For me a car is basically a convenience for shifting people and golf clubs around. So an affordable reliable car that just works is what matters most, and going by this being my 5th Mondeo this seesm to fiit the bill. So what has changed between the Mark IV and the Mark V ?

The Positive

I love the styling. A very roomy cab with even more room for 3 adults in the back and it has an ocean of room in the estates boot/trunk. A bonus is the new Long Service Interval at 20,000 miles or 2 years for the 2.0 TDCI version.

The Average

No real improvement on mpg compared to the Mark IV. The accelerator pedal still vibrates too much, so I tend to use cruise control a lot. I am not a great fan of the new electric parking brake especially for hill starts in an automatic.

I can not say that I have noticed any improvement or degradation in ride quality - but I did specifically buy the 17" wheels to avoid any harsh suspension issues from the new low profile tyres offered on the 2016 versions.

Thank you Ford for fitting a simple button to override the automatic stop/start mechanism as the delay in starting (and getting full power steering back) really does get in the way when you want to pull on to a busy road or roundabout.

The fuel filler has swapped sides but at least the little triangle on the dashboard told me that before I went to fill it up.

The Negative

The steering is a lot stiffer and seems less responsive – you need a lot more muscle and the new shape of the steering wheel supports prevents you holding it across a large portion of the bottom.

The counter rotating windscreen wipers are a surprise at first, and also very annoying when they do not park themselves properly.

If I go around any sharp corners the flappy paddles on the steering wheel fall foul of my knee and the gearbox goes into manual mode even though Drive, and not Sequential, is selected on the gear stick. Just how do I get it back to normal without shifting the gearstick to Seq then Drive?

The Sync2 software on the Infotainment system is a big step backwards.
The touchscreen is tricky/slow to respond when entering data but perversely too quick to change screens when you brush against it when moving the central air vents.

The software proudly states that it is written by Microsoft and like windows 10 it likes to hide menus behind unmarked buttons in unlabelled corners of the screen - just try and find out how to change the air vents from screen, to face, or feet whilst you have the radio selected.

The Navigation software takes at least twice as many button pushes, than the previous version, to set any destination. The Post Code entry is painful, as you now have to manually shift between letters and numbers on entry. Why is this necessary when the screen is bigger than the previous version? Then if there are multiple entries in it’s database it hides another menu behind a number on the screen that must be accessed before you can select the destination and finally decide which level of eco route you want, oh and confirm that you really meant it…..

I simply cannot get it to play any albums from the USB key as it insists on playing all the tracks from all the albums in alphabetical order and whilst the manual states it is possible it does not tell you how….