And this opens the door for the perfect opportunity to drive home a few
salient points...

All of our cars are noting more than machines with a pretty skin (in the
case pf the Mondeo and others, "petty" can be sunbjective). Just like any
machine, regular maintenance is required and just like any machine, it
should be inspected before each use... Now, I'm not saying get down in the
dirt and crawl around, but I am saying walk around the car and look
closely - in the case of tires, we should make the effort to view the entire
tread face as well as the sidewalls. The task that tires perform is fairly
important.... (some niggling little thing like holding the car up off the
road).

It is difficult to tell from your post if the tires are the originals or
have been replaced in the past.... Since the car has over 100,000 kms on the
odometer and the tires were "sound" 3,000 kms ago, I am left thinking that
there has been some sort of suspension failure in the intervening time to
drastically affect the tire wear. This would have us think that the operator
is remiss in having things address in a timely manner...

There is another, more likely, scenario... 3,000 kms ago, your rear tires
were removed by a tech with either a bad case of tunnel-vision or an
inexperienced tech that felt that the good part of the tire meant it was
"good" rather than the bad part meaning it was "bad" (don't laugh- both
inexperienced techs AND customers alike don't realize that a tire is only as
good as it's weakest part).

A third, almost unthinkable, possibility exists.... but I would find it
difficult to believe that there is a shop anywhere that would fail to use a
golden opportunity such as your situation to sell a pair of tires and a four
wheel alignment. For a conscientious shop that charges fair prices (no,
let's not go there...), such an opportunity is like cash in the bank.

Now, which "scenario" to pick? Every last car on the road is, intrinsically,
unsafe. Safe motoring is more a function of the operater than the car. Ford,
in north America, loves the dickens out of negative camber (improves
cornering ability and feel) and factory settings often approach "way too
much" (with the spec window being, sometimes, ridiculous). For the rear of
the Focus, for example, Ford now supplies an upper rear control arm to move
rear camber 1 full degree towards positive. Every motorist and every
technician suffer from the "human condition" - making us intrinsically
unsafe...

You appear to be needlessly agitated by your experience and I hope that you
have come to the realization that your car is, indeed, a machine and
requires constant monitoring to remain in a safe operationg condition....

before you renew your rear tyres,check on the rear suspension of ALL mondeo
estates that the vehicle has not been jacked up on the thin 'blade' type
torsion bar (near the sill) this is NOT a jacking point and bends under
the wieght of the vehicle causing tyre wear/alingment problems etc.
normal 5 door mondeos do not have this suspension layout and are not
effected
its possible that this bent last december