quote:
Originally posted by Jim5.0
From what I can gather FG's have the same crappy HVAC system.
They did make some changes between BA & FG - one of those was putting the temp sensor in the LH mirror, and they also changed the compressor & refrigerant charge.
The BA XR6 I had a while back had very good aircon - it got cold quickly, and kept the car cool without having to run at hurricane fan speeds.
By comparison, the early FGs at work had woeful aircon in summer - all the guys who had them complained about it. Didn't bother me at the time as I had my VE. But I copped it first hand 3 years ago when I swapped with one of them for a few days (I fitted a towbar on my VE, and he needed to use it). Where the VE would take about 10 minutes to get the car cooled down, the FG struggled all the way home (40 minutes on the freeway).
When I first found out they'd changed the fleet policy at work to eliminate all petrol vehicles (unless there was no diesel or hybrid variant in the class - LPG without petrol was also made available) I realised I was going to end up in an FG, as I wasn't willing to have one of the rattly alternatives.... Concerned about the aircon issues we'd experienced (IMO a design constraint, not a fault) I spoke to some of the guys I deal with at Ford R&D (for work reasons) and they told me that corrective action had been taken, rattled off a list of changes, and assured me the new ones were much better - that was about 18 months ago.
My FG (Aug '11 build) aircon is so much better than the early ones we had - it gets cool much quicker, and holds temp well. It's still not quite as good as the VE in total cooling power - you have to crank the fan speed up a bit higher to stay comfortable, but it does the job, and I'd say it's 90% there now.
In saying that though, I recently redid the A/C in my VL Brock - all new components, and converted to R134a, and it's a lot better than the FG!