Aussies! Get in here!

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No, I used to work there, but we did get a lot of disgruntled customers! You don't get access to documents like that unless you work there. A lot of these mods are done to customers cars without them even knowing. They do a sneaky on them when they come in for a service and put a little black sticker on the A pillar by the door check strap. That way the customer is not alerted to how poor their car really is. Of course some have been very serious ( like steering racks falling out of cars ) and they have to contact the customer to bring it in straight away.

I just want people to know the truth. Lol, when I told a Ford Mechanic who had spent 30years with his head under the bonnet of Fords that a S2000 makes 240HP from 2L he straight up dismissed it as a lie. I had to show him physical evidence, should have seen the look on his face when he realised I was telling the truth, priceless.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is I wouldn't want a car like an XR-6 in the game because it looks ok on paper but in reality if you tried to put a BA round a race track without full RM the wheels would fall off. Since GT5 doesn't model cars mechanical limits the difference between virtual and reality would be too great and unrealistic.
Honestly if a cars brake discs warp to the point that they need to get skimmed 3 times in 6 months doing commuter work what chance would they have at a race track?

Same goes for Subarus, which are well know to spit centre diffs doing mundane road driving yet in the virtual world it can have all the advantages and few of the downsides.The car only takes with it whats on paper so if it looks good on paper it will clean up on GT5.
 
First off, I find it laughable when someone opens their post with "sorry", when they are absolutely intending to stick the knife in to someone/something. Seems to happen a lot on forums.

You say you posted the TSBs you had lying around, and there is more. I'll believe there's more if you post more. That looks like close to the whole lot from what I've seen over the years.

This is NOTHING compared to the recalls that Toyota, the supposed king of reliability, has had in the last two years alone. Not to mention the "unintended acceleration" issues, which are much more serious. I can't turn on the financial channel without a monthly recall for Toyota hitting the headlines during 2009/2010.

That does not mean Toyota has suddenly become unreliable. My brothers 2000 2.7 petrol Hilux is a tough jigger. But it has had it's share of problems. The cambelt let go way before it was due for replacement. Luckily the valves didn't hit the pistons due to the head design (but most cars are like that now). Right/rear wheel bearing crapped itself a year ago. He replaced that, then the left has just gone. It is still a tough/reliable rig though, but it's fuel economy is just awful compared to my Falcons.

I still have my AU as a daily driver, the most reliable car I've ever had. I had a slowly leaking water pump replaced under warranty and that is all in 11 years. If my FG G6ETurbo is near as reliable (and it has been so far) I will be very, very happy.

I notice how you have no TSBs for the BF, I'll have to check, but AFAIK there are almost none. No matter what manufacturer, I'd never buy the first in a new series. Always wait a year while the niggles get sorted out. Of course, their are people who can't wait, or have to have the newest thing, that's fine. They can help diagnose any faults, and I'll buy the upgraded model.

The front discs (and less so, the rears) on the BA are rubbish, I agree. If I'd bought a BA, the first thing I'd have done when the rotors warped was swap them for DBA slotted rotors. But the average person shouldn't have to resort to that. They just want a reliable car. There is no excuse for this.

Labour costs? Anyone with a brain takes their car to an independent, accredited mechanic for service or repairs. You don't lose your factory warranty, and it's a lot cheaper. Many (I might say ALL) caryards make their money on servicing and parts.

Look at Toyotas $130 capped price servicing. When you read the fine print, you realise it doesn't include a lot of stuff, and it's every 6 months or 7,500kms. Bugger that. My service prices are about double but for 12 months 15,000kms. Why would I want the hassle of bi-annual services that work out to cost the same?

EDIT: Forgot to add, the fact is EVERY manufacturer has problems, some have less than others, and some are just rubbish. IMHO Ford Aus (and GMHolden) fall in the middle. It is amazing what they offer (size and especially power) in the Commodore and Falcon when you consider the high labour costs in this country. It won't be long before there is no manufacturing in this country. It'll all be done in India and China and maybe Korea (they're starting to fall into our boat of high labour costs).

The Americans are reasonable protected by unions, but how long will that last? Look at Top Gear lamenting the near death of the British motor industry. We're next. All we will be doing is digging ore out of the ground to export, than buy made goods back from those same resources.
 
