EA Falcon a flop at release?

[TUFED6]

According to this story in Drive-

http://news.drive.com.au/drive/motor-fe ... 22ws8.html

The EA Falcon was a flop at release. Are there any numbers to back that up?

[Nikk O'lass]

While there was quality problems, i was typical of a Clean sheet design....like the VE...

There would have to be over 150000 EA sold?

[SNR]

Well we know the 3.2 was a flop, because that got discontinued almost immediately. I hadn't seen or heard anything about the rest though?

[Commando]

I think Jack made an old article (don't recall citations) stating issues with front end geometry & maybe brakes? Also poor panel fitment.

Big lols at this:

You may not recall the Falcon EA. Ford Australia certainly does. It had to recall tens of thousands of them.

Trying to beat the VN in first sales ftl. 3 speed autos were gayyy, and I'll never understand why they sunk $$$$ into cfi. If Ford held off by 6 months the EA may have been an unremarkable release, not reknowned for poor quality.

I'd <3 a 5 speed s-pac though!

[XR_Lightning]

yeah the older guys at my old work who were still around when the EA came out said the amount of recalls on them were ridicilous, some cars had upto 20 recalls on them, and they used to have a dedicated shift to just doing recalls on EA's, so pretty much they were an allround piece of shit

[galapogos01]

I saw this article, and the enthusiastic in me sparked up. Then I released, no-one in the motoring press cares about e-series. It slams them pretty hard using generic terms like "poor quality" and doesn't list a single one of the faults they were supposedly "renowned" for.

I'd love to know the #'s on sold EA's & VN's, and how many of each are still road registered. You don't see that many VN's around these days. Or '89 Golfs (the current Drive flavour of the year).

[RYNSXR]

my second car was an ea s-pac, it was manual an had the cfi engine.. in the three years i owned it i had 3 problems, first the clutch cable mount on the firewall broke off and left me with no clutch after getting that fixed the pedal box cracked and the clutch pedal pretty much fell off..

after getting that fixed the head gasket s**t itself 2 days before i sold it but was minor so the car could still be drivin and i sold it that way..

im not a huge fan of ea falcon's after owning one but ive always liked the look of a good clean svo.. the two tone paint, svo rims and recaro seats were are win..

[Sunboost]

I think off the top of my head they sold 230,000 EA's roughly. Ball-park. I'll have to check my books.

They were making 400 odd Falcon, Fairlane, LTD, wagon and ute at their peak in 1989. Now, they're looking to cut production to 150 - half of which will be the Terry.

I don't recall the EA having any actual recalls? They may be referring to campaigns. Recalls are safety related fails which make it necessary to contact owners to have the cars brought in ASAP to have the fault rectified. Campaigns are items that need to be looked at whenever it makes it back in to Ford for a service.

[Nikk O'lass]

I think off the top of my head they sold 230,000 EA's roughly. Ball-park. I'll have to check my books.

They were making 400 odd Falcon, Fairlane, LTD, wagon and ute at their peak in 1989. Now, they're looking to cut production to 150 - half of which will be the Terry.

I don't recall the EA having any actual recalls? They may be referring to campaigns. Recalls are safety related fails which make it necessary to contact owners to have the cars brought in ASAP to have the fault rectified. Campaigns are items that need to be looked at whenever it makes it back in to Ford for a service.

Field campaign completed

[Troutman]

223,612 according to Wikipedia. What a flop.

[TUFED6]

I guess sales weren't a problem. Anyone able to dig up recall info?

[AaronEF8]

One recall was the power steering hose from the pump. It was known to leak, shooting high pressure power steering fluid over the alternator and exhaust, causing a few fires. My dad's mate had one that split, he replaced it then got a letter from Ford a week later. They re-imbursed him for it.

VN's weren't exactly swimming in quality either. VL front ends, and Holden re-wrote the owners manual to say that using up to 1L of oil per 1,500km is standard.

Interesting story.
http://news.drive.com.au/drive/used-car ... 13ky2.html

To be fair, David Morely is a Falcon man, having built a decently quick budget EF XR6 and writing columns in MOTOR about his AU's.

*edit* Some links:

Power steering hose failure:
http://www.recalls.gov.au/content/index ... mId/955064

Wiring loom problem:
http://www.recalls.gov.au/content/index ... mId/954967

Camber kit problem:
http://www.recalls.gov.au/content/index ... mId/954991

EA Wagon tailshaft problem. This may explain why my parents EA wagon had a flange type yoke on the tailshaft.
http://www.recalls.gov.au/content/index ... mId/954971

Clutch fan on early build cars:
http://www.recalls.gov.au/content/index ... mId/954832

4 things shoved into one recall:
http://www.recalls.gov.au/content/index ... mId/954865

Not EA, but an ED Sprint recall.
http://www.recalls.gov.au/content/index ... mId/955143

[private9]

I recall a fair bit of bad press when they were new, but an objective person would have to say the VN was just as bad, if not worse!

[galapogos01]

223,612 according to Wikipedia. What a flop.

And Wiki says:

A total of 215,180 Holden VN Commodores were manufactured during the model's 3 year lifespan. ... Production 17 August 1988–October 1991

Similar overall numbers. How many still on the road I wonder?

