Best and worst squad cars or company vehicles

G

Gopher

New member
Seems we have a few LEO's posting here or folks who may be driving someone else vehicle for a living. What was the worst and the best you've been issued?

I was a non-commissioned officer at the Univ. of Texas at Dallas for while and we had a 1977 Dodge patrol car. What a dog. It was used to patrol the parking lots and very rarely left the campus. If you turned the light bar on with it at idle it would die.

My current ride is a 1994 3/4 ton Dodge van with 142K on it. Runs good but doesnt have AC, which is kinda tuff in the Texas summers. Hoping after the GTE/Atlantic Bell merger they will replace it. I bet I get a summer cap in the summer before that happens though. :D
 
Worse? Believe it or not Ford Maverick patrol cars with inline six cylinders in them. No air, no power brakes, no power steering, nothing. Talk about utilitarian.
Best: Ford Custom's with the 429 Interceptors. Hot, noisy, uncomfortable but damn they ran.
Favorite: An old unmarked Dodge with a 440 that had been over looked for years sitting in the back of the police car pool at number two garage in KC......until I found it. Grill lights and air raid siren but she ran like a stripped posteriored primate. She got totaled by a station clerk one day on day shift doing the desk lunch run. I still have her old brass key tag on my key ring. Damn I miss that car. :D

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Gunslinger

TFL End of Summer Meet, August 12th & 13th, 2000
 
Having spent ten years working as a mechanic for a medium sized city, including its police cars, I feel qualified to answer this one.
Worst were the Dodges. Couldn't keep 'em in one piece and the dealers never had the part we needed in stock. What a piece of crap!
Next we got Chevrolet Caprices. Good cars, no real complaints. Gave use excellent service.
But the best have been the Ford Crown Victorias. Solid, dependable and more than fast enough. Give 'em regular routine maintenance and they'll run forever. Biggest problem we have with them is rookies and reservist having wrecks.
A couple of years ago we started buying Nissan Maximas as administative vehicles (not patrol). So far so good. But they are a real pain in the rear to work on.

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TFL's official "Curmudgeon Member" and damned proud of it!
TFL End of Summer Meet, August 12th & 13th, 2000
 
I know what you mean Grayfox 'bout the Ford and crashes. A few years ago we got all new LTD II's with the 5.0 H.O. (desmogged) motors. Great cars, fast (for a patrol car).....140+ mph on top end. Worse brakes I've ever seen on a car. About three good, hard braking corners during a pursuit or code and the cars actually went faster when you stepped on the brakes. :eek: They blamed it one too much power. They weren't over powered, they were under braked. :rolleyes:

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Gunslinger

TFL End of Summer Meet, August 12th & 13th, 2000
 
Average life of the brakes in a patrol car is 8,000 to 12,000 miles or about a third of what your family car should get. You have to take into consideration that they usually run two and sometimes all three shifts per day. A lot of stop and go driving and the occasional full tilt run. Lots of different drivers, all with different styles. Patrol cars lead a very hard life.

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TFL's official "Curmudgeon Member" and damned proud of it!
TFL End of Summer Meet, August 12th & 13th, 2000
 
Worst? Chevy Camaro Pursuit Special. Either you or your equipment could fit in it, but not both. Blew alternators about twice a month at $240-something bucks a pop. Nasty little cars.

Best was a 1980-something Ford Bronco. Wasn't the fastest thing on the road, but it ran like a Timex.

Fastest non-Camaro I ever got in was a 1994 Chevy Caprice Police Special. Full load of gear and 400 pounds of officers and the darlin' still did 141. Sweet car. And big enough to fit a frolicsome critter in the back seat.
I sure was upset when Chevy stopped making the Caprice in favour of the Lumina. Ever try to put a 200 pound drunk and rambunctious cowboy into the backseat of a Lumina? Brr.

Last I heard, Ford was going to stop production of the Crown Vic. that still going to happen?

LawDog

[This message has been edited by LawDog (edited June 01, 2000).]
 
Phone company: worst vehicles are Dodge anything, vans always in the shop, even the new ones are always crapping out, the next are the Chevy heavy duty trucks, trannies go out at least once a year, best are the Fords.
 
Worst for patrol were the K cars. No power and we had 6 cylinder Plymouth Furies that were faster. Anyone over 6 foot had trouble driving them. Front ends went bad quickly.
I was a driving instructor for 2 1/2 years during the Plymouth to Chevy transition. Believe it or not, the Plymouth held up better. It had problems, but the Caprice fell apart faster. We got brand new cars that usually went out on patrol after 5000 miles. They didn`t last long out on the street. When I retired we were still using the Caprice (1994) and I bought a Impala SS. Fast car but a lot of problems.
The only Fords I drove were on the Highway Patrol course. This was back around 1985. You could hang the rear ends out on them real quick if you weren`t careful!
 
The U.S. Army's HUMMV. Loudest, slowest, most uncomfortable thing I have ever had the misfortune of driving.

But it was almost impossible to get it stuck in anyhting from snow to mud. That was fun! :D
 
Originally posted by dinosaur:
[BWhen I retired we were still using the Caprice (1994) and I bought a Impala SS. Fast car but a lot of problems."

