Those tensioners are prone to rattles and squeaks, mine makes a noise on idle, but fine from about 1000rpm up. My AC compressor is still fine at 188k and blows ice cold.TerryG wrote:Well it does have 180,000 miles on the clock.
I would say at that mileage the tensioner is not unreasonable. I have never had an a/c compressor fail but they have to happen sooner or later.
Turbo hoses are service items so they probably got missed and replaced when one finally blew
The fuel lines on the TDCI / TDDI are also service items.
Battery and alternator aren't unreasonable things to replace at that mileage. the ones on mine was done at 130,000.
Belts are service items.
Nothing there looks dodgy. In the UK I would expect to pay substantially less than that for it but if left hand drive cars are a premium and that one is realistically priced and close to you, Mondeos are comfortable barges to cruise about in.
The TDCi engines are prone to injector fails which can be expensive as they need coding, mine has a tendancy to drop into limp mode when given beans at high revs, it's not the actuator, so hopefully it's a clogged fuel filter which has been mentioned before. Mine has an auto box too, being the 5 speed it's a JATCO box which isn't that bad, but it won't shift manually, so somethings bust, the 4 speed is reputed to be weak. Any clonks from the suspension are likely to be worn drop links.
If you do go Mondeo, try and get a facelift (post 2003) as slightly better, but there are issues with swapping parts between the pre and post facelifts, but usually something that can't be sorted. There's a really good wiki that has how to's and advice which is a godsend at times.
Get a good one, and they drive nice, and the Ghia, Ghia X and Titanium are very well specced too.
Get a bad one, you'll want to burn it, believe me I've come close with petrol and a match, but it's now a nice place to be, even if it does play silly buggars at times!
Can't get much better than a nice set of Recaros.
Zombie-proof canvas, first developed during the Korean war, is surely standard kit on all Jeeps these days? 