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that's great ghost ryder. The strain relief kit.. was a cable tie.... water leaking, clean connector, steering creak was a washer....
the only big one is the p/s pump, but it says if required.
so in all of that list where is the "mechanical" failure?
Holdens have a problem with timing chains stretching and throwing codes.
Toyota's in america had faulty accelerator pedals.
All models have problems..even the mighty GTR has problems.

so tell me this, out of that list what part "failed" as you say?
you will say the pump, but it says "if required" but that isn't failure...:confused:

and a steering rack falling out of a car??? come on.. who has heard of that before?
 
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You say you posted the TSBs you had lying around, and there is more. I'll believe there's more if you post more. That looks like close to the whole lot from what I've seen over the years.
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You are way off. You would need an entire bookcase to house them all. I only have these floating around in my Roll cab. Sorry but Ford Doesn't exactly open their library of faults to the general public so I no longer have access to them. Unless you work in the industry you will only ever find out about the one the media gets hold of or if it happens to your own car. Any of these things that occur after the 1 year warranty is paid for by the customer.

If people are spreading mis-truths then I have every right to correct them. I think being that I've worked in the industry I'm in a position to know the truth. Makes sense right?

Unfortunately I don't have the best ones on me because as a mechanic you relied on the library copy. Can't fit thousands of pieces of paper in every Technicians roll cab can you?

How about ( as we called it) the Ford Exploder, would develop a chain rattle when cold which meant the motor needed to be removed and have new parts fitted totaling $6000? but I suppose you know that already? Any "Exploder" that people would try to trade in to the dealer that did not already have indication of the mod would not be bought. The dealer would insist on keeping it over night so that they could listen for the rattle on stone cold startup. If it rattled they would then throw the keys back and say " no thanks".

I notice how you have no TSBs for the BF
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I stopped working there the year they changed the model over.

By the AU3 they had ironed out most the problems, the face palm though is when the BA came out all the AU1 problems were back. They are like a band that releases an album, you go out and buy it then two weeks later they release a limited edition with a extra song. Thats Ford AU1 then AU2 , "better buy that its better" then the Au3 Oh I better trade on to that one its even better". Then release a new model and start all over again. You would think a company that has building cars for over 100 years could make a set of brakes that work or one sealing surface that doesn't leak. They can they just don't want to. They make all their money on parts.

and a steering rack falling out of a car??? come on.. who has heard of that before?
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Oh buddy if you only knew. I will try to explain how something like this happens. Two mounting bolts hold the rack in. Only one bolt actually mounts directly through the rack into the aluminium sub frame behind. The other bolt mounts through a bracket which the rack sits in, when said bolt is tightened into the aluminium sub frame it clamps the bracket down on the rack. This is where it goes belly up. There is no nut or lock washer holding those bolts in. They are just threaded into the soft alloy sub frame. The one that is direct attached to the rack vibrates out. Then when the customer turns the wheel enough times the whole rack slides through the bracket ( the last mounting hardware) and drops out. The fix we had to do on all these cars that had been running around for years before they realised the problem was to do a small spot weld on the bolt where it comes through the rear of the sub frame. THey were also re torqued to prevent it happening. The idea was even if they came loose the spot weld would stop the bolt unscrewing itself out the thread. This was a pretty half ass fix but they had to do it on the cheap as thousands of these cars were already running around.

And FYI Ford has so little confidence in their product they don't even own their own dealerships. Thats got to tell you something if they don't want the risk of selling there own cars.
 
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I'm not going to rant on for ever, cause we all know, all manufacturers have problems, particularly with new models.

You have the opinion that Fords are shonky, I'll bet its not too hard to find someone that thinks any other brand is just as bad.

Fords particular problem is the after sales service provided by their dealer network, just go on the Aus Ford Forum to check that out, and those are guys the LOVE their Fords!
 
I have very little knowledge on the American Explorer (Exploder if you like). Wasn't the main issue with the Firestone tyres? My brother in law did own one for a while with the 4.0L V6, it seemed ok-ish despite being FWD-biased, definitely an SUV, not a 4WD. Pig on juice though, but that accusation could be levelled at any non-diesel SUV.

Could you clarify the difference between "thousands of pieces of paper" and the actual amount of TSBs you've seen? A simple matter of wording makes something much bigger or smaller than it really is.

