Best and worst squad cars or company vehicles

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dinosaur:
Tombread;
. 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."

[/quote]

Sounds like you had a "Monday car." The Impala famously had a rear end problem because they put in the wrong seal at the factory. It's not like this was the first model off the line! The Caprice was around before there was an Impala. FYI, Chevy is planning to build a V8 Impala, although they say all consumers want is a great radio and a car that looks llike an expensive German import- no concern with performance.


[This message has been edited by tombread (edited June 02, 2000).]
 
Best Comany Vehicle:
I used to pick up maintenance supplies in a POS slant six 3 spd. Dodge. Then they got a new GMC dually with a 4spd and a 454. Man that thing would run!! You could light the tires up coming off a stop light and start grabbing gears and keep them spinning into 4th gear! My boss wasn't real happy though. Oh well, I was 22 years old, what did he expect. That was like handing Jack the Ripper a knife.

------------------
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times to spit on his hands,hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." H.L. Mencken
 
Another dog I had was a 1977 Ford Courier. When the mechanics rebuilt the motor before I got it they forgot to hook up the temp gauge. You could have put your little finger between the head and the block when I returned it to them. They replaced it with a 1981 Dodge half ton van with no power steering. yarg!

The station I worked at after highschool used to wash the city cars on Saturdays. I got to drive their 1977 Nova police car some. It cornered like an over powered go-cart. :) I've talked to some DPS troopers that longed for the hemi powered Dodges from the 60's and 70's. They also didnt have much good to say about the Mustangs other than the fact they were fast. They also told me that if Chevy had put a 454 in the Caprice it would have been perfect. I would have loved to drive that one.
 
I still have good memories of the early 90's Ford Taurus. Nice handling, quick enough for in-town, and would fit down alleyways like no larger squad could. The stereo control was real easy to reach at 2 o'clock, right of the steering wheel. :)
It would tear up motor mounts, though, under hard acceleration. :(
 
You guys got it great. I run an armored truck built by the company, and they all suck.

The things are built on the Ford F800 frame, but don't have any insulation between the outside sheetmetal and the interior armor plating. All you have it one large acoustical chamber that makes the whole thing so loud you have to yell to hear your backman....who's only 6 feet away!

The engines are so small, our bigger trucks (26000lb gvwr) can't do 40mph up a hill.

There are no external grab rails for the proper 3-point entry or exit, and heaven forbid you should run into some ice while driving!!

The doors don't seal so you get wind and rain blowing in all day. The floors are polished steel that is very interesting to walk on when wet.

And the worst.....the AC will die mid-day, without reason. Have you ever sat in a steel box when it's 100 outside? In five minutes without AC, it's 110 inside!

I cannot express the horrid craftsmanship in words....but never have I seen the like before.

If it wasn't such an interesting job, I don't think I could stand it :)

------------------
When Reason Fails.....
 
Gopher don't count on a/c .I work for Bell Atlantic in phila.pa and we don't have ac either.The dodge 250 ram van stripped-no radio/ac has to be the worst possible van for repair work.It cannot handle the weight all the tools and ladders(really bad in the stop and go traffic in center city).My truck is a 1990 and has had six sets of brakes and only has 74000 miles and is in the shop right now for it's second transmission!

KEVIN
 
Worst patrol car I've ever seen has to be the Russian LADA. A cheap knock off of a FIAT, if one can imagine such a thing. They were shipped to Central America used and not new as advertised to the purchasing agency. The lot of some 500 cars had to be cannabalized just to get about half of them running. No A/C, seat belts, and heaters that were jammed on. And this in tropical weather! I admire the officers that worked in those death carts.

------------------
So many pistols, so little money.
 
KML e-mail me through this link. We are hearing nothing about the merger. Maybe it gets better for all of us but my hopes arent real high. We started getting A/C in the vans in 95, but not in the bucket trucks. Just dont put me in a Ford L-90 splicers truck. :)
 
The all time biggest pieces of sh*t had to be the Dodge Aspens and the Diplomats. There is nothing worse than being in a high speed turn, braking into the turn, then hitting the gas to exit and having the damn thing die or bog. Never failed to happen. I had one victory. The biggest POS Aspen of them all was my draw for the night. I was responding to a shots fired call with officers involved. Running down the freeway at 3 AM, car shaking, lifters pumping up. I got it up to 120 MPH and scattered the motor all over the #3 lane. The call was code 4 shortly after so I didn't miss much. Sweet victory! Give me a crown vic anyday.

------------------
NRA MEMBER? GREAT, NOW JOIN GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA
 
The BluesMobile!!! I happened to get one at an auction in '76 and that thing ran 'till the good humor man made a million in hades...
 
