They are heavy as hell, get bad to shitty mileage, and the patrol used ones are usually shot by the time they go to auction. They also handle like shit in snow and ice, from my experience.
$4500 gives him much more acceptable options than a Crown Vic.
Not to mention driving an ex-cop car gives off some serious creepy suspicion points.


However, the huge trunk can hold two and sometimes three duck taped coeds at a time. Cuts down trips out to that special spot in the woods.

Just make sure it wasn't used by an auto theft detective.

I know I put a beating on my CVPIs in that gig.  (I was actually "moved up" to a '99 Lumina from a '92 CV once.....that thing lasted about a month.)

they come with scmods now don't they?



 

I will never get the fascination with these pieces of shit.  Three types buy beat up CVPIs around here.  Cabs/security companies for work, hood rats/cholos that haven't pushed enough rock/heroin to get them into a 10 year old Mercedes, and dipshit white boys that will eventually try to pull over some chick with their CCW badge.  Other than cabs, all other used CVPIs attract only negative attention from pretty much everyone.

Used cop cars don't start as very good vehicles and then get demolished by the time they are auctioned.  I don't know where these rich agencies are that sell off their admin cars that are still cherry.  Here, those admin cars either go as slick tops to the highway, gang, street crimes or some other unit to be finished off.  After that they might go to the academy to have bigger push bars and roll cages installed to be used for PITT training.  

For as big as they are, CVPI aren't that comfortable to begin with.  And they didn't handle all that well when they were new.  Your college student will be better off with a used Honda or Toyota at that price range.

nvm  2slow

 
You can get good mileage in the regular panther platform with the higher gears. Good tires make a huge difference. I drove through a pretty bad blizzard in Detroit 2 January's ago and did ok with my Michelin MXV4 tires. It's still a lot of mass to safely stop when things start getting slick though.

Buying a used Vic is indeed a crapshoot. Do your homework. Some have been flogged to death as patrol rigs, others have had an "easier" life on highway patrol. I found my 2004 P71 in 2012 from the Bellevue WA PD where it had been a traffic car, basically chasing commuters to write speeding tickets. 64K miles, new tires, all maintenace records. $2800. It rides and handles well, has frosty A/C and will get up to 25 MPG if I can keep my foot out of it. (I can't) Not one hiccup or problem for the last 4 years.

Crown Vic parts are everywhere. Many fleets drive them as well as police.
That makes parts cheap and easy to find.

Buy 2002 on up & he should be okay.

Plastic Intake Manifold

I started a thread about them a few months ago.. It may help

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1862134_Ford_Crown_Victoria_Police_Interceptor___Opinions____update_in_OP_4th_May_.html

Great car when it works.

We had one for a few years. The parts are hard to find and they've all been rode hard and put away wet more than once. The mileage will be high.

Ours was a '95, we had to replace the rear air suspension bags, both sides, the rear air suspension controller, the ECU, multiple times, and the drivers side tie rod.

They are fun to own. As long as your son doesn't put rediculous wheels on it and paint it a stupid color, most people that see him in the rear view will assume he's a cop and get out of the way. The left lane will always be wide open. The floors are generally rubber and the seats an easy to clean pleather. Everything is heavy duty and should last a while just have a mechanic give it a good once over before you turn him loose with it.

Generally speaking, the ride sucks.

A.W.D.

Really one of the only few big three sedans of the era that I would expect 200k miles plus out of.  

Very easy to work on and cheap parts are another plus.   Roomy trunk and able to tow pretty well for a sedan

Only thing that keeps me from owning another is the mediocre fuel economy and performance in the snow.
ETA...   Id personally stay away from the interceptor,  unless you know it wasn't abused like a cop car.

They dont make em anymore and the ones for sale will be completely shot. The unmarked I used to drive on duty was midiocre at best. A lot of hype but not worth it. For 4,500 get a nice late 90s pickup imo.

Ignorance like this keeps some good sedans cheap for others.

Nah. They just wanna know what it's like to ride in the FRONT seat.