BroncosXR8
I'm not going to rant on for ever, cause we all know, all manufacturers have problems, particularly with new models.

You have the opinion that Fords are shonky, I'll bet its not too hard to find someone that thinks any other brand is just as bad.

Fords particular problem is the after sales service provided by their dealer network, just go on the Aus Ford Forum to check that out, and those are guys the LOVE their Fords!
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Exactly. I could bring up some of Holden's or Mitsubishi's problems/recalls but no manufacturer is immune except possibly specialists like Rolls Royce.
 
Can anyone say Holden and power steering pump...

Notoriously unreliable on a race track, until they finally fixed the problem with the VE.

GT5 doesnt replicate any of the mechanical weakness of any car. So the problem with Aussie cars is moot.
I have wished for a long long time that brake fade and wear could somehow be added to the game, much like tyre wear, so cars with drum brakes or stock brakes would only last one big stop/half a lap before needing to nurse it for the rest of the race.
 
Watto
I have very little knowledge on the American Explorer (Exploder if you like). Wasn't the main issue with the Firestone tyres? My brother in law did own one for a while with the 4.0L V6, it seemed ok-ish despite being FWD-biased, definitely an SUV, not a 4WD. Pig on juice though, but that accusation could be levelled at any non-diesel SUV.

Could you clarify the difference between "thousands of pieces of paper" and the actual amount of TSBs you've seen? A simple matter of wording makes something much bigger or smaller than it really is.



Exactly. I could bring up some of Holden's or Mitsubishi's problems/recalls but no manufacturer is immune except possibly specialists like Rolls Royce.
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I'm seriously not exaggerating. The AU had three folders each big enough to be a encyclopedia. Thats one for AU1 one for AU2 and one for AU3.

Did you know the shape of the rear c pillar on the AU had a fault inherent to it? If you wound the back windows down you would be assaulted by a buffeting high pressure resonance. Many customers complained which resulted in a TSB for the techs and dealers so they knew of the prob and how to resolve it. Which they couldn't, had to tell the customer to just put the rear windows up.
The point of those TSB's wasn't supposed to be a killing blow just an illustration of how many problems they have and thats just basic stuff like the shape of the car or water pump pipe connection. And guess what you wont get far on a leaking cooling system. I don't know about you but I'm not going to put my faith in a car that has a cable tie stopping it from bleeding to death.

Mitsubishi is a very dodgy company. A few years back I think it was Hong Kong police raided their headquarters and found all soughts of dodgy faults that they should of made public but chose to hide. A wheel broke off a school bus in New Zealand and a motorist was killed when a wheel came off a mitsi truck on the motorway bounced over the barrier and decapitated a motorist coming the other way.

The main faults with the "Exploder" was the chain guides wore down then the chain would no longer be held under tension, then it would come off then the motor would destroy itself.
Another was the cruise control switch would actually ignite and catch fire.

My favourite was the bolts holding the back of the seat to the bottom of the seat. The TSB stated something like " In the event of an accident the bolts may shear resulting in the driver loosing reach of the steering wheel. lol. When one came in for a service we fitted a new set of tougher bolts put the little sticker on and the customer never even knew there was a problem.

Go out and look in the A pillars on the drivers side by the check strap on the AU'ss, BA's, Territories and especially the Exploder. You will sometimes see a whole list of them. They have the TSB No. and the date the work was carried out so the next time it come in for a service the Ford Tech can see if it has had all know faults fixed or not.
 
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Can anyone say Holden and power steering pump...

Notoriously unreliable on a race track, until they finally fixed the problem with the VE.
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This is because the same companies build many of the parts for Commodores and Falcons. Example the Front brake rotors on BA's are made by the same company that makes the Commodore ones. So you get a lot of the same problems mirrored in both cars if they share a common part.
 
Ghost Rydor
Did you know the shape of the rear c pillar on the AU had a fault inherent to it? If you wound the back windows down you would be assaulted by a buffeting high pressure resonance. Many customers complained which resulted in a TSB for the techs and dealers so they knew of the prob and how to resolve it. Which they couldn't, had to tell the customer to just put the rear windows up.
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Yep, I've sure have experienced that. It's almost a warble, and you see the front seat belts, where they go down to the retractors, flapping in the breeze. Either put the back windows up, or wind the fronts down as well. It is a horrible noise. The other point with the C-pillar is the difficulty with ingress/egress to the back seat. You have to duck too much.

