Test drive Ford Mondeo sedan 2010 sedan

Word and Deed

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. It is written in the Gospel of John. In our history, at first it was the case. People create NEW CAR FORD, AND THEN came up with him a name - MONDEO.
  
Landing in Marseilles was terrible - our plane breaks through the storm front and hang out, as the first airplane the Wright brothers. In the airport building we went white with experienced unrest - to put it mildly, unpleasant to sit in an iron box and realize that its management does not depend on you. Judging by the terrible bumpiness, the pilot also did not depend very much.
Having assessed our condition found offered a good rehab - prohvatit 150 kilometers from St Tropez, spilling accumulated adrenaline.
From words to deeds. Life is perceived quite differently when your fate is in your hands. Even at top speed on a mountain streamer.
Yet, by their nature Mondeo - city family car. In spite of the maximum rated speed of 215 km / h, the threshold for a comfortable ride on the road, in my experience, is a little lower, somewhere in the region of 180 km / h. By comfortable I understand that speed when the machine can keep relaxed, as they say, two fingers, and nothing distracts from the road. When the speedometer on the Mondeo close to the mark 200, the driver has to concentrate and control the behavior of the car is not the most tight turns and maneuvers at the minimum. Although design changes in the rear suspension brought virtually no attempts to break into the vehicle skid at a critical situation.
On Ford changed the shape of the lower rear arm - with V-shaped in L-shaped. Significantly reduced suspension travel in a plane perpendicular to the body, - the action of forces acting on it in abrupt turns, evenly distributed, and the wheels maintain maximum traction.
In the city cycle of movement, at speeds about 40--50 km / h Mondeo behaves amazingly. It sharply accelerates from the traffic light, and when attaching from the place on the first gear, it is almost impossible to drown out, no pressure on the gas pedal. It is confidently accelerated from 50 to 100 km / h with high gears - on the fourth it takes, according to our approximate estimates, a little more than 10 seconds. A very decent result indicating the high elasticity of the engine.
Business approach. With the advent of the new Mondeo, Ford expects to significantly strengthen its position in the European market. The middle class car sector develops there very violently. It has the most rigid struggle for the buyer who wants to have a car not just known, but a prestigious brand. But such cars have, as a rule, a rich standard complete set. This is reflected in price, and the middle class of buyers is not always ready to pay a couple of thousand dollars more. With the new Mondeo, Ford successfully broke into the highest middle class by retarding the previous price order.
On the first day at the airport, I got a car in the top version of Chia. Leather interior, climatic installation, audio system with a CD player on 6 disks, on-board computer, servorule, electric adjustment of the driver's seat and heated the front seats - lacked only the hatch in the roof. In addition to pure image frills on the front console, a key to turn on-shutdown ESP - an electronic system stabilization stabilization system is also discovered. Subsequently, it turned out that a new emergency brake system was installed on the machine (Emergency Brake Assist - EBA). That's the second day it seemed to me that the usual Mondeo brake was saving. And the fact is that a new system that allows you to reduce the brake path to 21 (!) M when braking from 200 to 0 km / h, it is set only on the CHIA. The rest is to order, like ESP. In simpler models, leather seats and windows in the rear doors are also provided, and the driving seat adjustment is mixed - the electric drive only moves it up and down. Everything else should be done by hand.
Not in words, but in practice. Ford Mondeo has every chance to become a leader in its safety class. And recently, in Europe, it is paying more and more attention.
Two-threshold airbags for the driver and front passenger, side pillows and inflatable curtains are regularly installed on it. A special electronic system controls not only the force of impact, but also how the driver sits close to the steering wheel. And if there is no front passenger, then his pillow will not work at all.
In all doors, an impact protection system developed in Sweden is installed in the front seats - the WIPS wipe protection system. The special design of the front bumper, more precisely, its foundations, painlessly for body parts quench the blow at speeds of up to 15 km / h. Engine I. details of the front suspension are fixed on a special subframe, which also takes over the energy of a stronger impact and folds in such a way that excludes serious cabin damage.
In addition, all cars are equipped with an ISOFIX children's attachment system.
Mix, but not shabby. Externally, Mondeo stylistically repeats Focus - just look at the front wings and the front headlights. Something has been preserved and from the previous version - for example, the lines and style of the radiator grille. But the visually new Mondeo looks significantly solid than the predecessor, although it is only 150 mm longer and the wheelbase has increased only by 50 mm.
But inside it is clearly decorated in the style of Ford Galaxy. The same steering wheel with four aluminum knitting needles, the overall style and materials of the front panel finishes and the most important thing - the analog oval clock on the beard - everything indicates that the Mondeo rank is higher than Focus. The feeling of what you sit in the minivan is intensified by the deep panel - it is impossible to get it up to the windshield. The high ceiling and a wide range of adjustment of the armchair in height allow you to even achieve almost a bus planting.
I happened to see two Mondeo - Sedan and Hatchback. Promise that on the approach and wagon. For him, even developed a special suspension, distinguished from the standard - the barn will be much higher. And I got my best kilometers in France by car with a turbocharged diesel engine with a capacity of 90 hp. They say that there was still more powerful, 115 hp, but not fate ...
After a powerful 2-liter gasoline engine, diesel seemed a little weaker. We drove in a bundle, and I had to constantly twist the motor up to 4 thousand revolutions to hold on colleagues on the close distance. When starting from the traffic light, a couple of times I even had to drive the arrow into the red zone. But be that as it may, I did not lag behind, just a little scary to go to overtaking.
The first corrupt Mondeo will start going from the German Ford Conveyor in November, but only for sale in Europe. Cars for our market will begin to do in January 2001, and they will fall into dealers in February-March. The prices also say even early - they are not identified even for Europe.
Text Nikolay Kachurin, Photo of the author and Ford Motor Co

 

A source: "Autopilot"