Ford Falcon Problems

YOU have been treated shabbily by the dealer and by Ford. You should not have to pay for the work the dealer has to do to remove the broken plugs. His mechanic broke them; he should have to pay to fix them. It is a problem with the three-valve V8 engine, and there are many thousands of reports of the problem with the engine in the US. I can understand your frustration.

LPG specialists Australian LPG Warehouse tell me they can convert the turbo with virtually no loss of power and torque. The kit suits the standard factory engine and is capable of staying on LPG all the way to full throttle. It costs about $4200 installed.

THE dealer's so-called explanation is rubbish. The belt is either installed incorrectly or the mechanism is faulty. Take it back and have them either correct the installation or replace the belt.

YOU really should decide if you want performance or economy. If you want economy, go for a Corolla, Civic, 323 or Pulsar. You will find they have pretty good performance anyway.

THE short answer is there is no simple way of checking. Pre-unleaded cars had a larger fuel filler, and to avoid owners accidentally filling their cars with leaded a smaller fuel filler neck was used on unleaded cars, which mated with the smaller nozzle at the servo. Though the alloy head had a valve-seat insert, it might not be sufficiently hardened to cop the pounding from unleaded fuel. I also doubt Ford would have changed the valves to the hardened ones needed for unleaded fuel. All this suggests you shouldn't run the car on unleaded without an additive.

IT SOUNDS like a fuel-supply problem, so check that first. The LPG mixer is most likely the culprit.

THE idea that your ute isn't suitable to be taken on to a building site is ironic given that it's a work vehicle designed to do just that. It suggests a flaw in the design.

THE diff is a regular problem. Ford was replacing diffs under warranty with new ones, then replacing them with rebuilt units in cars out of warranty. Try Ford again and press to have your diff replaced. Like you, I reckon Ford should come to the party when there are known problems.

FORD uses old technology on its E-Gas engine, claiming that's all its customers are prepared to pay for. It's cheap, but not necessarily nasty. Being old technology, it's prone to the old LPG issues of backfiring, stalking, stumbling and idling roughly, but kept maintained it does a good job. It's a dedicated LPG system so there's only one tank, but the spare wheel is mounted on the floor of the boot, reducing the space. Performance is down on the petrol compared to the petrol engine; the gas engine in the new FG has 156 kW and the petrol 195 so you can imagine the E-Gas car doesn't go as hard as its petrol cousin.

THEY don't suffer the diff problems that affected the XR6, most likely because their drivers aren't so hard on the gas pedal. Overall they're OK, but Falcons of that era appear to suffer from problems with the automatic transmission cooler, rusted panels and other build-quality issues.