Part of the FG's 80% body change was rectifying this C-pillar issue. It is A LOT easier to get in and out of.

I use my AU for work so I rarely have rear seat passengers. As I said, most reliable car I've had (and I've had cars from other makes), maybe I got I good one, and maybe there's the odd lemon, like any other make.
 
your origanl argument was (and I quote)
"I can tell you Australian model Fords are the most unreliable cars on the market "

So ummm...the explorer wasn't made in Australia.......
 
Look, I am not a Ford or Holden fan.

All I am trying to say is that you can't say Australian cars are the worst, when you just don;t know that for sure.
It's like saying all Kiwi's make love to sheep. Sure it's true, but I wont hold it against you.
 
conjerski
Look, I am not a Ford or Holden fan.

All I am trying to say is that you can't say Australian cars are the worst, when you just don;t know that for sure.
It's like saying all Kiwi's make love to sheep. Sure it's true, but I wont hold it against you.
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When its your job to fix them for four years and you have friends at other manufacturers dealerships you are in a pretty good position to make such statements. When you are part of the industry you are privy to all sorts of information off limits to the public or even independent garages.
You are working among people some of who have worked for 30 years and have spent time at various dealerships, a wealth of information. Plus everyone knows someone from another garage.
It's not like when you go on the Internet to find out how to do something on a car and its full of the general public who don't know what they are doing giving "advice".

You can argue semantics all night but at the end of the day what I am saying is true so its futile to try. Yes the Explorer is American made. I just threw that in as it is most probably the biggest lemon to grace the Earth and it is sold in this market. I did mention Falcons and Territories. Stop ignoring main points.
If you try to make sense of the numbers on those TSB's you will see that there was at least 99 for the BA series alone in one year.
 
Labour costs? Anyone with a brain takes their car to an independent, accredited mechanic for service or repairs. You don't lose your factory warranty, and it's a lot cheaper. Many (I might say ALL) caryards make their money on servicing and parts.
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No, especially not if its a Ford. Because the product is always faulty they are constantly upgrading replacement parts. Aftermarket parts companies are always behind the 8 ball. They don't know the faults until the Manufacturer discovers them and makes a new part. Then they reverse engineer what they see. So often your aftermarket part is dated and inadequate.



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Good luck when your independent garage wrecks your tremec 6 speed box and your LSD cause you thought being cheap would save you money. This sought of data is a closely guarded secret. It puts all the smaller garages in their pocket and they have to send much of their jobs back to Ford. Who the hell is going to know that you fill and check the fluid level through the reverse switch when there is a perfectly good filler hole? No one thats who. Needless to say it was not uncommon to get cars that other garages had tried to "fix".
 
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Hi ya sunny qld here,
I was quite upset that we didnt even get a look in on the tracks!
It was nice having the aussie cars in previous games, even though they didnt act anything like reality when they were tuned on the game.....
Hopefully they remodel and release some DLC
 
Did anyone watch this on the weekend? One of the best finishes to a race I have seen, and its such a shame we can't replicate it in GT5 :(

 
@Ghost Rydor, I think you'll find that the level of engineering in an FG is significantly better than in the AU which ceased production nearly 10 years ago now.

Additionally, you'll also find that the all manufacturers suffer similar types of issues.

Why? Because they all follow a similar development validation regime, and they all pick from the same supply base for a large percentage of the vehicle content. They have to otherwise they will either cease to be cost competitive or will have cars that are noticeably less reliable than their competition and sales will suffer as a result (note that Toyota sales in the US dropped last year on the back of their high profile recalls).
 
CarreraGT
Did anyone watch this on the weekend? One of the best finishes to a race I have seen, and its such a shame we can't replicate it in GT5 :(

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Imagine if the A.I in GT5 was like that.:drool:

Oh well, maybe in Gran Turismo 19.
 
]@Ghost Rydor, I think you'll find that the level of engineering in an FG is significantly better than in the AU which ceased production nearly 10 years ago now.

[/QUOTE

I'm sorry do you work for Ford?

