GM joins Ford in jettisoning the minivan market

Police have a wide variety of different models used as police cars.

I never suggested that using them as regular cruisers was good.

Neither is top posting.

Jeff

 

The CT state police even had a Ferrari for a while and a Corvette or two. I
see a Camero in our area on a regular basis. Some of these cars come from
drug busts.

 

So are bicycles. LOL


mike

 

The is a difference between vehicles 'used' by police and 'police' vehicles.
Naturally a police department car use whatever they choose for bicycles to
Hummers, and the do. but that does not mean they are certified for
patrol/pursuit work. There are one three vehicle sold in the US that are
'certified police vehicles.' The Ford Interceptor is by for the number one
choice, by
around 80%. Followed by Impala and the newly certified Dodge vehicle.
There are a whole group of vehicles, mostly 4X4 that are sold for 'security'
service, some of which have been mentioned. The explorer and the Jeep are
the most often used. Of the departments we serviced, in six eastern states,
many that bought FWD certified police cars, because they were a few thousand
dollars less expensive and more fuel efficient, eventually when back to the
Interceptor. Some like the Pa State Police, ban the use of FWD cars for
pursuit work.


mike

 

I can certainly understand that. I am certain that the police Impalas
have uprated suspension, etc. but the basic dynamics of the chassis is
not so good for high speed handling. I've been told it's basically a
stretched Lumina and it shows. Now my comments are based on the '05
and earlier, I have not driven the '06 yet.

If I were expecting to be involved in pursuit driving, I would
certainly want a purpose-built vehicle, not an uprated economy sedan.

nate

 

The odd thing is that of all those, the Dodge B-series was the most
pleasant to drive IMHO (I have not driven the Sprinter though.) The
only fault I could find with them was that they went through brakes
like mad, and I recall one incident with a lower ball joint failure on
one, but they were used hard on poor city roads. I found the Ford
E-series to feel very ponderous.

nate

 

Here in Vancouver the Impala is currently popular as an airport cab, but
the Toyota Corolla is increasingly becoming very common for in town
taxis and even airport use.
A few months ago 4 of us each with a checked bag and a carry on, were
brought home from the airport in a Corolla. It's large space for a
smaller car surprised me; fortunately the three smaller people took the
rear seat and I got the very spacious front seat.

 

In BC, Canada a variety of vehicles are used as police cars, even some
4WD vehicles where snow conditions are difficult.
It seems that large Ford car is most common and it even keeps it's hub
caps which that obsolete GM car didn't do. <

 

Another one bites the dust.....

Pretty soon you'll only be able to buy a crown victoria, f150 and maybe
a fusion.

Tell me, is this just in my area of residence or does this happen all over.

The Honda, Toyota, Nissan dealers don't stock many vehicles, now i'm
sure they also sell less, so maybe this is relative.

Does FORD do anything to control inventory... every ford lot i've been
to is full of vehicles.... many options and colors etc, of all vehicles,
even had 10 mustangs at one of the two ford dealers in a city of
45,000 ppl. You head over to the other dealer, they had 6. The toyota
dealer had only 1 Tundra and no tacomas. Is this because they don't
sell any trucks, probably not.

You don't see toyota, honda, nissan advertising year end clearance
sales... ford does this almost steadily for about 4 months.

Just wondering if there is any inventory control, i am in the lumber
market, and controlling inventory is the FIRST priority, especially in a
failing market.

 

Well i've only seen dodge sprinters going by on the mail train line...
never seen one on the road.

Even the cops used Astros, and the department of transportation still
uses them... and central vehicle equipment.. the city had them as well.
Now none of these guys are replacing htem with Venture vans... or
chrysler vans, they are looking for other options

 

That would be interesting to see...IIRC Tata has been making some cars which

Where do they sell Tata's... they look pretty interesting

 

SEems like ford is STILL having transmission failures... buddy of mine
has a 5spd 3.0L ranger, tranny went at 12,000, took them 42 days to fix
it, and he just got it back yesterday. another buddy just bought an
escape to head out west, brand new, 7000k, tranny went, doesn't know if
he'll make it out west by new years...

at work, one ranger 3.0L auto, two tranny failures, one a complete
rebuild, truck had less than 80k on it both times. now the other one
was an 02, with 220k (talking kilometers here) and it failed, it was
also automatic. Thats not real good out of 5 rangers. (3 are 05's, 2
02's). The other 02 only has 120k kms on it, and it hasn't failed yet
however.

 

Impalas make a bad taxi, and an even worse cop car.

 

They actually do quite extensive upgrades to the Impala before using it as a
Police cruiser, at least down here. For starters, the 3800 is standard (no
3400's). The brakes, suspension, tires, and charging system's are all beefed
up as well. We still have the old style Impala's here, but there are a
couple of the new '06 models being used.

I was actually talking with an Officer in a near-by town who had Dodge
Charger interceptor's. I asked him what him and his officers preferred, the
Charger, the Crown Vic, or the Impala. He said the Impala is the most
popular, followed by the Crown Vic, and then the Charger. I guess it is a
matter of preference.

 

Pearson International (Toronto's airport) is the nearest to me, but is still
around an hour away, so we don't see many airport cab's. I do recall seeing
a PT cruiser used a couple of times though. Like I said above, as for
taxi's, the Impala's are the thing here. There are even a few local
companies who use Lumina's.

Good stuff. I prefer large cars myself. Bonneville's are the way to go,
IMHO.

 

You know this from experience, I presume? Officer's here love them.

 

Agree. The sprinter is a very tall van and more akin to the full-size
models.

The astro van was a good concept and should never have been killed. It
would have been much better had they added the 4.2 I6.

I'd say the same about the Aerostar. That van was rock solid for fleet
trucks.

 

The Charger is by far the coolest looking. Not that that matters as much to
the cops in the cars.

I saw a couple in NYC. Way cool. The NYPD was testing them. They had V6 for
city patrols and a V8 got highway patrols.

Jeff

 

I think the Charger in-of-itself is a nice looking car, but I don't think
that body style deserved the name Charger. No offence intended to you
though. Just my humble opinion.

I am not sure which engine the two CHargers I saw in a near by town had. I
was too suprised at seeing them to think about that question.

 

Not to cross swords with another thread, but the Impala once again
proves that front-wheel drive and police driving DO NOT MIX. The
drivetrain isn't strong enough, and the handling isn't safe enough.
Dodge never even bothered to try to certify the Intrepid/Concorde/Vision
for that very reason, although a lot of police departments did buy them
and use them for light-duty work.

It will be very interesting to see how the Charger plays out as a cop
car. The 3.5L V6 Charger Police Package accelerates faster than the v8
Ford Interceptor, and the 5.7L V8 Charger Police Package is amazing.
Ford has had the market to themselves WAY too long, and the
Interceptor's pathetic performance is showing.