Just limped home in 2nd gear after driving HDi Citroen Synergie 2000 W reg (96,000 miles) - up hill with 4 occupants - car was working hard at 70mph approx - sudden loss of power felt through throttle pedal, and smoke out back. Had to pull in, down to very low power, only able to do very low speeds. Not overheating, no oil leaks, auxilliary belt still on when I looked under bonnet, all electrics fine, no warning lights on. It only just made it home, I was hardly touching the throttle and was able to freewheel a lot thank God, but very little power.

Any ideas? Feels expensive. Is the cambelt hidden behind a cover? Could it have suddenley given up? Was due for renewal at 100k. Anything else it could be? I am rather concerned to say the least. Bought the car 05/09/2006 from small dealer. Will I have comeback if it's major? Am thinking cambelt (what are the signs?). Or Turbo? Or could it be anything simple (unlikely if big cloud of smoke!) Read more

Against my better judgement my father let the garage change the worn original fitment Dunlops on his 2001 Astra for a couple of Aurora tyres. Haven't previously heard of them before, and google doesn't throw too much up about them, neither does a forum search.

The only answer I could get from my father was that they were cheap ( < £40 a corner fitted ) and the garage said that they fit quite a few of them to various cars. Until I get around to driving his Astra I couldn't possibly comment on how good or bad they are. But, I have a nasty suspicion they won't be as good as the Dunlops that were previously on there.
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(Thread headline altered for clarity. HJ)

...on cars these days? I'm certain we have discussed this before, but I would like to offer the following sorry tale as a caution to others.

The Mondeo has popped its offside sidelight bulb. Now, I am the sort of sad person who cannot stand to have lights out, even little ones, and was becoming maddened by seeing an odd number of lights reflected off the back of cars in front of me in traffic.

So, the day being clear, the sky being bright (sort of) and Mrs B needing peace and quiet for an hour or so, I strapped B Junior into his pushchair and walked the half-mile or so to my local Halfords, bought a twin-pack of suitable bulbs, and returned home to have a crack at fitting one. I am reasonably competent at taking things to bits, fixing them and putting them together again, and I thought "Can't be that difficult, there are instructions in the handbook ..."

...which turned out to be as much use as something that really isn't very useful at all. On the current model Mondeo it is apparently necessary to lift out the entire headlight assembly in order to change any of the bulbs inside. In order to do that you have to move the grille out of the way.

Trouble is, they don't seem to have updated the instructions since the facelifted model came out in '04, and of course the old model has a slightly different design of grille, so I damn near broke the thing trying to move it out of the way. Not clever. Anyway, after about 15 minutes of fiddling and swearing, I got the headlight assembly out, and removed the cover for the sidelight bulb holder - only to find that the wire has been cut so short that I couldn't get the bulb out anyway.

It then took another 20 minutes to get everything back together again, and given that the idea with all this rigmarole is clearly to make me take it to the dealer and pay them to do it for me, thus ensuring an income stream for them, I suppose I am now looking at a bill of around £50 to replace a pathetic little bulb costing just over a quid, which is ridiculous.

What particularly annoys me is that I had to do the same job on a '95 Punto SX about eight years ago and the whole process from opening bonnet to going indoors with the empty bulb packet and putting it in the bin took less than ten minutes. Heaven help me if one of the Mondy's foglight bulbs ever goes (not that I use the foglights much, if at all) - it said in the handbook "Consult your dealer", which given my experience above, probably means that the bumper has to come off... Read more

Hello Guys and Girls

I'm having trouble finding out much information on this car and they look very good value for money second hand.

Does anyone have any comments to make, are the expensive to service?, are they thirsty? are they fun the drive?

I have found out that they were built in the USA and I think they are 200BHP with a 0-60 in around 7.5 seconds and they are all autos.

I'm guessing it will be more of a grand tourer than anything?

Thanks you for any input :) Read more

Hi all - posting here at very short notice to try and harvest any useful suggestions to this situation!!

My wife's 2005 Mondeo ST TDCi 2.2 broke down on friday in the pouring rain. Only just 10,000 miles on the clock. I thought it was the fuel pump as did the AA man.

Today the Ford dealer has called to say that water contamination in the diesel has caused the fuel pump to break down and pass metal filings into the fuel system.

The implication is that the diesel she filled up with 200 miles ago, contained water (no mention of a larger problem caused by the monsoon-like weather here last week). As such, this is NOT covered by warranty.

I am now facing a £2000.00 plus bill (yes - the decimal point is in the right place - two thousand pounds!!) and I need to give them the 'go' tomorrow.

I am utter past myself. Its going to be a big chunk of money out of my pocket for a problem that I am not entirely convinced will not happen again in another month - for which Ford will take ANOTHER £2000 off me!

Has anyone heard of this problem before?

I am seriously depressed at this stage!

Many thanks for any helpful comments.

Paul~ Read more