Additionally, you'll also find that the all manufacturers suffer similar types of issues.
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Keep telling yourself that. Not all cars are created equal. Some suffer much more then others. Mazda offers a 3 years warranty compared to Fords 1. Smell the roses.

Why? Because they all follow a similar development validation regime, and they all pick from the same supply base for a large percentage of the vehicle content. They have to otherwise they will either cease to be cost competitive or will have cars that are noticeably less reliable than their competition and sales will suffer as a result (note that Toyota sales in the US dropped last year on the back of their high profile recalls).
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No they don't. Holden and Ford in Australasia do not have the budget of the Japanese. So to release new models as frequently they don't get as much time designing and testing them. 99.999% of recalls on cars you will never know about.

Companies like Ford have a devoted fanbase that often have owned Fords all their lives and like you said "think that all cars have the same problems". How would they know?

They only remain competitive in our countries because of cheap petrol prices and their continual marketing and associating with sports teams like the All blacks. They are a status car alot of people buy them because they think thats what they are supposed to do and even more lease them because they don't want the burden of owning them. They also have their fingers in alot of pies down under, insurance companies, lease contracts and such. Same with Toyota. The two of them pretty much own New Zealand motoring.

I can't explain to all 16 million PSN users who have no experience in the industry so I will not be continuing this topic. If you think you know more then someone who saw hundreds of these cars a week for a living, driving and fixing them, Hearing from your friends on the weekends whats happening at the other manufacturers, spoken with many old hands in the industry and had access to files relegated to secrecy then so be it.

For the record I think with the myriad of models Toyota has had available over the years they have done pretty well. Yep sticking accelerator is pretty dodgy but so is the rack falling out your Falcon, the lower arm falling out your Territory and so on. There is much more you guys don't know so please don't think you now have the knowledge to form a argument.

Please continue with the original purpose of this thread.
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Response to Ghost Rydor before the topic moves on - I appreciate your candor and politeness. I think it's all too easy for discussions like this to denegrate rapidly into a flame war. Note that my response was not meant in a negative manner or to offend, I was just offering my opinion on the subject.

Have I worked at a dealership - no. Do I work in the industry - most definately. I do not work for Ford, but I do work with Ford (in several countries), VW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Mazda, GM (not just Holden) and Toyota, and have done so for the last 15 years in various Engineering and commercial capacities.

I am not trying to p1ss higher than you, just pointing out that my thoughts are not entirely baseless.

Genuinely happy to continue our discussion on PM as I value your thoughts and opinions as much as I hope you do mine. Feel free to contact me should you feel the same.

All the best, Carlos

Edit: For the record, I think the AU is a woeful car, but that's just my opinion...
 
...Not all cars are created equal. Some suffer much more then others. Mazda offers a 3 years warranty compared to Fords 1. Smell the roses.
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A car company offering a longer warranty than a competitor is not directly proportional to the quality of the vehicle. If this logic were valid then a Hyundai with a 5 year warranty should be a better car than a Mazda with a 3 year warranty. So then does KIA, who offers a 7 year warranty in Europe, trump all car manufacturers?

I have driven a new i30 and it feels worse to drive than a VY or AU or a 10 year old Astra for that matter.
 
@ Ghost Rydor dosn't ford give NZ the same warranty as in Aus - New ford gets 3 years here and also get to carry over the balance if sold before the warranty expires. I am just curious as I thought that it would be the same.
 
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Why are we dragging our cars through the mud on an international forum? No car maker is immune to these problems but I don't see anyone else here going out of their way to draw such negative attention to their home-grown vehicles.
 
Etho78
@ Ghost Rydor dosn't ford give NZ the same warranty as in Aus - New ford gets 3 years here and also get to carry over the balance if sold before the warranty expires. I am just curious as I thought that it would be the same.
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3 years/100,000kms. It's been that way since at least AU in 1999.

BF to FG's service intervals have gone from xxxxxkms/6months to 15,000kms/12months.

I assume NZ is the same?
 
I don't know about about you, but I find discussions about car warranty much more interesting then an awesome finish to a car race.
 
I dont know about the finish, but I would like a video of Garth Tander saying to the camera - 'You dont win the race on the first corner, that move was just stupid' 💡 or something to that effect...

and than I want the ability to send that video to other online players :ouch:
 

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