Hmmm. I've had an Impala SS since I bought it new in '94, got 95,000 miles on it, and once the dealer got the tranny fixed I've had no problems. What sort of problems were yours? (I still am not bored with the car, partly because I took the mufflers off-- left the resonators on-- and the agressive V8 sound always gives me a good feeling, especially when I wind it out in a lower gear.
Click to expand...
 
Tombread;
When I first got the car, the temp sending unit was cross threaded into the block. Anti freeze was leaking all over the place. That and the low coolant light was defective. At 6000 miles the water pump went causing me to lose the power steering. At 9000 miles the radiator and rear shocks had to be replaced. I was buying a house at the time and I had a 66 Corvette so I figured I`d better sell it.
I`ve talked to a couple of people that have spun bearings in the motor. Others like yourself are happy as clams. :D Go figure. I wish Chevy still bult them. Obviously they`re not all bad.
I still have the window sticker for it. If you belong to one of the SS groups, spread the word. I`d be glad to send it to the new owner if he can furnish the correct VIN.
 
We had an American Motor's Ambassador (I guess) in Zweibrucken, Germany 1973. I don't think it would stay on the road a day before going back into the shop. We MP's were sometimes hard on cars though. Our Impala (about a 1968) was a hot thing, though. I think we tended to get the culls since we were lowest on the totem pole.

[This message has been edited by Keiller TN (edited June 01, 2000).]
 
Well, the car I want is the Crown Victoria that my cop neighbor drives. _Very_ low mileage. He picks up his squad at the start of his shift, comes home to his sweetie and stays there (unless he gets a call) until the end of his shift.

Not flaming LEO's, but this guy is a goldbrick. But the squad is in very good shape. :)

Dick
 
Our Cheif "threatened" to buy the new Impala 6 cyl front wheel drives for us this year (July is the new budget).. but he has since changed his mind and decided to stick with the Good 'ol Ford Crown Vic V-8 rear wheel drive.

I like the handling on the Fords a lot more than the few old Chevy's we have in the fleet, though the Chevy's are faster. Inside the cvity, the handling is a lot more important to me.. and I was dreading having to figure out the front wheel drive....

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-Essayons
 
From a different perspective, I drive ambulances for a living.

Dodge: Drove a V-10 powered (desmogged) monstrosity for a private company. Went on an interstate crash call. I shut my eyes when my lunatic partner (it was his turn to drive) proclaimed 135m.p.h. :eek: Incredibally powerfull machine. But if you stepped on the gas hard, you could practically watch the gas guage go down.

Chevy/GMC: Who designed the electrical system on these nightmares? Always down to electrical problems (vehicle related, not accesssory gear). Fairly economical, and their turbo diesel was fairly peppy.

Ford: The class of the field. Just fast enough to get past everyone, definantly the slowest in the field, but, their ride and handling characteristics were absolute first rate. The dual cavernous tanks made cruising distance amiable. And again to this day, a Ford F-450 4X4 ambulance is the only vehicle I have ever piloted into an airborn status over railroad tracks. If that baby had a Dixie horn on it, all we would have needed was a #01 and a confederate flag! :D

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I thought I'd seen it all, until a 22WMR spun a bunny 2 1/4 times in the air!

[This message has been edited by DOCSpanky (edited June 01, 2000).]
 
Worst:
I dont recall the year, 70's , but it was the first year for the Ford LTD II and what a wild ride it was trying to steer and beat the fire out in the back floor board. Every one of those things caught the floor mats on fire.

Fastest:
Late 70's Ford full size with 460 interceptor, would run a hole in the wind, breaks were crap, you needed an anchor to shut it down.

Best Kept Secret:
1965 Ford Galaxie 500, 390 Interceptor, no air, no power steering, no power brakes, 3 speed on column shifter, no good time radio, chasing drunk and missed curve, slid into the damn bay and salt water was up to the bottom of the dash board, walked to the phone at the little station and called a wrecker, cost me $100, $50 for the pull out and $50 for the driver to be quite. Took car home, drilled lots of holes under rubber mat and prayed. Changed oil and prayed, traded off by the dept a year later, and never heard a word about it. Prayers answered.

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No man is above the law and no man is below it,nor do we ask any mans permission when we require him to obey it.
 
Gunslinger, it was more like.....

OHHHHHHHH S*******************HIT! ;)

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I thought I'd seen it all, until a 22WMR spun a bunny 2 1/4 times in the air!
 
Best Truck- Dodge Ram, barre none the best.
Best Patrol car- Either Ford Mustang or Dodge Neon, please note that Police should never used unmarked vehicles for routine police work.
Best Prisoner transport- is oddly enough a converted UPS van. As much as it pains me to think UPS is good for anything.
 
I'm not an LEO, nor do I pretend to play on on the internet.

I've noticed that the newer Ford Crown Vics have the way cool badge "POLICE INTERCEPTOR" on the rear. Very "Mad Max Post-Apocolyptic Earth" like. ;)
 
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