Passat Mondeo - long term cost Mondeo or Passat

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
View Threaded
Thu 18 Nov 2010 12:33
Passat Mondeo - long term cost Mondeo or Passat - bk.bas
The more I read about Mondeo TDCi the more it seems that they are not very relaible and have many inherant faults that are expensive to fix. I have had a 20V 1.8 Passat for the last 11 years which has given me pretty trouble free motoring at virtually no cost (I do all my own servicing) but it now needs more money spending on it than is worth spending. My questions are then this. Which is going to be the most reliable and cheapest to run in the long term:

New shape Passat Tdi (around 06)
Mondeo Mk3 TDCi (05-06 era)
New Shape Mondeo Tdci140 (07)

Originally I was looking to spend around £4k on the Mondeo but am now thinking it might be going to around £6k which will buy me either of the other 2 (at around trade price)

Real life experience answers would be good
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Thu 18 Nov 2010 19:51
Passat Mondeo - long term cost Mondeo or Passat - craig-pd130

To be honest, I reckon it depends more on the specific car you buy (i.e. a Friday afternoon model, or how it was treated by a previous owner) rather than any inherent flaws in the model.

I've been running a Mondeo IV 2.0 TDCI for nearly 3 years and 31K miles with no costs other than fuel (it uses no oil) and £1.50 for a new stop lamp bulb.

My previous car was a Passat B5.5 PD130 sport, 62,000 miles from new in 5 years, which used half a litre of oil between services BUT needed £500 to replace the dreaded top knuckle joint on the driver's side front suspension for its 2nd MOT.

Neither has been truly long-term ownership, but unless you buy a known 'lemon' I believe it's really the luck of the draw.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 19 Nov 2010 10:27
Passat Mondeo - long term cost Mondeo or Passat - gfewster

The consensus seems to be that neither the current Mondeo nor the current Passat are really hitting a level of reliability that is acceptable in modern cars.

97-04 seem to be the best years for both in terms of reliability. I've got a 99 Passat that I bought for £6k when it was three years old with 91k on the clock. It now has 205k on the clock and hasn't had any serious money spent on it (exception was £700 for a new head after I stupidly neglected the auxilary belt change, so it snapped and the shards somehow found their way under the cambelt cover and wrapped around the pulley causing it to slip teeth and mangle the head).

My thinking is that in the last 5 years or so, too much new technology has come into car design too quickly - and the poor consumers are discovering the limits. The number of elaborate systems that I hear about lately (usually replacing something that worked fine) is just mind-boggling.

Agree that it is down to specific cars rather than inherant model flaws. For every person who's Passat or Mondeo has cost them £1,000 a year to maintain there is someone who'll post a story like mine. Buy carefully and be lucky. Buying used is better, because at least there is a history and some evidence of wear and tear to inspect. When buying new there are no clues...

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 20 Nov 2010 11:19
Passat Mondeo - long term cost Mondeo or Passat - Roly93

The consensus seems to be that neither the current Mondeo nor the current Passat are really hitting a level of reliability that is acceptable in modern cars.

I have a similar dilemma to the poster of this thread. Do I change my A4 Avant for another A4 Avant (new shape TDI 140) or a high spec Mondeo 2.0 TDCI.

I was under the impression that reliability issues (injector and high pressure pump) from the previous Mondeo had been sorted.

My current A4 has been trouble free and seems to have held its valuie very well, the problem is that I can get a nearly new Mondeo Titanium for peanuts money whereas the Audi is about £8K more. I know the Mondy will depreciate more, but still, there is several grand difference over 3 years for the priviledge of owning the Audi.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 20 Nov 2010 13:30
Passat Mondeo - long term cost Mondeo or Passat - bk.bas
If you are going for the latest shape Mondeo I think it has the edge over the Audi, at the end of the day and Audi is just a VW with a fancy badge, and I suspect there is little to choose between any of them in build quality. MY current Passat 98 model 1.8 20V has been very reliable apart from when the cambelt went at 70K and trashed the head, but before that I had several cavaliers, an Alfa 164 and an Omega, all of which went into the 120K mile bracket with minimal problems. I like the idea of having a chain driven cam on the Mondeo!
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 20 Nov 2010 18:44
Passat Mondeo - long term cost Mondeo or Passat - spikeyhead {p}

My old 2002 tdci got to 178k miles before I finally got rid of it.

I replaced it with a 2005 Saab 9-3 which is a lovely car, however that has had a waterpump seize which snapped teh cambelt.

All of the cars in this class are good, most have a few possible issues, the VAG cambelts will need changing regularly, Mondeos may need injectors or pumps changing and all benefit from a suspension refresh at high miles.

They are all mostly reliable but on any cart failures occur and with so many out there doing 30k+ miles a year it's hardly surprising that the interweb is full of tails of woe.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 20 Nov 2010 18:40
Passat Mondeo - long term cost Mondeo or Passat - R2-CMax

under the impression that reliability issues (injector and high pressure pump) from the previous Mondeo had been sorted.

The 2L TDCi in the pre 2007 is a completely different engine from the current model, which comes from a joint venture with PSA, and had a good 3 years to be proven in other Ford, Volvo and PSA vehicles before going into the Mondeo. Hence, for isntance, the EGR valve issues in this engine seem to be much more common in pre-2005 Focus & C-Max.

There must be some around on truly colossal mileages now, but the car-by-car seems very quiet on the issue of serious premature engine system failures (injectors & turbos) on this engine, which must be a good sign.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link