1993 Ford Falcon GLi station wagon 4.0L MPFi from Australia and New Zealand

Summary:

Awesome old wagon

Faults:

Very little has gone wrong with this car, considering it's essentially all original and has won more races than it's lost as such.

Axle seals started leaking at 350000km.

Transmission was said to be faulty at time of purchase, after 3 years of burnouts races and attempted drifting, I replaced it with a 2nd hand unit, due to oil leaks and deteriorated transmission performance (dropped out of gear some times). Later found the problem was an incorrect trans dipstick causing low operating oil level.

At approx 365000km I blew head gasket climbing Nowendoc mountain heavily loaded, caused by the radiator-condensor gap being full of grass and dirt. When the radiator was cleaned, all ran smooth again, although I have put stop leak in to stop a leaking head gasket until I have time to fix it.

And 16 years of pounding over country NSW's shocking roads had caused the shock towers to cave in a little, resulting in excessive negative camber on front wheels, which wears tyres fast but helps handling.

General Comments:

My old wagon has been an absolute trooper of a car, goes very well considering the wear on the engine.

And still is good on fuel and very comfy to drive, the cruise control and power mirrors are also really handy.

All excellent considering the car cost me $700, and hasn't cost very much at all for maintenance to date.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 1st September, 2009

1993 Ford Falcon EB XR6 Series II 4.0 litre from Australia and New Zealand

Summary:

Fords and Holdens are inferior products compared to Japanese products

Faults:

I have only covered 4000 kilometres in this piece of rubbish and the following things have gone wrong with it:

Head gasket.

The rotor arms and brake pads needed replacing

Bearings, fan belts, fan needed replacing.

Gearbox seal needed replacing as it was leaking oil.

No I haven't flogged the car at all. I just think a majority of Fords and Holdens, that they are lemons and inferior products compared to Japanese vehicles.

General Comments:

The advantages of this car is that it handles well, performance is quite good, especially with high octane fuel, it's comfortable to drive, doesn't overheat, starts everytime, doesn't blow smoke, doesn't use much fuel for a 4 ltr and can get 470 kays to a tank in city driving, and has a nice sound to it as it has a 2.5 exhaust on it and doesn't look like it has been towed before.

However the car is a piece of rubbish as I've had to spend $1600 in repairs in the last 11 months and only covering 4000 kays. The overall condition of car is good, except the roof lining sags, and as it is black it gets dirty very easily.

I was wondering if people out there could recommend me to either keep the car or get rid of it?

Cheers, Michael.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? No

Review Date: 6th May, 2008

7th May 2008, 01:25

Maybe you should have got a pre-purchase inspection done before you bought it. That would have highlighted these problems at the time of sale as they wouldn't have just sprung up in 4000km.

Most of the problems you list are stuff that happens with old cars like yours, and it's no secret that Falcons have had head gasket problems. I should know, I used to own a 1990 EA.

8th May 2008, 07:00

I did make a few stupid mistakes with that car like not getting an inspection on it. But I have learnt a lesson from this mistake. Also you I have heard some horror stories about the EA Falcons. I remember pop used to own one in the early to mids 90's. At 80,000 km the head gasket blew on it. But I do think my next car will be a Toyota Corolla, as they are incredibly reliable.

10th Jun 2009, 04:19

Hey there, I owned an EB series 2 XR6 back in the late 90s, and it was a terrific car. I ended up doing over 250000kms in it, no engine problems, only the starter motor stuffed up. I got it from a good previous owner, full service history. I do know they leak around the rocker cover. This was a prob with these Falcons.

7th Sep 2014, 12:32

Okay firstly, I agree with the others that a pre-purchase inspection should have been done.

Secondly, you write that the car had 181,000km when purchased - what do you expect, certain things will go wrong and the car was 14 years old! European cars have a lifespan of between 5-7 years. And at the end of the day, XR6s are sports models; they all get a flogging at some stage, some more than others, but on the whole they're very robust cars.