Xr6 Quality Gripes

[X-WING]

yes but a $10,000 gets doesn't go like a $45,000 T or put that big grin on your face when you push the right foot

[Shockwave-T]

  lightning_strike said:

Heya peoples. Just curious what minor quality issues irritate you with your car. On my BA mark 2:

- fit of quarter panels. Panel gaps are uneven and inconsistent

- rubber seals on back door come off

- plastic covers over front seat mounts come off (ended up driving over one)

- intercooler pipe not fastened tight enough. But makes cool BOV noise when it does come off (every cloud I guess)

- metallic paint looks dodgey up close on plastic bumpers

I wonder if any have been addressed on the BFs?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Pretty much all of the above except I haven't had issues with the front seat mounts and cooler piping. I also hate the fact that the engine bay is a different colour as well as inside the filler cap.

The panel gaps on the quarter panel really sh*t me.

Oh yeah, and I hate how the mirrors shake with the bass in my stereo. Even a standard XT has mirror-shake.

[DallasQLD]

Well its the quality control we seem to have accepted from Ford. Some wil say we should have better for 50k. Should we? how can we?

The car is ood value and the performance is what you buying. If you want all those little bits a pieces to be right then another brand might be what you need. No car is perfect, but Ford are a long way from being right in these picky areas.

Subaru and Mazda are prime examples. They deliver cars with service and quality that Ford and Expensive Daewoo dream of. At competive prices.

Yes no doubt there is a member who has had a bad one of these as well, but overall, when you look at the volume Ford and Expensive Daewoo sell, you would think that their quality control would be better. They dont make a lot of cars so you would think there is less chance of a dud getting through!

The very fact that some members have certain issues and some dont shows to me anyway inconsistent monitoring of the finished product as it leaves the gate and then the stealership.

When I picked up my T it had no gearbox oil in it. How can that happen when a car is predelivered?

Well it does becasue they have no passion about their product. It flows from the ill informed saleperson (who should know more about the car than you, but don't) to the evasive and dismiisive service manager, right to Dealer Principal that is interested in numbers not customers.

When you take your car in for service you expect "Yes sir we wil fix it" not "No mate they all do that!

Brakes, tailshafts, turbos, water leaks, they have them all in abundance. My engine was one of the first in Aus to fail.

Ford were good about it. It took 2 weeks to fix, but did they fix it for everyoine else? No they did not. They knew the valve springs were weak, but did they undertake a recall?

No they did not. And that's why I drive another brand currently. I really wish it was better as I woujld have an F6 now.......

If you are really conerned about quality of your car, you will buy something else next time!

Dallas

[lightning_strike]

  syco6 said:

What about the awesome Ford Capri convertable. NOT!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey man, good call. But the capri wasn't prone to rolling over at speeds well under 100kph (explorer), prone to the engine bay catching fire when the car is left completely idle (lincoln town car. Has burnt down many garages if not homes) or 'unsafe at any speed' like the Pinto. It just had a leaky roof!

I must admit a slight prejudice towards Ford. Not in the least because Henry Ford's history. But hey man it's all about the torques in the engine!

Edited 13/01/06 06:31 AM by lightning_strike

[DBOSS]

  DallasQLD said:

If you are really conerned about quality of your car, you will buy something else next time!

Dallas

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Might cost you another $150k though and still get your arse handed to you in a straight line

[lightning_strike]

  DBOSS said:

  DallasQLD said:

If you are really conerned about quality of your car, you will buy something else next time!

Dallas

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Might cost you another $150k though and still get your arse handed to you in a straight line

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Dallas is pretty bang on. Unfortunately for those of us doing salary sacrifice cars, it's unfeasibly expensive to consider aynthing but a ford or a holden. Meh.

IRT to getting your arse handed to you on a plate, who cares! I've been in Peugeot hatchbacks that were 10 times more exhilarating than ts or v8s. It's highly subjective! But what's not very subjective is opening a door that was never fitted right from day one and thinking what a s hit purchase you made!

N.B. Subaru are among the highest quality cars you can buy. They are at least the same quality as Audi.

[DBOSS]

  lightning_strike said:

I've been in Peugeot hatchbacks that were 10 times more exhilarating than ts or v8s.

