Ford recalls more E-Gas Falcons

FORD Australia has recalled a further 9072 LPG-fuelled Falcon E-Gas vehicles to fix a faulty brake booster check valve that could result in reduced braking power assistance.

Announced on Friday (February 26) and affecting all factory-fitted LPG versions of the BF Series III and new FG Falcon sedan, wagon and utility built between October 20, 2008 and September 4, 2009.

The latest Falcon E-Gas recall follows Ford’s June 5, 2009 recall of some 20,864 BFII/III and FG Falcon models sold between January 16, 2007 and August 22, 2008, bringing the total number of affected vehicles to 29,936.

Ford Australia spokesperson Sinead McAlary confirmed the fresh LPG Falcon recall was a continuation of last year’s recall and that all known owners of affected vehicles would be contacted by mail. Alternatively, they can contact any Ford dealer or Ford’s Customer Relationship Centre on 1800 503 672.

“We had fixed the brake booster valves in a certain car parc of cars, but the supplier has now come back and said we’d better extend that to include a few more because they mucked up the part in a larger number of cars,” said Ms McAlary.

Left: Ford Falcon Wagon BFIII, Center: Ford FG Falcon Ute, Below: Ford SY Territory.

Ford says that under certain conditions, the vacuum supply from the LPG engine to the brake booster might develop a vacuum leak at the check valve.

“This could result in reduced power assistance to the vehicle's service brakes.” Ford will release next-generation liquid gas injection versions of the E-Gas Falcon later this year to replace the simpler venturi/mixer vaporisation system, to comply with tighter new Euro 4 emissions standards due in effect from July.

Ford last year announced separate braking-related recalls for 800 examples of its 2008 and 2009 model year LV Focus and MA Mondeo diesel in May and, two months earlier, all SX and SY-series Territory models (excluding the Turbo) built between February 2004 and December 2008.

Australia’s only locally manufactured SUV has also become affected by a widening ball joint problem, for which Ford has this week confirmed it will foot the entire bill.

Ford has admitted all versions of its original Territory, which was released in 2004 and continued until early 2009, when a different ball joint design was fitted, are potentially affected by an excessive wear issue that can lead to “ball joint separation while undertaking low-speed, high steering effort manoeuvres”.

Ms McAlary confirmed a “small number” of such incidents have been reported but stressed that the majority of instances of excessive ball joint wear were discovered and rectified by Ford dealers during routine servicing.

Previously, Ford’s policy was that all Territorys would be repaired free of charge if they were still under new-vehicle warranty, while Ford contributed between 50 and 100 per cent of the cost for vehicles outside warranty, judged on a case-by-case basis.

In the latest development of an issue that is not officially classed as a safety recall but could potentially amount to expensive fixes for more than 85,000 vehicles, Ford now says its dealers will replace suspect ball joints, free of charge, if they find significant wear.