Ford Falcon Problems

The tyre pressures are best set to the manufacturer’s recommended pressures, bearing in mind that you need to adjust your pressures according to the load you’re carrying in your ute. You can run the pressures a little higher than recommended, if you like, and generally you will reduce your fuel consumption, and improve your handling and braking, but at the cost of ride comfort. But running them at 40 psi as the tyre retailer has recommended is too high, you’d want to know a good dentist if you ran them that high. As for the wear, check your alignment and make sure that is correct.

For starters you need to take more interest in what happens to your car; after all you are the person responsible for keeping in a roadworthy state. You should have checked what was done at the 30,000 km service and made sure everything that should have been done was done. You should also have checked the condition of the tyres before you left on your trip to the coast. Had you done so you would have seen the condition they were in and not suffered the fright of your life. The tyre could well have gone from roadworthy to unroadworthy between 30,000 km and 40,000 km; they could have been just roadworthy when checked at 30,000 km and the extra 10,000 km could have tipped them over the edge. Tyre specialists say that 50,000 km is about average for a heavy car like the Falcon, but that can be substantially reduced if the wheel alignment is out, as you say yours was.

We consulted our LPG experts and their feeling was that it could be a spark issue. As gas takes more time to fire, it can highlight a misfire on gas and not display any issues on petrol. Testing of the coils and inspection of the spark plugs would be a good starting place assuming the basic gas system has been thoroughly checked. If it has shown this symptom since the day you had the system fitted it would be worth double checking the firing order correlation of the petrol to gas injectors, when this is incorrect it will show these symptoms. It can easily operate normally under higher loads and show these issues at light loads and idle. Air leaks a and leaking petrol injector seals can cause odd issues, although these are now normally seen on the turbo models.

By locking in third gear it’s going into ‘limp home’ mode, probably because the computer has identified an electrical problem with the gearbox. A diagnostic check should identify the fault.

We haven't had any other reports of dust entry into the cabin, but perhaps if there other readers who haven't had the problem they could contact us. Driving with the air-conditioning on will help keep the dust out if the actual source of the leaks can't be traced and fixed. We will pass your concerns on to Ford and see if we can get some action on the issue.

I would get another opinion, as I doubt it is the clutch. I reckon it's wear in the gearbox itself.

You're correct there isn't a lot of difference between the earlier series and the FG that might affect the conversion, and there are kits available for the FG. Go to one of the larger, more experienced outfits.

The range indicated on the trip computer is calculated based on the actual fuel going through the injectors, so it’s generally quite accurate. It has nothing to do with the float in the tank, that’s connected to the fuel gauge, and isn’t necessarily very accurate.

The diff mounting bushes need replacing, it’s a common problem on BF Falcons.

Tyre wear is an issue for many people with many different makes and models. Basically it comes down to the geometry used by carmakers today to make their cars handle well, and the way they're driven.