My Galaxy 1.9 Tdi Automatic (Ford Galaxy Ghia in general)

Member Name: longtallshazza

Product:	Ford Galaxy Ghia in general
Date:	29/07/01 (3000 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: roomy, rear parking sensor, climate control

Disadvantages: difficult to see front of vehicle when manoevring, wasted space between front seats, badly designed front wipers

At the time of writing, I have had my Galaxy about 2 months and so far I am very happy with it. I had a 1.6 litre petrol Astra before and I am very happy with the extra mpg that the Galaxy is giving me, which is around 28mpg for short town journeys and between 38 - 46 mpg for longer motorway journeys.

I love the cruise control, which I find useful when I'm going through speed limits with cameras, as I have 6 points for speeding on my licence already, and the rear parking sensors are brilliant. I just wish they were all the way round and not just on the back. I've already had one argument with the corner of my neighbour's garage wall and I dented the panel above the driver's side rear wheel. I was trying to get out around his garage without hitting another car that he'd parked in front, but I do find it very disconcerting that you can't see the front of the Galaxy and it's difficult to judge where it is. I was too busy trying not to hit the neighbour's car in front and didn't notice in my mirror that I was about to clip the wall with my side.

It's much easier to manoeuvre the Galaxy in reverse than it is going forwards !

I have taken the rear 2 seats out of my Galaxy and had a dog cage on legs custom-built and fitted. This gives me plenty of room for my 3 Collies and storage space underneath.

I have climate control which is fantastic. I can get into the car on a hot day and the inside feels like an oven but after a few seconds, the car has sensed what the interior temperature is and puts the cold blowers on full until the temperature has come down to whatever you've set it for, then it just keeps it at that temperature. I like the fact that there are blowers in the back so I know that when I'm comfortable in the front, my dogs are also comfortable in the back. This wasn't the case with the air conditioning in my Astra which took ages to reach the back.

I like the fact tha

t all 6 windows can be operated from the front, and I like the Global closing so that you don't have to remember to shut them all from the front. Just lock up with the key in the lock instead of using the press-button and the windows all close.

Another nice touch is that the interior lights all come on when the key is taken out of the ignition.

One thing I don't like about the Galaxy is the wasted space on the floor between the driver's and front passenger seat (either side of the handbrake). On most cars I've seen, there are handy little pen trays or somewhere to put your sunglasses, Polos etc but in the Galaxy it's just flat floor which is such a waste. I have bought a couple of pencil tins from W H Smith and stuck them to the carpet, but they don't look very nice and it would have been better if Ford had made a console that fitted there. (They still could make one that just fitted over the handbrake, so if anyone from Ford is reading this, how about it?)

I HATE the front windscreen wipers. The are bowed and missed the driver's side edge of the window at eye-level by about 5 inches. This, coupled with the edge of the vehicle, gives you a huge blind spot. Recently I was driving in heavy snow, and to turn right or even go round a roundabout, I had to lean over to my left in order to see where I was going. It's a huge design fault in my fault. It's not just in snow that it makes visibility difficult. After the snow, we had gritty roads that made the windscreen very mucky, and the wipers don't clean right to the edge, so you're left with a huge 4-inch wide dirty edge and that also means that you have to lean to your right going around right hand corners and bends.

The glove box is also quite small for such a big vehicle because most of the space is taken up with the passenger air bag.

It would also be nice if Ford supplied fitted seat covers. I have bought some from Clima
te (f
ound them on the net) but they're not a wonderful fit, even though they are suppose to be specially for the Galaxy.

I have had terrible trouble getting a tow-bar fitted because of the rear parking sensors. My Ford dealer said I couldn't have one. A friend with a Galaxy told me they were wrong. Anyway, two companies came out to me and refused to fit one. The 3rd company said on the phone that the other 2 didn't know what they were talking about but when the guy turned up, he was also unhappy about fitting it. In the end he said that he would fit it but it wasn't his fault if it messed the parking sensors up. He fitted it and the parking sensors are fine. Basically there was a lot of padding inside the rear bumper whi
ch had to come out in order to fit it, but it all works ok.

All in all I'm very happy with my Galaxy.

Summary: