HT Leads for Mondeo 1.8i

ford ones without a doubt are the best all round

As Mr C has said, stick with Ford. They are considered a service item, and should be changed with the Motorcraft plugs at 40K. Gap the plugs to

A set of plugs and leads will be in excess of 70UKP BTW...

Chris

Definitely, used to get all sorts of problems with aged Ford ones (intermittent/random/false RPM pickup on the test gear) were almost always solved by replacing with genuine parts, rarely with 'aftermarket' parts.

Phhtt. I just bought a Ford set of leads for £30 from the local main dealer.

NGK Platinum PTR5A-10 plugs can be had for about £15 a set off EBay, and are the same thing as the Motorcraft plugs - Ford just rebadge them and double the price.

Note the -10 as the gap is officially 1.0mm now, not 1.3mm as originally specced, and which kills coil packs and leads.

I know that they have been known to fail quite early but most of them will last to 80k or more. I personally wouldn't change them every 40k unless they were actually playing up.

As soon as you get any spluttering when hot at ~18-2000rpm under load, its time to replace the leads.

My previous Focus reached 65k when I sold it, and the leads were original, but had i kept the car I would have replaced them. Preventitive maintanance etc.......

Tim.

That was my symptoms - fine when cold, started sputtering at lowish revs and light load after I'd done a couple of miles and it started to warm up..

I do not know the technical explanation, but it seems that ht leads go electrically porous when hot. I had a rover 200 in a while ago, it was fine for a few miles, you would swear there was no fault, but when fully hot it coughed and farted, almost undrivable. I eventually tracked (sic) it down to the king lead from the coil being misrouted and passing a sharp edged metal bracket, there was no chafing, just close. When hot, sparks crackled across, when cold nothing.

I can only vouch for Endura-E leads, but most people had the spluttering, hesitation, loss of power between the 50,000 and 60,000 mile services. Sure enough, a few hundred miles from the 60,000 mile service, Kermy started showing a few symptoms of the leads breaking down...