GM joins Ford in jettisoning the minivan market

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.

The problem is not how well it is executed, it is the fact it is FWD.

mike

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

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.

When it comes to actual use the CV Interceptor has nearly 80% of the certified police car market, the Impala is second with the Dodge a distant third..

minivan market is loosing to crossovers

mike

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 08:27:24 -0800, N8N got out the hammer and chisel and etched in the wall:

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

The police are using minivans, and switching to crossovers? I sometimes see minivans as transport vehicles, but rarely. I doubt that they can even be replaced by crossovers.

One reason why the Charger is so rarely used by police is that it just came out as cruiser within the last year.

Jeff - please stop topposting.