Kieran McCarthy

In 2006 we bought a Ford Galaxy 1.9 TD 115PS LX.<br />The following are the problems we had with it until July 2009 when the garage took it back off us.

I went straight out and bought an Alhambra. Talk about a glutton for punishment :-(<br /><br />1. Air con bust. Has been since we bought it. This was the reason te garage agreed to take back the car.<br /><br />2. Water in the front footwell. Pipe for rear wash used to spray water under carpet. Fixed this by reading this website. I went investigating and possibly made it worse by putting the plastic panel at the top of the engine bay back wrongly. I didn't slot it into all the catches. Fixed this but water still pouring in.<br /><br />3. Complete lack of power. The MAF sensor had failed. Sorted it out thanks to this website.<br /><br />4. turbo cutting out. Soot build up on Turbo valve. Possibly caused by 3 above. Sorted it out thanks to this website.<br /><br />5. Parking sensor failed. Got one off ebay but it's still not working.<br /><br />6. Rear wiper continues wiping a few extra times after being turned off. Possibly frayed wire? Yet to investigate.<br /><br />7. Drive belt pulley sheared off as my wife was overtaking. Lost power steering and alternator. Fixed under warranty.<br /><br />8. The middle dashboard pocket doesn't pop up on it's own. Looking for Burrs.<br /><br />9. 8 bits of plastic have broken in the interior trim (left dashboard pocket cover's arm, Fuse box cover, Front Passenger seat recliner, 2X seat belt retainer in the middle row, 2 X knob to collase rear chairs, Passenger window switch)<br /><br />10. Engine hesitates around 1500 rpm.<br /><br />11. Heater stuck on. Fixed (fingers crossed) with help from this website.<br /><br />12. Pipe to turbo became loose causing plumes of black smoke to be sent out exhaust. New pipe needed<br /><br />I have been unable to get VAG-COM to communicate properly with my car. Currently have USB cable connected to Rosstech. Dumb mode says it has connected but will not scan without crashing the software.<br /><br />Overall I love the galaxy for it's space, the way it drives, the power in the engine, the fuel economy, the high up driving position. I'd be slow enough to recommend one though. Reliability to me is a big let down. (I would have bought one of these over an Espace for the reliability!!) A lot of the problems I have had are well documented on this website. How come Ford did not sort these during it's almost 10 year life cycle? The rear wash emptying into the front footwell?? What is that about? This issue was around from the start. Why didn't Ford simply use a longer pipe? The Ford TSB on the front footwell lists about 5 reasons for water in the front footwell. Not including the rear wash or blocked gutter that are on this website. Is it designed to keep water out or in?<br /><br />This website is great in one way but a serious worry in another. Great to have the solutions to these common problems. Worry how long until I encounter the rest.<br /><br />Does anyone else think the seats that face backwards are a pure gimmick! It takes ages to move them around. Any indoor picnic is over by the time you have them turned.

The Alhambra is out of warranty!

So things may start to go wrong now. (hopefully not. Touch wood effect trim! :-) )

1. We couldn't find the alloy locking key. Don't know did the kids throw it away or did we not get one. The local Seat or VW garages were unable to supply a temporary replacement so our garage got it off through brute force.

2. The electric window stopped working. Our garage replaced a broken switch under warranty.

3. There was a terrible burning smell in the car. Our garage traced this to some black liquid (the wife's coffee spilt in the front foot passenger footwell) burning on a pipe. This only started happening after the battery failed and was replaced. I guessed it was because the auxilary burner in the wheel arch had not been working up until the battery removal had reset error codes. But the garage told me my car does not have an auxiliary burner! They agreed it was a bit slow to heat up so they replaced the thermostat.

Actually the garage have been very good to us in that way. Anything we have asked for they have done for us. Perhaps I should have asked for a new set of brak pads. The Alhambra's have sensors on them which tell one when they are worn and therefore are expensive to replace.

4. There is a trail of drops down the centre of our windscreen on te inside. The Galaxy had one in the exact same place.