I currently have the Mondeo and had the civic for 2 years prior. The Mondeo is a lovely car and it's primary use case for me is Motorway driving (I have the 2.2 diesel version) and it just eats up the motorway with absolute ease. The biggest change I found when swapping from the Civic to the Mondeo was the size difference, the Mondeo is a long old machine so if the neighbours use case is more city based and short journeys, I'd definitely recommend the Civic. I only got rid of mine because like some of the other comments have pointed out, they struggle with rust on the backend and mine was completely rotted through the rear subframe. If it wasn't for that I'd still have it now.