Category: Large Family 
Price Range: £18,045 to £29,245
Fine handling, spacious, good quality cabin.
Longer gearing stunts performance, poor throttle response and inflexible noisy engine frustrates.
Econetic is the weakest link in the excellent Mondeo range.
The Ford Mondeo has become the class benchmark for handling and ride and the Econetic model carries on this reputation, but almost wipes out its handling advantage with a terrible engine and poorly chosen gear ratios.
Around town and at slow speeds second gear is often not enough to keep up with crawling traffic, but every now and then a jerky downshift back to first gear is required to keep up. Blame the maximum torque peak being delivered at 2,000rpm and it is only that this point that the Econetic begins to feel lively.
That liveliness is shortlived, however. Push on through the rev range and the eight-valve engine feels inflexible, particularly when you engage the lengthy fourth and fifth gears. If you select fourth at 30mph the Econetic will labour and if you go any slower in this gear or attempt any inclines you're likely to stall.
The reality is that this is not a relaxing car. It requires plenty of frantic gear changes, which is a shame because its 2.0-litre brother is much more adept at coping with low revs.
In fact everything feels laboured: the throttle pedal feels doughy and the engine rattly. Spend any more than 20 minutes in the city trying to thread the Econetic through busy streets and you'll start to feel the steam coming out of your ears.
Get the car out on the open road and it's much more at home. It rides perfectly well on the 16" wheels but grip levels are sacrificed by the low rolling resistance tyres. There's a little too much road noise coming through the cabin, too.
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