You can get the Census data for vehicle registration at http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf ... enDocument but I can't work out how to open a .srd right now.

[AaronEF8]

Just open this PDF:
http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats ... 202011.pdf

Some interesting stats that have confirmed my earlier thoughts.

Average age of Victorian cars has been 10 years old since 2006.
Average age of SA cars has been 11 years since 2006.

1.6 million registered Fords
2.0 million registered Holdens
2.6 million registered Toyotas

In 2006, the breakdown was
1.8 million Fords
2.0 Million Holdens
2.1 Million Toyotas

3.6% of all vehicles were de-registered in Vic in 2010. 4.6% in 2006.

In 1989 the average vehicle age was 9 years, in 1995 it was around 10.3 years. I bet XD-XF's single-handedly lifted that stat up lol.

[Staff]

The only issue I recall was the exploding batteries.

But every new run of car is going to have problems. What made it less of a competitor to the VN was tha lack of V8, Ford really mad a bad call by offering 3.3 and 3.9 (against Commodore 3.8 & 5.0).

Pretty sure EA was the highest selling model up to that point. Hardly a flop, but that may have been mostly the series two and three (?)

[samftr]

Weels tested the ea and the vn. They towed the vn home with the ea due to the vn suffering a ruptured fuel tank.

[TUFED6]

Some interesting defects there. I don't really recall any quality problems that were big news but I wasn't that old at the time. The only things I can really recall as being a big problem was the camber kits.

In contrast my dad got a brand new VN company car at the time and it was delivered running on 5 cylinders with what turned out to be a faulty coil pack. Lolz.

In summary, as I suspected the author of the article seems to be full of shit.

The aussie motoring media seems to be hating on the Falcon and willing it to die. Just like they did with the Magna/380.

[XR_Lightning]

I think off the top of my head they sold 230,000 EA's roughly. Ball-park. I'll have to check my books.

They were making 400 odd Falcon, Fairlane, LTD, wagon and ute at their peak in 1989. Now, they're looking to cut production to 150 - half of which will be the Terry.

I don't recall the EA having any actual recalls? They may be referring to campaigns. Recalls are safety related fails which make it necessary to contact owners to have the cars brought in ASAP to have the fault rectified. Campaigns are items that need to be looked at whenever it makes it back in to Ford for a service.

there are 3 types of recalls/campaigns- product, safety & infield containment, Ford only writes to customers about safety recalls/campaigns

[galapogos01]

Weels tested the ea and the vn. They towed the vn home with the ea due to the vn suffering a ruptured fuel tank.

LOLZ! Magazine scans?

[Nikk O'lass]

But every new run of car is going to have problems. What made it less of a competitor to the VN was tha lack of V8, Ford really mad a bad call by offering 3.3 and 3.9 (against Commodore 3.8 & 5.0).

(?)

And it still outsold the VN without a V8...

[Sunboost]

They towed it to somewhere they could fix it, not home lol. They also got the EA dizzy wet at one stage going through a puddle, and had to dry it out before they could get going again.

They did 20,000km test and broke a whole lot of shit. Then they did the test again 10 years later with AU and VT and got through it without fucking much up I thnk.

[samftr]

i searched for the article, couldnt find it tho. I did find a few interesting reviews. one about the shitty rope seal on the v6 lmao.

[nothin suss]

I'd love to know the #'s on sold EA's & VN's, and how many of each are still road registered. You don't see that many VN's around these days.

Saying that I can't remember the last time I saw an EA!
And I presume Geelong would have been quite popular for EA new car sales..
VN's are still about. But looking quite haggard. Easy to spot in the dark due to their tail light earth issues.

[Troutman]

This pic featured in one of the early versions of the website.



I added a caption, "Now who's making leaf spring jokes?"

[OMY-747]

I've read somewhere that with the ea's ford had to fit a different tyre on I think the left front just so the car would drive straight.

But regardless of the crap back at the release date, just look at the condition of majority of ea's vs vn's that are on the rd nowadays. Majority of vn's I see look like they are about to fall apart where as majority of ea's I see just look like they have faded paint.

[TUFED6]

Lol theres no way thats true

[OMY-747]

Was in some magazine years ago. Never believed it lol.

[TUFED6]

I guess it kind of comes back to the original thread topic - that motoring journo's are full of shit

[mikeeman_EXR699]

I love all of the E series, i owned an EF, that was a lemon, but i loved it.

the problem i find is most of the guys i grew up with at school were holden fans, Mainly becuase when bathurst was on they shoved peter brock's 9 victories down your throat.

Same aswhen Skaife was killing it at HRT, alot of people would go on about how much better the holden was, but in truth, the car reviews were all saying how much better the XR6 was with IRS. The fact is the AU falcon was not a crap car, all of the V8 supercars were in close proximity, HRT were just that far ahead with professionilism

However, due to looks and what happens on the track in a race car (not a production car) that affects sales.

My dad had commodoores, they were good, but shit to tow with, and the automatic box had a mind of its own..........they still do.

He once drove a mates EA once, the next car he got was an EB fairmont, and that was it, ford from then on.