Engine roar and loss of power...

Driving home from work Thursday at around 30mph the engine suddenly became louder and had me thinking that I'd slipped out of gear. From this point onwards the engine has sounded progressively 'growlier', performance has declined and the engine has cut out twice. Seems to me it's probably an exhaust leak close to the engine but I haven't been able to find exactly at what point. Back to the dealer Monday for the fourth time since taking delivery 4 weeks ago....

No battery warning and no aircon...

No battery warning to be seen today :)

Aircon doesn't appear to be working :(
Managing to get some cool air in the cabin but nowhere near as cool as my Vectra and no discernible difference when turning A/C off. Searching for info I found this related forum post of interest;

http://www.talkford.com/topic/196573-software-problem-with-air-conditioning/#entry1863504

Out with the Vectra, in with the Mondeo

I'm not one for changing cars regularly, probably around every 5 years on average. My last car was a 4 year old '03 plate Vauxhall Vectra Elite 2.2 with 37K on the clock bought from a main dealer and the ensuing experience was suboptimal with less than the advertised 114 points evidently being checked and requiring multiple return visits.

On Friday I traded the Vectra in and picked up my new car, a '57 plate Mondeo Ghia 2.0TDCi with 42K on the clock from a Ford main dealer and the fun started within hours of collection...

After around 15 miles of motorway driving at  ~60mph the engine lost power several times and then on exiting at the next junction proceeded to die, taking the steering and braking assistance with it. The car restarted without issue but has just spent the weekend back at the dealers workshop and no issue was found, no fault codes, no clues, nothing. I've just taken the car out for a spin, no power loss this time but the first thing to greet me on opening the door was a low battery warning...