They are half decent cars.  My shop services the county motor pool for the stuff they can't do, and tons of taxied that are regular crown Vic's or police models. Like has been said, I'd go for one that was not a patrol car. We have many taxis and ex police cars that have well over 200-300k that come in.  Earlier ones had more problems, I forgot what year is was, but when they changed the front suspension to struts, they last a lot longer.  I would not hesitate and to buy from our county motor pool.  If there is one bad suspension part, they replace everything.  Half tread on the tires, replace them.   The sheriffs cars and trucks are always the nicest.

For $4500 you can get grampa's civilian Vic that is much better taken care of. Then all you have to do is add the police grill and rims and it looks a little more rugged.

Not reading the whole thread and I don't even own one. But hearing from people who do, try to get one that was used by a detective or investigator. Try to avoid the patrol cars.

 

I'm not saying it was surefooted like a snowmobile, but I put blizzaks on my grand marquis and it did okay in snow a few inches or less.



Gratuitous 2008 Grand Marquis pic

which Toyota or Honda is rated for a 70mph rear end collision?

 

there are other reasons

My 99Kmile 04 was 3800

SC car. Never had a divider, had carpet.

19.5 mph

04 is best year. rack and pinion. none of the 03 recalled rims, biggest throttlebody, last year before Drive by wire

Single best car I have ever owned

These are usually handed down to the troops, and driven like they stole them.

they are solid cars. in their life they were probably rarely ever shut off and driven like rentals. BUT they were always maintained right. they are gtg, and will run forever

J-turns are super easy with the gear shifter on the steering column and the very low center of gravity.
Much easier than uparmored suburban or diesel hilux.

Thanks for the info.  We will also expand our search for civilian models as well as the Grand Marquis.

BTW, when they say "low hours" what exactly is considered low hours and how exactly do you check it?

Don't let these people lie to you.


First off, Crown Victorias are magic.


Plain and simple.

You can go from high speed interstate pursuits to off road in the same shift in them. You can't kill them.

They are magic.

Having said that, that kind of magic usually gets kids in trouble. Doesn't he want a little truck, or maybe something the chicks will dig? Find a big buick or something that will embarassingly haul all his friends, or a little beater that's good on gas. A police car can be a dangerous thing.

For the record, I broke a 96 caprice in half on patrol going across railroad tracks. I'd take a 96 crown vic, properly set up instead of the chevy bathtub any day of the week.

Do NOT buy a used police vehicle! 25 year police vet. Loved my Crown Vics, but they were driven hard.

There are a dozen forums for these cars.

There is google and bing.... great resource for finding valuable info.


Now if I was looking for one, I would find an local city gov auction with former detective/investigator cars.
Black and whites get flogged.

.

The CV interceptors are slow and heavy by today's standards.   A garden variety V6 family sedan could run circles around one.

Run over a few curbs, and let that newer family sedan idle for an hour in 100 degree temperatures and then we'll talk. ;)  Newer cars just don't hold up like the older ones did. That's why I'd like to see a NASCAR race with actual stock cars. I think it'd be a short race...

Yes.

Transmissions and rear ends were the only issues mine had while working.

Good cars, reliable as hell.

Craptastic in the wet and ice.

Comfy though and room for several bodies in the trunk.

My first one was a 97 CV.   Pretty fast, but floated a lot.   Next I got a '98.  Better suspension, bigger wheels.  It had a button inside the glove box to turn off the traction control.  Man, it would haul ass when that was off.   After the '98s, the performance seemed to decline for quite a while.  

I'm in a Hemi Charger AWD now, and it's a bad bitch !!!

I dont know what year model we used but the lightest and fastest V8 Ford Crown Victorias had the flat, dinner plate chrome wheel covers.  I loved the rear wheel drive, lower center of gravity vs the new Police Taurus models....they took turns very well.  I used to love kicking the car's tail out when making u turns-- even in the rain.  

Nice specimen.   Its rare to see one in good shape anymore.  

I'm assuming it has traction control?  Between that and your snow tires,  it would dominate my old 1992 CV with all seasons.  

Fuck the car, nice barn!

It is a shitty Ford without enough power to blow itself up. A 4 cylinder Camry is a much more intelligent purchase.

I like my Camry,  but like most quality,  Japanese vehicles they tend to hold value.   A used one in good shape usually isnt cheap.  

Pick up a 2003 or later LX. Civilian Vic is the way to go, reliable, easy to work on, parts are cheap and everywhere. Shit ton of room, comfortable couch like ride, great for longer road trips what's not to like?

