Ford Falcon Problems

Little is known about the Rockstone brand, so it's not possible to advise on their safety or potential life. There is no doubt, however, that you would be compromising somewhere, either in the performance, noise, ride comfort, or life. The best advice is to shop around for a known brand of tyre that still gives you a saving over the Goodyears.

A random spark in the inlet manifold usually causes backfiring and the most common cause of that is a faulty spark plug lead. The mechanic would struggle to find it if it only happens occasionally, and when he’s not around. I would fit new spark leads, and make sure they are a good quality, even though you say you have fitted new ones.

The police change the gearbox fluid regularly because the cars are subject to heavy use, rapid accelerations and high speed etc. I would suggest you take it to an auto trans specialist and have it serviced, that’s good policy in any case, and have them investigate the shifting issue.

It’s clearly an imbalance problem; the challenge is to track down the cause. It could be a problem with the torque converters but, as they’re both long wheelbase cars I would be focusing on the tailshaft.

I'm not surprised that Ford wouldn't give you the name of the seat supplier, that's not the sort of information they normally hand out.  The seat supplier is Futuris Automotive Interiors and they can be contacted on 03 9644 4222.

There were a lot of diff problems with the BA/BF Falcon and Ford was replacing them with monotonous regularity. On cars with higher kays they would sometimes fit a diff they’d removed from another car and had checked, so don’t be surprised that it happened with your car. If the warranty period is not yet up you might get some help from Ford, although I very much doubt they would refund your money or even offer financial compensation. Have a diff specialist assess your car and advise on what they can do to fix it.

Check the diff mounting bushes, they are a known problem and   produce a "clunk" noise when the throttle is applied.

It's not unusual to hear of tyres wearing out at such low kays on heavy cars like the Falcon. Tyre specialists strongly recommend that you balance and rotate tyres every 6000 km or so on a car like the G6 to get decent tyre life.

We haven’t had any other reports like yours, perhaps that’s because yours is an unusual situation and not everyone has to back up an incline on a regular basis. You might have been better off with an auto trans in your situation.

That's possible, but you would have to hit the potholes very hard and very often, even with the low profile tyres to bend an axle, and I would have though you would have picked up by a wheel shake instead of a "clicking" noise. I would also have thought you would break a wheel before bending an axle.