Ford XR6 turbo

hi guys,
what are the general opinons of this car 03 - 07, thinking of getting one. will be a second car that my wife drives, to school and back, but will tow the boat when required

Cheers

Nice cars actually. Very good interior space and comfortable seats. The only problems I've encountered are, front wheel bearings and rear suspension bushes. But, in having said that, these cars were driven on gravel roads frequently.

handles well like all falcons and enuff grunt to pull the boat yet gentle enough around town and only really drink fuel when u give it stick .points out of 10 .8.i have an 05

Good cars indeed. Engines are generally bullet proof, common faults are rear shock bushes and sway bar links, front wheel bearings and balljoints - however Ford will pay for the cost of a replacement balljoint under warranty, but not labour - only takes about 5 minutes to do one though (I have only done about 100 of them!)

The xr6 of the same age would be just as fit for purpose as the turbo and cheaper and more economical.

Admit it. You want something you can thrash when the wife isn't "doing the school run"

The motor makes over 1000hp easy with the right bits. If you look on YouTube you can find a vid of one out of the car turning the manifold white hot.

Remember the year range you quoted covers two models - BA and BF.
Assuming you are looking at automatic The BA will have the 4 speed box while the BF has the ZF 6 speed. There really is no comparing!

Having had both I can tell you honestly they are not entirely problem free.
1. BA and BF were both shocking for developing brake shudder which would really only ever go away once far better quality rotors and pads to standard were fitted.
2. Turbos DO fail prematurely. The oil feed line to the turbo is fitted with a micro gauze strainer where they exit the block on the left side - not easy to get at and therefore often never changed. This will result in premature bearing failure in the turbo. It can be prevented by fitting an aftermarket feed line with inline filter in it.
3. Suspension in a BA is likely to be getting tired but you have to expect that of any car that age and size.
4. If towing the factory oil cooler for the transmission is not enough. You will need to fit a decent one and bypass the one that passes through the radiator.

Thats the bad. I had tired of mine some months ago and started to think it was time to buy a new FG XR6 without the turbo. I figured the ZF trans would probably compensate for the lack of turbo by having a gear for every situation. HELL NO!
I hired one for a week down south and quickly realised there is something special the turbo has - you'll know it the first time you ask it to knock over a half dozen slow movers up a passing lane ;-)

Whatare the o3 utes like

Have a BF Turbo
BF's have the 6 speed ZF,transmission cooler

Get one with the luxury Pack (climate Air),or tell the wife the F6 is better

We have a 05 xr6 non turbo awesome car to drive ahd is great for towing our caravan.Have had it for two years now no problems at all.Only has 69000ks on it though.

Nice cars, apart from the heinous build quality. Go very well, a normal XR6 would probably do the job for you, but I'd buy a turbo also given the opportunity.

yes. that is correct

thanks for the answers guys

The XR6T engines, as far as I am aware are largely as bullet proof as the N/A engine and have very few vices. They don't run high boost so are not very stressed. Around 5psi only. They go amazingly well and are quite durable even if they have had a hard time.
Make sure it has had proper servicing with at least a (spec) 10w-30 oil. The dual VCT actuators can clog up if poorly serviced.
The big issue as with anything, would be condition of the cooling system and water pump. The O ring at the back of the water pump can be prone to leaking, visible between the block and the P/S pump body where the pipe goes in the back of the water pump. Easy fix though.
Check for sump gasket oil leaks, not usually major leaks, but a massive job to replace the gasket if you wanted to.

At those KM I would possibly be concerned about the transmission more than anything. (automatic I assume!). They have no dipstick so you will need to either have a garage look at the fluid condition and level, or check it yourself through the bung on the R/H side of the trans, but it is a bastard to access and fill. They have no drain plug and you have to drop the pan to drain it. A full fluid flush would be recommended, maybe using around 12-16L ATF. Must be model specific, they don't take Dexron oils, use Shell XTR or Castrol TQ 95, or Fuchs Titan 4400.
Check to see if it has a towbar, and what sort of condition the towbar mounting points are in. IE flexed out, loose bolts, very worn tow Ball, etc. Just to establish whether it's had a hiding while towing - Very hard on trans!

