Ford Problems

THEY are not the easiest cars to move. They were aimed at trendy young girls when new and that's really your target market now. Yes, $4500 is a little low, but I can understand why the dealer would offer you that; he probably doesn't want it. I would think you could get $5000-$5500 for it selling privately.

FORD has a responsibility under its warranty to fix the problem. You should let them do what they think is needed to correct it. I can understand that you might be worried about the steering locking while you're driving along. If you feel the car is unsafe, ask Ford to give you another car to drive while the problem is traced and fixed.

YOU don't say whether it has throttle body injection or multi-point fuel injection, but it sounds to be a fuel-supply problem. It could be an intermittent fault with the fuel pump, or even a blockage in a filter or pickup. If it is the fuel-injected engine I'd have the injectors cleaned.

PHONE George Peake at Victorian Autogas (1800 620 945) or Mick Morabito at Eurogas (03 9783 8300). Both should be able to help you. Or you can go to the LPG Australian website for a list of accredited installers: www.lpgautogas.com.au

THE Falcon converts well to LPG so there won't be a problem with valve recession in the short or medium term, but remember that all cars suffer from valve recession, whether they run on leaded petrol, unleaded or LPG. It's only the rate of valve recession that changes, and the Falcon has shown over many years that it copes with LPG well in standard form. The only system available to you for the EL is a venturi-mixer system, which is old technology compared with the injection systems now being used on more modern cars. Sprint Gas actually uses Italian components, like just about every LPG manufacturer, but it develops the systems here in Australia. The company has been around for a long time and has a good reputation. When the installer says he will dyno-tune the car and start it from cold to make sure everything is working OK, every installer should do that. There will be some degradation in the way the car runs when fitted with LPG, but that's the price you pay for the cheaper fuel.

RUNNING on petrol once a month is enough to keep the fuel-system seals and fuel pump from drying out and possibly failing.

UNFORTUNATELY, you have the Falcon ute blues. The one-tonner Ford supplied for me to drive a few months ago had the vibration you complain about, but I think it's from the driveline, not the transmission. The transmission clunk you complain about is common and Ford's fix is to change the transmission. Unfortunately, the clunk usually returns. Many owners have had several transmissions in their Falcons. I don't believe Ford has a fix, it's just the way the cars are, but you can try maintaining your rage.

CONTACTING your dealer is the first thing to do when you have a problem. If that doesn't work, go direct to the company. Now you've done that, you need to enlist the help of a brake expert. Ask them to assess the noise and give you an opinion on what might be causing it. Armed with that information, go back to the dealer, and Ford if necessary, and seek a resolution.

THE clunking is usually from the diff, which is a known problem on the XR6, but we've heard from another reader, Clyde Wolfenden, that Ford has a fix for this problem in the form of revised auto trans shift points. He reckons this fixed his car, so you might check with your dealer about having it done to yours.

THE Falcon is generally pretty good for valve recession, but it is hard to say when the head might need rebuilding. It depends of the type of driving you're doing, but I would think you'd get 150,000km or more out of it before it had to be rebuilt. A taxi would get more because it spends more time running fully warmed up than the average family car. Driving long distances won't hurt it. The valve wear would most likely be less for the same reason it's less on a taxi. Ford says its engineers reported a bent conrod caused by an engine backfire in one of its BA development cars, and for that reason it used the beefier XR6 conrods in the e-gas engine, so that's a possible problem on gas. It's more likely to be a problem on a vapour-mixer system, which is what Ford uses, than it is on a more modern gas injection system, which is less prone to backfiring.