Key facts:
Model tested: Ford Mondeo Estate 2.2 TDCi Titanium X Sport
Price: c.£29,745
Date tested: September 2010
Road tester: Stuart Milne

The Ford Mondeo is hugely popular in the UK, with more than 1.3 million sold since 1993. For 2010 it's undergone some significant revisions in a bid to maintain its competitiveness.

The new Mondeo gets a revised front bumper and grille, while at the rear there's a new tailgate and LED taillights. A new range of wheels is also offered, including optional 19-inch alloys for the first time.

Inside, high quality materials remain, as does the quality of assembly. A new centre console is finished in satin black while the instrumentation is clearer and feels more upmarket.

Extra carrying capacity is the Mondeo estate's raison d'être, but its on-paper boot capacity is disappointing compared with its hatchback brother. Loaded safely to the level of the seat backs, there's around 549 litres of room - just nine litres more than its hatchback sibling.

But the boot has a flat floor, is easy to access and with the rear seats folded flat - and the seat bases flipped forward - there's a cavernous 1,680 litres of space when loaded to the roof.

Up front, there's huge amounts of space for driver and passenger, and rear-seat occupants are served equally well.

The 2010 Mondeo features various new engines, but only the new 2.2-litre TDCi diesel and a powerful 240bhp 2-litre petrol engine were available to test.

The 2.2 TDCi is hugely impressive, with plenty of pulling power, while it's very refined at low and high speeds. However, while running costs - 47mpg and CO2 emissions of 159g/km - are impressive, most buyers will buy one of the three 2-litre diesels on offer.

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The 2.0 TDCi is available in 115bhp, 140bhp or 163bhp forms, the most efficient offering 53.2mpg and emitting 139g/km of CO2.

There are more efficient petrol engines too, the clever EcoBoost units being available in three 2-litre versions plus there a 1.6-litre unit too.

The latter offers near-diesel levels of fuel consumption at 41.5mpg, and emits 159g/km. We tested the new 240bhp 2-litre petrol engine - the most powerful available - and were impressed by its refinement and potency, although when mated to an automatic gearbox, performance was blunted.

The revised Mondeo is also offered with some safety kit, which can:

• Vibrate the steering wheel if the car veers out of lane at speed
• Warn the driver if they lose concentration
• Automatically activate main beam when safe to do so
• Warn the driver if a car enters a blind spot

All Mondeo estates come with MP3-compatible audio systems; optionally available are adjustable suspension, adaptive cruise control, tyre pressure monitoring, Forward Alert (warning of the risk of a rear-end shunt), hill start assistance and active headlamps.

The 2010 Ford Mondeo estate may not reinvent the model, but the raft of seemingly small changes creates something far more. Despite lacking the "premium" badge of the BMW 3-Series and Audi A4, its abilities are more than enough to make it a genuine alternative.