You enjoy your Peugeot I'd be quite happy with a Auto F6/GT with a Edited 320 rwklw,full whiteline coil over suspension,custom leather,sunroof,19's and 6 spot brembo's and you can stick ya pigeon and Big Modern Wank up your stuck up

CYA JEFF

PS: IMHO!!

[lightning_strike]

  DBOSS said:

  lightning_strike said:

I've been in Peugeot hatchbacks that were 10 times more exhilarating than ts or v8s.

You enjoy your Peugeot I'd be quite happy with a Auto F6/GT with a Edited 320 rwklw,full whiteline coil over suspension,custom leather,sunroof,19's and 6 spot brembo's and you can stick ya pigeon and Big Modern Wank up your stuck up

CYA JEFF

PS: IMHO!!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Interesting choice of words Jeff! The mity pug can power through corners and gives you the feeling of being a big ferret in a small cage as opposed to the feeling throwing a hot dog down a corridor driving a falcon!

[EvilDaifu]

  Shockwave-T said:

...

I wonder if any have been addressed on the BFs?

...

Oh yeah, and I hate how the mirrors shake with the bass in my stereo. Even a standard XT has mirror-shake.

Hiya all,

I like the way my mirror shakes on my BF XR6T when I've got the base way up. Heck, I point it out to my passengers with a big grin

I used to have a BA MkI XR6 and I noticed how the front doors never seamed to line up with the rear doors as you looked in the side rear view mirrors. But that's changed in my BF. All lines up now.

In my BF, a little interior plastic screw holding up some door lining above the rear door has started to work it sway out letting some of the lining peel outwards. I just pushed it back in and seems to have stuck so far. Only done just over 5000 kms so far.

I now get a sort of metal stressing "eeeeck" sound when I brake moderately hard at slow speed. I never noticed such a sound in my BA - but then my BA had brake shudder which really annoyed me. Nothing like brake shudder so far and I don't expect any either having bigger Territory brakes in the T.

I personally think the fit of panels is much better on the BF than the BA. I notice that the rear quarter metal panels sort of jut out about 1mm instead of meeting flushly with the rear plastic bumper. I suspect that's because the rear bumper is subtley different in the BF than the BA but I'm only guessing that.

In the BA, my front bumper used to scrape the sharply angled drive-way at my sister's place but the BF does not do that which I am really happy about.

And of course, the thing that really annoys me about the BF so far (but that's relative because I luv the car) is when strong sunlight hits the dash at the right angle, it's really hard to read the dash meters because of the strong reflections. I've gotten somewhat around this by putting a bit of plastic material not so reflective in the lower dash lip so that there aren't any strong reflections over the speedometer, but the rest of dash sort of becomes illegible.

Anyway, enuf from moi.

[ZAP]

I can understand that people have gripes about their new cars and my car (04/04) T had its fair share.

What I have found when dealing with Ford service is, it is far easier to not stress and fix some of the problems yourself or get your local panel shop or mechanic to do it. With door alignments, they all seem to suffer it, but most people will not notice it, but if you do, then a panel beater will do a far more perfect job than a 1st year apprentice mechanic.

With the boot leaks, get a friend to hop in the boot with a light and close the boot. Run a hose on low around the seals and see if they can find the leak point, turn up the pressure if it does not leak. Most leaks are caused by bad rubber seals and can be a simple as pushing the seal into place, or a small amount of silicone to stick it down.

Any falts like driveline clunking is a real problem that seems to be continually ignored by Ford. I have taken them to task over this problem, but got no where. I just accepted that it is a feature, as I am yet to find many people who have managed to fix the problem. Ford has replaced many clunky diffs with diffs that whine and clunk, so the cure can be more than the problem.

After 20 months of ownership, I can say that my car is bug free aside from the diff clunk.

I thought my driveline clunk was bad untill I drove a mates HSV R8, it was 5x worse and he thought all manuals did it.

Most of the problems I have seen here are minor and can be fixed by the average handy person. In an ideal world we should not have to fix problems on $50k+ cars, but getting angry about it will solve nothing.

Oh and Dallas, there are many new BMW owners that are not happy, I am sure you will find the problem rate % between BMW (or any mass car maker) and Ford are closer than you think, I just feel the satisfaction rate would be higher with BMW as their dealer service is better.