Ford S-Max 1.8 TDCi Titanium

I've owned my 06 plate S-Max for over 3 years and it’s been a catalogue of trips to the garage and poor Ford after care. Sure when the car works it’s great, comfortable for the family with plenty of room, quite attractive for an MPV and quite spritely to drive. However the car’s reliability is dreadful and Ford customer care is non-existent.

The reliability issues I’ve experienced include: Failure of tail light bulbs on a regular basis (almost weekly), regular airbag system sensor failure, parking system sensors failure (twice). After only 10 months of ownership and little over 45K on the clock it needed the clutch replacing, 18K later it’s slipping again! I’ve also had to replace the battery and the whole exhaust system. The front tyres barely last 15K and the worst fault by far is that you never know if it’s actually going to start, sometimes especially when cold, it just doesn’t fancy it.

The S-Max is by far the worst car (& most expensive) I have ever owned and I would advise anyone to steer well clear of it, a total piece of junk, Ford should be ashamed. As soon as I can afford to I’ll be offloading for a Japanese equivalent and never returning to Ford.

looks-wise and space-wise, the S-Max is fab. three kids under six can fit in child seats across the middle row, which is excellent. and performance for a 1.8 with two parents, three kids, and full boot is pretty good too. however, the electrical faults, some niggly, some big, are a right pain. when you have three young kids, you want reliability in a car more than anything. would i be totally confident of taking it on holiday across europe, for example? definitely not. and the ford dealerships we've dealt with over the past year are pretty clueless too. as soon as a brand like Honda bring out something comparable to the S-max, we'll be there!