Ford Mondeo ST220:  brilliant car, but it has one main let down

Every ‘DON’T BUY THIS CAR’ alarm was going off. No service history after 60k with 119k on the clock, no receipts, one bald tyre, three odd tread budget names I had never heard of, and an MPG reading I prayed was faulty.
It wasn’t even imperial blue, and yet I walked away £100 lighter to get a further £2200 for a Ford Mondeo ST220. The wife was more than surprised, when I was only going to Tesco’s.

Fast Forward a full service, a new set of tyres and rear pads and discs, I soon found myself on a nice rarely used open B-road with a tremendous smile on my face. The ST220 was always going to be a great motorway cruiser. Its immensely comfortable seats, smooth quiet drive and huge, bod disposing boot made sure of that. But I wasn’t expecting the big heavy family car to handle like it did. The steering on this car was good old fashioned Ford genius. Nice, heavy, and gave superb feedback. The six speed box was impressive. 3^rd and 4^th had a very close ratio, which came in very handy on this run, but a little confusing for real world driving.

Flaws? Well, the seating position was a tad too high for me to get fully comfortable, but not enough to cause any ache on a long run.

The brakes are vague and gave the impression they worked like a parachute. 1 shoot, a backup and a miracle. But the worst by far was it was a petroholic! Whilst the 3.0 V6 producing roughly 230bhp was never going to win the economy run, like all big Ford engines, the MPG is harsh. An E46 M3 is just as good, if not better, although incomparable in every other single way.

Overall it’s a brilliant car, so don’t let the flaws put you off. The ST220 still looks relatively fresh today. Parts are affordable and vastly available. Watch out for end of life Clutches and Exhaust systems, both are very pricey to replace. Other than that, this is unquestionably an underated cool car, but be warned, they like to drink.