Eeewwww what's that smell??

plastic bag on the exhaust? I have had one on my exhaust for months now, you would think it would have gone ages ago, but no. everytime I stop I can smell it.

Mondeos of course do suffer from the heater fan wiring melting along with the speed resistor.

mrcheerful

yep, look in the passenger footwell and on the front/side of the heater box you'll see 4 wires going to the resistor, if its burnt out you'll need a modified resistor and a small wiring kit

Aha that sounds likely.

Seems like just about every car I have the heater element burns out, or the fan speed control breaks or something, and it's a 'common fault'. Electronics isn't *that* hard to do - even I can do it ;-)

I guess they just penny pinch and only worry about the warranty period plus a bit.

I'll check it when it stops bucketing down...

Well, having finally had it up on ramps and poked around at the local friendly garage, it wasn't the resistor.

I've got a tiny oil leak from the back of the engine which drips straight onto the exhaust pipe. The oil vapourises (and smells) but only when the exhaust is hot, and only when not moving enough for the small amount of fumes not to get blown away before coming into the vents.

It seems to only leak while I'm moving, so I haven't seen any traces on the ground, and it's only a tiny amount, halfway on the dipstick Full->Empty in a month.

We think it was the oil temp sender or possibly the rocker cover gasket, it's going in tomorrow for that and for new front discs/pads.

I would have done it myself but life is hectic and I've heard what Mondeo discs can be like.. and I'm not sure where my angle grinder is at the moment...

(Talking to myself now, but that's OK, I'm used to it...)

Well it hasn't been fixed. It's leaking round the sump joint. The books of times for jobs say it's a long and fiddly job to get the sump off (2.0 Zetec in a Mondeo) so I've been quoted £75 to sort it out.

Anybody got any experience of redoing the sump gasket on one of these? Or any other advice on fixing it? I want to keep the car for a while so sawdust is out...

75 quid would be very cheap, I really don't think it could be done properly that cheaply. It is awkward, IIRC there is something odd about the refitting involving special tools (because it also mounts the gearbox)

One of the books did say it might be a gearbox off job.

Since it's a slow leak, is there any chance Stop-leak or something will cure it for a while?

I know Zetecs are twitchy about having a very light oil (5W-30) so I'm wary of something that might sticky things up..

I would not even think of an additive on a modern vehicle.

make sure the breather system is working and the oil level is correct are the only easy things, you could also nip round the bolts, but I really don't expect any will be loose, they don't suffer from that.

mrcheerful