I'm just shy of 250K on my 03 LX Sport. Wouldn't hesitate to buy another one.

We've had more than a couple burn up after getting hit in the back on the highway.  Something they're famous for.  Is that one of the reasons?  One is on display at the academy, folded like stepped on milk carton.  New Explorers have held up fine in highway rear end collisions pretty well, with one last year where a female prisoner in the back seat was only transported to the hospital as a precaution and suffered no injuries.  

If you want safety, buy a newer car with all the airbags, crush zones and a passenger cage.  If you want cheap and dependable, buy an older Japanese econobox.  CVPIs are not tanks people make them out to be.

I've driven a rental Vic last year they made them.  Quality was head and shoulders above the LE versions.  Can't say how it would hold up in the long run, but it was a decent ride.

1969 Polara Pursuit

For commuting, a P71 Crown Vic is almost overkill.  Well-protected tank-like overkill.  

At $4500, just about everything is "within range" for you, ranging from a DHS special "unmarked" car driven once a year by some adjutant to the assistant deputy director and bought at .gov auction with only 1500 miles on the odometer, to the clapped-out former beat cruiser with the weird-colored stains on the plastic bench rear seats, residual cheeto crumbs in the floorboards, a whole 2 square inches of paint that HASN'T peeled left on the hood/roof/trunk lid, dents in all four fenders and the roof, slop in the springs, and half a million miles under its belt.

As for what to look out for, everything.  P71s are tanks, yes, but they get/got beat to hell and back quite a lot.  I...  er...  ahem...  "may know of someone" who took a nearly new P71 off-roading...  in the mountains... in a blinding thunderstorm... at night...  with flash-flooding all around and sometimes underneath the car.  I...  er...  "he"... got it back out again in one piece with no damage, but the night certainly wasn't kind to that car, no siree.  So take "risky" driving from cops and such, add in lax fleet maintenance schedules, and give it some years, and you have the P71 CV, where almost anything can and will break... but the car will probably still run anyway, even if it sounds like a piano being dragged down a dirt road, and may have the handling characteristics of a 747 on a NASCAR track from all the damage and neglect.

Personally, I rather like the P71 CV.  The "police interceptor" version has a bit of a beefier suspension (usually) than the "normal versions," so while it's not -quite- as nice a ride, it's more durable than the standard.  It has sufficient trunk space (I call it a 3-body trunk, 2-body if they're especially large people), a nice and roomy interior,  decent handling (if you know what you're doing, at least), is built like a tank, will still run reasonably well even when abused and neglected, and while not a sports car, has sufficient cojones to get out of its own way and everyone else's fairly quickly (especially once you drop the transmission into 2nd gear and drop the pedal through the floorboards... er, I mean... "so I've heard..."   ).  No, they do not have "good" gasoline mileage, but for what they are, they're acceptable.  Do remember, they're a small-block V8 car with the weight of a light pickup truck or more to pull, and gonads to pull it fairly quickly.  At the same time, it's not the -worst- vehicle for gas mileage either.  If you get a late model, by that point the 4.6L engine, while not bulletproof, is just about as proof as you're going to get short of a 1984 VW Jetta diesel, and absent ripping a hole in the gas tank (seen it, took significant road debris to do it), it's as close to unstoppable as you're likely to get in a road-legal car.  It'll teach the value of a light foot on the pocketbook, but have at least some of the benefits of the sports car, without quite ALL of the drawbacks (such as higher insurance rates, etc.).  And all in a proper rear-wheel-drive car.  Not bad for a pseudo lead-sled "family sedan," eh?

I wish Ford hadn't discontinued them.  I would -love- to buy some reasonable-condition P71s for my kids when they come of age.  Sadly, that will most likely not be an option, as we still have 14 years to go for the oldest, and the second-oldest isn't born yet.  By the time they're ready to hit the roads, I expect almost ALL of the P71s (or even the non-P71 Crown Victorias, Grand Marquis, and Lincoln equivalents) will be rusted-out wrecks, not from collisions, but from sheer overuse and miles.  

get the older
boxes ftw. Dont really like the new round shape of the lincoln t-car/vicky and marquis