mine has a 5speed manual box and I find it sits at > just over 2000rpm in 5th at 70mph. Unfortunately at 30mph 3rd feels > like it is the wrong gear at 2000rpm and 4th knocks it back to 1300rpm > so there is no acceleration and the car seems to vibrate more. > So a bad combination seems to be a diesel auto with traction! Not true, my own car (the mondy is a rental) is a diesel auto with traction and ESP, I've had that for over 100k miles now and it's completely different. For the price of this Mondeo you could have a 1-2 yr old low mileage E class Merc like mine, which is as economical, smoother, quicker, rear drive and doesn't suffer any of the problems the Mondeo does, and if you consider that my car will (driven gently) change up at 1500 rpm it's a testament to the engine design. Ford have cocked up big time. -- And remember kids, RAID is safe and the UPS never fails, and Cisco routers never develop intermittent faults, and external hard drives never fail with only a month's use, and the DNS is reliable and resilient, and the mailserver is protected from all forms of attack, and the replacement UPS will be reliable as the first one was an unusual failure. No one will ever guess /that/ password, the aircon can't fail 285V is close enough to 230, and the QoS on the PWan won't obstruct the tagged traffic.
From: DervMan on 23 Feb 2010 13:28 "Tim S Kemp" <news(a)timkemp.karoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:ctKdnfVBoMPqcB_WnZ2dnUVZ7vudnZ2d(a)eclipse.net.uk... > Mondeo: Big. Steers nice. Lots of space. Looks nice. Cheap interior. > Diesel: Unrefined, especially at low revs. > Auto: Just don't. > > Drove a manual one a few weeks ago (when merc was off road due to pothole > damage) and it was fine as long as you kept it above 2000 rpm, or there > was no go and risk of stalling. Now, with merc yet again off road due to > pothole damage, I have another, but this has an autobox. > > Vibration at 1500-2000 rpm is awful on these engines, unfortunately that > translates to 50-70mph in top. By 3000 the noise starts to get to you. > There's not a "right gear" at 70, you want to be at 2500rpm but it's > higher than that in 5th and lower than that in 6th. Is it possible that yours was faulty..? It did die today! > And sluggish??? The lockup is about 1500rpm, the boost doesn't kick until > about 2000 rpm. So you pull from a junction with nothing, then nothing, > then nothing, then whoosh. All the time wondering whether the noise and > vibration can get worse, which if you nail the throttle to the max it > does. Or if you drive like a granny it does as well as it changes to 2nd > and drops back into the low RPM range again. Whilst not great, it isn't as bad as all that. > Of course if it's wet when you do this the traction control kills the > newly found power and drops you back into the low revs, crawling across a > junction. > > I can see the most useful feature on this car will be the side impact > bars. Right turns need forward planning and preferably booking weeks in > advance, overtakes need manual mode. No, it isn't _that_ bad. And I expect it'll hypermile well, with the aggressive lock up. Or it could be updated out of it... -- The DervMan www.dervman.com
From: Conor on 23 Feb 2010 14:57
In article <ctKdnfVBoMPqcB_WnZ2dnUVZ7vudnZ2d(a)eclipse.net.uk>, Tim S Kemp says... > Vibration at 1500-2000 rpm is awful on these engines, unfortunately that > translates to 50-70mph in top. By 3000 the noise starts to get to you. > There's not a "right gear" at 70, you want to be at 2500rpm but it's higher > than that in 5th and lower than that in 6th. > > And sluggish??? The lockup is about 1500rpm, the boost doesn't kick until > about 2000 rpm. So you pull from a junction with nothing, then nothing, then > nothing, then whoosh. All the time wondering whether the noise and vibration > can get worse, which if you nail the throttle to the max it does. Or if you > drive like a granny it does as well as it changes to 2nd and drops back into > the low RPM range again. > Is it broken? Is it the lame version? Sounds nothing like my TDCi 130 and that has 135,000 on the clock. -- Conor I'm not prejudiced. I hate everybody equally. |