Ford nails fuel economy

The next-generation Ford Falcon will go better and use less fuel than the current BA model.

The Orion-series Falcon will be on the road in March and take Ford's elderly in-line six into its final years before it is replaced by an imported V6 in 2010.

But Ford Australia has not given up on the engine, company vice-president of product development Trevor Worthington promises CARSguide some significant improvements for next year, when it appears in the Orion.

“The engine has a lot more opportunity in it and we are going to wring its neck for all of that opportunity,” Worthington says.

“I'm not going to sit here and say what we are doing, but every time we have improved the engine since BA, (including) performance, fuel economy and refinement and you can be guaranteed we are going to continue down that path.”

The Falcon's in-line six was substantially upgraded for the introduction of the BA Falcon model range in 2002 with a package that included twin-overhead camshafts with variable valve timing, as well as the turbo for the XR6.

The engine was further improved for the introduction of the 2005 BF Falcon, when camshaft revisions increased power to 190kW and torque to 383Nm.

Significantly, fuel consumption was reduced and the six-speed ZF automatic transmission added.

That gave the six-speed BF Falcon an official fuel economy figure of 10.2 litres for 100km - 0.7 litres less than the leanest model in the VE Commodore range, though still 0.3 litres more than Toyota's locally developed Aurion V6.

GM Holden's $1 billion VE Commodore did not deliver a significant improvement in fuel economy last year and some models actually used slightly more fuel because of extra weight, than the models they replaced.

Worthington does not name the VE, but hints at Holden's competitor to the Falcon when he says it is imperative that any new Ford model should deliver fuel savings over the last.

“That is what the customers want. If you are not moving forwards, you are going backwards,” he says.

“You can't introduce a new car and (have) worse fuel economy. Some of our rivals have done that, but if you were a customer, what would you say?”

He says other elements of the car must be as good or better than those of the previous models and it is the same with the engine.

“If I get into a car and I have worse ergonomics or worse brakes . . . if you are trading in the old one, you expect everything to get better, and the powertrain is a really big part of it.”

Though some improvements will be introduced for the Orion Falcon, others include design changes that would have seen the in-line six upgraded to satisfy Euro4 emission requirements, which were frozen when Ford Australia decided to switch to a US-sourced V6 from 2010.