I bought an old 87 Crown Vic cruiser at a local city auction. This was in 1991 so the car was only four years old. For the last two years of its life in the service it was the Auxillary's car. I bought it for $1500 with 110k on the clock.

The boys at the service garage definately took care of the engines in this thing. I pulled a valve cover once and there wasn't even a hint of sludge! The only thing I had to do with this car when I got it was to get a set of tires and shocks and replace the front swaybar link.

My only complaint I had with the car was that danged VV (variable venturi) carb Ford hung on these things. I swapped a 4-barrel intake and Holley carb from a F-150 351HO and all was right with the world! BTW, Ford also made that swap available to agencies that had problems with the VVs, so I was not breaking any emission laws!

I drove that car for several years until I could afford something a little nicer. I gave it away to a friend who pulled the motor out to put in his race car. My Grand Marquis I drive now has the police car swaybars on it, front and rear.
 
Not an LEO, just an observation.
My uncle was an HP loved the mustang lx 5.0
In Az I have seen the following car used in these cities
Scottsdale Z28
Tempe Tahoe 4dr looks mean
HP New Volvo 4dr 18inch rims
Phoenix BMW Sport touring bikes(K1200 ?)
a couple of years back they had a tricked out Kawasaki ZX7R. It had the lights and everything. A guy I used to ride with bought it, I guess nobody wants to do a entire shift crouched over a sport bike.

Albuquerque Z28 unmarked

I work for the government, the best we have is a 1998 Tahoe 4x4 4dr. Worst is a 1994 F150 4x4
 
I once worked for a small newspaper in a very small coastal NC town. We had a '73 Ford Maverick for "go-for" duties and delivering the papers twice weekly to the drop points.

Man, did that car suck. It needed a new battery about once a month - and the local Ford mechanic, a good guy and a great old-time mechanic (a real mechanic, not a parts replacer) never did figure out what was wrong with the charging system.

It rusted through the door panels the second year we had it, even though it had the expensive factory-option Z-bart rust preventative. The transmission sounded like a tractor with sand in the gearbox. Mufflers fell off with gay abandon. It drank gas like a tank and you needed arms like Arnold Schwartznegger to steer it when the power steering quit, which was pretty often since the PS reservoir leaked fluid all over the engine compartment.

We finally "lost" it one weekend when I took it down to the docks in the pre-dawn hours to meet the fishing fleet. I foolishly parked on the ramp and promptly fell asleep. Sure enough, the parking brake gave way slowly and allowed to car to roll gently down into the seawater. I finally woke up when the water reached my ankles but by that time the engine was fully submerged.

Luckily for me, the boss hated that car as well and wrote it off for insurance.

Ken Strayhorn
Hillsborough NC
 
1990 Chevy S10. Man that thing was a piece. Broken power steering no radio, somebody stole the tire iron. Plus it had hail damage and bald tires. Drove it for a year before the boss would buy new tires. Did I mention it was a real piece of junk?
 
G50AE,
1.) You GOT IT!!!! Enter who wants to be a millionaire.

2.) It was actually a CHP Roller but it was a carbon copy for that delightful 1980 classic movie ride, and it flat ass hauled. By the way we were always "on a mission from god."...I'll take 4 fried chickens with a coke, and my partner wil have dry white toast.
 
Baddest assed marked unit I ever was in was the '69' Biscayne Sedan, with the 390hp 427 in it. It even looked good at drive-in resturants. ALWAYS sounded impressive.
Worst marked unit was the 4 dr Pacer Wagon. I try to forget those days. I was embarrassed to get in it.
Best current roller, is the Crown Vic.
 
When I was growing up in the west-side suburbs of Cleveland (early 70s), every city had its own distinctive cop cars.

My city had all white Olds's (!) with 455s. The city to the north had black and white Plymouths with 440s. The city to the south had Black and white LTDs with 429s. The city to the east had dark blue and white Buicks with 455s, a little further to the east had all brown Mopars of various types--even a few Dodge Darts with 383s!

That last set of cars were real light and quick, but one day the guys behind the wheel of the cruisers decided that a Dodge Dart didn't fit the image of a cop car so they decided to 'retire' them. That city has a set of train tracks running the length of the city, with the tracks elevated a little bit (about 2 feet). Well, they just had to get to whatever call they were going to in a hurry so they played 'Dukes of Hazzard' and got the cars airborne over the tracks, neatly bending every single one of them in two at the firewall.

Nowadays every city's cars pretty much look like all of the others. Boring!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top