Thread: Buying a Falcon

I imagine it will have crummy steelies and ride like a cement truck

You'll be able to tell if it was a cab, see if any are going through the auctions anymore, dad has bought several for people ont their behalf after checking them out, low kays and half what they were new, all good cars, albeit sedans

Going by my experience with my Falcon ute, which I have named "The Two-in-One", being the first and the last Falcon I will own, I would say "don't buy one".

The 3800 pushrod V6 Commodores are far better cars.

I had a BA Mk 2 Gt for a couple of years, top car never missed a beat.

Mt Bro in-law has had a BA sedan for 5 or 6 years now. He drives to and from Brisbane to Central Coast NSW all the time for his missus to visit the family. Never had a major problem - motor, box, diff all original, some minor trim issues.

If you pick the right one, it will do you for years.

If it's an ex-Vic taxi, it'll be canary yellow of different shades with 1,500,000 km on its odo, on LPG.

Plenty of better than taxis around, at reasonable prices.

Buy it in a major centre (Melb, Syd) and freight it in.

Pete

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

Going by my experience with my Falcon ute, which I have named "The Two-in-One", being the first and the last Falcon I will own, I would say "don't buy one".

The 3800 pushrod V6 Commodores are far better cars.

Haha see i completely disagree, we've had both in the family, the 3.8 V6 Holden and the 4.0L Ford, the holdens have problems and the Fords don't (bar the rear diff in the ute, which collapsed the bearings due to wrong oil). Personally i'm a straight six man, would never own a V6 petrol, just don't like that configuration and the 4L Ford motor is very long lived, this is just my experience but they aren't all the same as can be seen in your comment, either engine will be good, but if i put my money on a new falcodore it would be an XR6 Falcon (and i'm a Holden man, though thats classic cars)

Drove BA/BF Falcons for years for work and they are great cars. Cheap to run, reliable and comfortable, even the low spec ones.

The taxis will have 500,000 Km + on the clock and personally I wouldn't have one. The engine when looked after will be OK but what of the rest of the car ? You can usually pick them by a/. the colour or b/. the wheels, crappy steel rims with no trims but a crappy little wheel nut covering disks.

One of BA/BF's biggest issue is brake rotors, Ford couldn't make a decent brake rotor to save their lives. They WILL go out of round, shudder and need machining, probably every 20,000 Km. Just live with it, not hard or expensive to fix.

Fords green engined (dedicated LPG) BA/BF's are brilliant, 900 Km+ country cruising on 100 litres of LPG are the pick of the crop and there are lots of well maintained ex-fleet ones out there, especially station wagon versions.

Deano

Thanks guys. There are some good points there, one of them concerning something I hadn't thought of, which is that if it had been a taxi, then it would be LPG. I wonder how likely it is for any taxis being on straight petrol these days? I'm steering clear of gas, as it's too hard to get fixed up here. And watching the auctions first is a great idea.

It's going to be a Falcon, partly as our mechanic here is a Ford man and I don't mind keeping mechanics happy, (within reason), but also I really think the straight-six has a great layout for me to work on, and I know I'll wind up working on it. Especially with labour at $110/hr.

Our mechanic also had some interesting things to say about the rear suspension in Commodores scrubbing tyres, and he reckons the computers on them can be more difficult as well. This is one thing that concerns me, because around here if electronics cause too much trouble, the car gets shipped to Broome! For about $500 one way! Great! (This is one reason why I've stuck with my carbied Range Rover.) But in the end, I think the Fords and Holdens are a very close match in the station wagon.

I'm petrified of buying a new car. I've never owned one with a computer and electric windows and without leaks everywhere.