The other, not so big an issue is most of the BA/BF suffer from brake shudder. Can be machined out, but replacement rotors are most of the time, more cost effective. Pads normally last around 50-70,000km and stop the car quite well. Just make sure wheel nuts are torqued to spec, 135nm, criss-cross pattern, 2 stages. Ford put out a bulletin when I was working for them, saying the shudder was mostly due to incorrect wheel nut torque and sequence. Tyre shops using rattle guns in stead of the proper gear.
We found this helped a lot.

RUST can become an issue now, as they are up to 8-9 years old. Stick your head inside the boot and look up under the parcel tray near the corners by where the seatbelt mounts are. I have seen large holes there. The panel edges fret and they have no protection only paint.
Check inner sills on the flat panel, and with the bonnet up, check around the tops of the inner guards, they normally have a rust stain along the panel seams, but no rust there.

All the best, If you buy it, enjoy. Slay the throttle and you will see the high side of 20+ L/100km! Cruise and yo will get down to 10-11L/100km.

Only thing to change on the above, the Turbo engines should be running a 15w40 oil, 5w30/10w30 is too thin for them.

I owned a BA XR6 turbo and can also vouch for these being a fantastic car. I purchased the car as a demo with a few thousand km's on it and owned it until it had done about 110,000 kms. It was virtually problem free apart from some brake shudder as mentioned. This is not uncommon on other performance vehicles either as we owend turbo Subaru,s prior to the Ford and they also got brake shudder about every 50,000ks. The difference was the Falcon was taken to Ford for disc machining and the cost was 61 dollars and we were good for another 40 or 50,000ks. Oil blockage on turbo oil feed is from people that dont service the vehicle. Dirty oil blocks the feed. We had ours serviced at proper intervals and it was a gem to own and drive. The only other problem it had was a dead battery which was the original and that was 5 years old. It was so good I traded in on an FG xr6 turbo and have not regretted owing them one bit. Drive up a steep hill with an overtaking lane, squeeze the throttle and watch the cars in the left lane fade in the rear vision mirror lol. You will love it.

If there is a choice I would go for the BF model over the BA even though my BA was great. They get the 6 spd auto and beefier brakes and a few other improvements that can make them a better car to buy used.

Oil feed blockage is not always a simple matter of poor servicing intervals. According to the Ford service manual the micro gauze filter is supposed to be replaced every so many thousand kms. Ford NZ have NEVER stocked one so that tells you a little.

Totally with you on the enjoyment factor on passing lanes though.

We took ours from Wellington to Invercargill over xmas - 4000km of driving in total with average fuel consumption of 10.4l per 100km. That included some "spirited driving" on deserted roads and using it to its potential on passing lanes etc.

Beware though, suspension can be expected to be pretty tired on a 100000km + BA but as long as you budget for it its no biggie.

We have a xr6T BF mk2 , 2007 model. Nice car , the only fault is that some interior bits tend to fall off and the front door cards come away from the door frame. And one more thing , the bottom of the ZF tranny is plastic , dont go on gravel roads with larger than normal rocks :-) Oh,,,and they are pigs on gas around town.

Thats incorrect. We change quite a few of the Gauze filters at work (Specially Turbo Territories, they seem to be worst then the Falcons) and know for a fact that Ford NZ have plenty in stock, in fact both dealers in CHCH have plenty in stock.

There is a Steel Pan option, when we do trans services at 90k we recommend replacing the plastic pan with a steel pan for this reason. Pretty sure some territories came out with a steel pan factory too.

Oh bugger , just had ours replaced with another pvc one ! Didnt get the option ! How much is a steel one !

Its a little more expensive as it incorporates the filter as part of the pan assembly, I think it was around $180 last time we did one.

we were given the option of a steel pan when we had ours serviced for the tranny as the filter is part of the pan got a quote of " $800 just for the pan" then they have to supply special oil for it total I got quoted was $1300 ! we kept the plastic pan and just drive carefully over gravel
Got a sheet metal place looking at a stone guard for the trans

Where was that at!

The Fluid is fairly expensive, around ~$50/L and you need about 5L, but the Pan certainly isn't that expensive, even at Retail price

Perhaps Capital City Ford need a little training then. They have told me the same thing on three different occassions.

Our replacement PVC pan was $550 + Install +fluid.