Thoughts on the Ford FG XR6 Turbo
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Well it was time for a change, and after reading all about the Ford FG XR6 Turbo, I thought I should try one.
It may look quite similar – similar enough so the average person couldnt pick a difference visually – but make no mistakes about it – its not the same as the BA and BF series cars.
So I dropped my 6 litre V8 Holden SS-V back and picked up an FG XR6T in the first few months of 2009.
I have had time to drive it a fair bit around the city and on country roads.
I must admit its nice having that 2000rpm jack-rabbit acceleration back! You really miss it.
The pull is amazing. This is the first stock car I have had that, in the dry on a sticky road surface and with warm tyres, will squeal/start to spin the tyres when you take off slowly in 1st, then floor it at or just below 2000rpm or around 20kmh. Amaaaaazing how much torque it has. It’s not like the BA and BF XR6Ts were lacking – but this one is a big step up again. It’s a tyre shredder.
One of the cool benefits I have noticed is MUCH less power drain on hot days – the intercooler seems to be doing a very good job indeed. In my two BA’s it used to really annoy me when it was hot – now I don’t really notice much difference at all, even on 40 degree days. The 270kW/533Nm (362hp/393 pound-feet of torque) is just there all the time.
I ran my car in hard, as normal. Once the engine is up to temperature and I have done a few steady runs up to near redline, everything is fair game.
Oil consumption has been near zero from new. VERY different from the BA’s I owned. Both of them ran through oil quickly in the first few thousand kilometres as they ran in, before settling in to almost zero oil consumption. The FG has consumed half a litre in 10,000km. Compare this to around 1 litre per 1000km in the BAs I drove the same way. But note that the BA’s ceased consuming oil after 3-5000km and settled down to a similar low consumption rate once bedded in.
I have a couple of observations though, and these are some differences/similarities I have noted since the original BA: I was lucky enough to have an early one and have crowds standing around my car ooohing and ahhing at it at shopping centres when I came back to it – ahh, those were the days!
- The driveline is still very clunky. It REALLY should have been fixed by now. No such issue in the competing Holden which has a very sweet driveline with zero slack (but then, it doesn’t have to cope with the same low down torque either). But it does still annoy me. I expected 4 or so years later and one minor upgrade and one major upgrade later it would have been fixed! I imagine it may be related to the differential?
- The standard brakes work quite well. I haven’t had an issue with them. I would put them on par with the old BA series Premium Brake option.
- Axle tramp is still appalling – actually a fair bit worse due to the extra power. This must be a fundamental suspension design fault as I can’t see why else it would not have been resolved by now – how on earth do people with modded engines cope? I can experience it in the dry quite often, not just the wet. I can’t believe it’s still like that, if not worse. It sounds like someone is in the boot belting the side of the boot with a sledge hammer. People who don’t expect it wonder what on earth is going on. So do I.
- Fuel consumption is a lot better, despite the extra power. Kudos to Ford (or is it FPV?!). My consumption has dropped from 24.5L/100km of premium to 19-20 or so. Awesome stuff and great to see. People not familiar with the cars should understand if driven more normally the BA XR6T will use 14L/100km with a normal mix of driving by the “average” driver – and the FG even less. My figures should not be taken as the norm.
- Country (read: steady 100-120kmh travelling in 6th gear) has gone up slightly. My old XR6Ts (well then 2nd one with the 6 speed) used to do an amazing 7-7.1L/100km reliably. Just amazing for a quick car and demonstrating some clever gearing versus turbo kick-in level engineering. This one seems to do maybe 7.5-7.8 or so. Still very good compared to the competing Holden SS which is closer to 10-12L/100km at those speeds – although admittedly many people say a v8 needs 50-70,000km to really loosen up. It is possible my car will improve as its only at 10,000km, however my other cars had similar low kilometres.
- Wet weather traction – appalling! There is none if you are trying to do anything other than accelerate quite slowly (compared to what the vehicle can do…everything is relative!). Apply more than 25% throttle at 2000rpm and out she slips! Forget about traction control and stability control helping you – they can’t come close to catching it if you are driving hard. This is not a car to make available to an inexperienced and over-eager driver – most especially when it is wet. You are just asking for trouble.
Novice drivers need to be very careful indeed. My SS-V got me lazy – often I could floor it all the way through 1st and 2nd in the wet and it would just hook up and take off. I’m pretty confident if I was “racing myself” in the wet in my old SS-V versus my FG XR6T, I would win in my SS-V simply as I could put the power down.
I must say though, I do miss the sound of the v8. Yes, I love the power of the XR6T, especially down low, but the predictability, power down, quick response and sound of the 6 litre was very good! It’s hard to take the sound of the XR6T engine seriously compared to the big V8 which I must admit grew on me a lot. It just sounded so serious. The FG is closer to a Dyson vacuum on steroids. Not to be taken lightly as it does its job very well, but it still sounds like a vacuum cleaner!
