Bangers4BEN Travelogue – Day One

Thankfully with bags all packed on the Sunday evening a quick getaway was attained. Back when Really Good Domains decided to field a team for the event we knew that we would (literally) live and die by the choice of car. Some of the recent news stories hadn’t help our mood when we read about a car with over half a million miles on the clock going for over £800 at a recent British Car Auctions event and our budget was capped at an improbable £250.

Total Day Miles: 768

After a few weeks of pleading, emails and telephone calls North West-based car supermarket Fords of Winsford stepped in with a cracker of a car – an R-reg, 1998 Ford Mondeo Estate with, what turned out to be a stunner of, a 1.8-litre diesel engine. After the car was given a good going over, with the brakes being especially scrutinised, the mechanics at Fords of Winsford gave it the big thumbs up. The hour drive between Winsford and Really Good Domains’ base in Hazel Grove gave a good insight on what we could expect on the journey. The car while it had obviously had had somewhat a hard life had plenty of kick left in it. The first and second gears where troublesome, with the second gear letting the driver know that it just didn’t like being used when slowing down and going through the gears! However that was the only problem to manifest during the test run, gears 3 to 5 were fine and the car was more than comfortable at motorway cruising speeds which was a definite bonus.

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