Ford Galaxy 2.3i Zetec

I have owned this car since August 2008, it ' s on a 2000 W reg, and I bought it for the space as I am always carrying large things about as part of my work. This car is very well equipped for a vehicle of this kind, the spec level it is more like something that you would expect from a German or Japanese car manufacturer than you would expect from Ford, but then again it is a Volkswagen design that Ford built under licence so you wont get many reliability issues if you have the car serviced properly. The only problem I have had with the car was when the front wiper mechanism seized, Ford wanted over £500 for a new mechanism. I took the car to my local garage as I thought £500 was a bit of a joke as I spent over 5 years buying and selling cars. I got a bill for 1 hours labour only from my local garage and they never needed any parts.

They told me that this is a common fault and that when the wipers start to slow down STOP using them as this can burn out the wiper motor which is over £150 to replace, what they did was strip down the mechanism completely and reassembled it with plenty of grease and the mechanism is good as new again with no more problems. The car as a whole is great to drive, it ' s a little slow on acceleration but you have to expect that from a car this size, it is a smooth comfy drive and you get a great view of the road ahead thanks to the high up driving position. Storage space is great, when the 7 seats are in and up I can still get a folded pram in the back of it, when I remove the rear 2 seats you have in effect a five seat family car with the boot space of a small van, I have even picked up a freezer in the back of this car with just the back 2 seats removed thanks to the height of it. The other thing that this car is good at is towing, you hardly notice a fully loaded trailer being pulled behind.

These cars are also very solidly built, on 15th August someone pulled out of a side street in a Rover 75 and hit the side of me at over 20mph, the repair bill was £2800 (Ford main dealer) but the repairer said that most other cars would have been a write-off.

A lot of other people who have reviewed these have said that they are bad on fuel economy, this is not true as at around 28mpg in town, this is good economy for a car that is quite heavy and the size of a medium Peugeot van, if you want excellent fuel economy then buy a diesel, if you are not doing a lot of miles each year then this car is just fine plus they are very cheap to insure.

This car is a great all round family workhorse and with the credit crunch going on you can pick them up quite cheap at the moment.

The best advice that I can give to anyone looking to purchase a Galaxy is to have the servicing and repairs done at a reputable independent garage as the Ford dealers are very expensive and would rather fit a new part for £500 when it could be replaced. Also if you do need any parts replacing that are expensive there are a lot of pattern parts available for them a lot cheaper by manufacturers such as Bosch who make the majority of genuine parts for the Galaxy anyway.

If you just want a cheap to run family run around then buy something else but if you want a car that has a number of uses and is great to drive then the Galaxy is the one to have.

I bought the Ford Galaxy 2.3i Zetec in mid August and took it off for a family holiday to Scotland and drove around 1100 miles in a week. It was brilliant. My three teenage daughters loved the space and we could put the youngest in the boot so that she did not argue with her sisters. While it is not a racing car, there were times when the top speed took me by surprise as it slipped up towards 90 very quickly when you put your foot down. Has brilliant parking sensors and the 2000 speaker sound system is pretty cool.