Ford to Police: get lost!

Really? where would you put it? Under the back seat? So do you blame when a taxi company buys the used vic from the police department and lets the U joints go and at 350,000 miles the drive shaft let's go through the gas tank and floor boards sending burning gasoline into the passenger compartment? Oh ford of course, they shoulda made it front wheel drive or located the gas tank under the trunk because they knew taxi companies would neglect the cars at the end of their useful life. Just like they are expected to have designed the vehicle to take being rear-ended at 70mph when parked on the side of the road.

Or maybe the car should have a force field generator to prevent crashes. For crying out loud we aren't talking about 1000s of vehicles bursting into flame from parking lot bumps. We are talking about 29 vehicles bursting into flames after being hit at expressway speeds while parked over ten years and who knows how many 100s of thousands of cars being used 24/7 and how many thousands of crashes.

Not to forget, by the time the trunk is crushed on a vic, that's the backseat on smaller cars and it would still be a fuel tank rupture.

That's dangerously sounding like an arguement to get rid of RWD cars.

The man of a million names could make it up like everything else.

Both Chevrolet and Dodge offer a certified police vehicle to compete with the CV. They are only V6 powered but can be had for about $2,000 less.. Few departments use them except for city service and detective work. The major reasons are FWD is unsafe for highway patrol or pursuit work, very small back seats that do not allow room for the cage, higher maintenance costs, lower resale value that soon negates any original cost savings. Taxi companies gobble up used police CV's, but have very little use of the others.

mike hunt

Richard Bell wrote:

Of course....The Dukes of Hazzard Safety Ramp!

No way that happens at 15 mph. The town car has a full frame under there and a tempo would have impacted directly into the frame (or gone under it with brake dive)

|Just a note: the GM locals are trying to get impalas into the police |dept. They gave the unmarked guys 6 of them. How they hold up |is yet to be seen. But i don't see the cops liking them any better |than the taurus they hated.

I propose they gas one up and park it on the should of Central Expressway in Dallas, and monitor results (from a distance). Shouldn't be long until a drunk nails it. Bring weinies and marshmellows.

And the injured policemen ought to be suing the police departments for providing such "unsafe" vehicles for their work. This reminds me of the flight attendants suing the tobacco companies for making the cigarettes rather than suing their employers for permitting passengers to smoke them.

I like the way you think. I always taught my kids that the things you do in life have consequences. I would hope that they not land on someone. LOL

mike hunt

The Ghost of General Lee wrote:

Well, if anyone here is a nascar fan they would have seen Bobbie Labontes recent wreck where the rear of his car hit the wall and the car was fully engulfed in flames from a ruptured fuel cell. Now, this is in a car with a full roll cage and fuel cell with bladder. So even with all this protection, there was still fire and fuel spillage. Morel of the story, nothing is 100%.

BOB

I'm just telling you what I saw (two times). I could be off on the speed, but not by much because the Tempo that hit the Town Car was almost stopped so I said 15MPH. Plus it was an old Tempo and the damage was not horrible to it. The driver of the Tempo got out and appeared to be unhurt.The whole back end of the TC was opened like a tin can all the way into the rear deck of the back seat. I was flabergasted. I don't think the frame was that bent. The Tempo road over the frame and ripped the body. I remember that Ford was the company that used the bottom of the trunk as the top of the fuel tank in the Pinto and early Mustangs in order to save $7. They professed the safety of that cheesebox until they were ordered to recall them.

No sir, I am not repeating someone else's nonsense, and I am not giving an opinion. Here are the facts,the Fuel Tank on my 1986, 1989,1990, and 1998 Taurus is in front of the rear axle, under the passenger seat, not between the rear axle and the body as in the CV. (I went to the junk yard to find a

Only way it's possible is for the tempo to miss the structure of the vic entirely and just go through trim and sheet metal with it's structure.

It was never done in pintos and using the fuel tank as the trunk floor was common design of many manufacturers in the 1960s.

I'd agree.... no way in hell is that story true. The front of a Tempo is absolutely no match for the rear of a Town Car. We're talking Pee Wee Herman VS Lennox Lewis type of mismatch here. Bob

I didn't see it. I simply find it hard to believe. The only way it could happen is the tempo missing the structure of the vic. An improbable geometry of a crash IMO.

Wow, I sure hope you don't believe everything you read on Usenet. I know how Town Cars are built and I know how Tempos are built. No way in hell is Tomcat telling the truth. Bob

Front end crashes are not the crux of the claim. These agencies claim that the fires occur upon *rear* end impact of their police cruisers.

I thought Ford had already agreed to do that, along with a couple of structural changes IIRC. I think as long as they volunteer to do that, the lawsuit should pretty much be moot.

In other words, Texas cops drive too slow?

Exactly. I'll admit that I would like to see the CV be a little bit safer, and rubber bladder on the tank (or redesign future models to reposition the tank) would be nice. But if a police agency CONTINUES to buy a car that they claim is *unsafe*, then that pretty much invalidates their claim. In fact, if they were truly serious, then the agencies involved in this lawsuit would pull ALL of their current stock of Interceptors out of service and either go back to old Caprices, or buy Impalas. Continuing to use a product you claim is unsafe and a threat to life and limb totally flies in the face of common sense.

The "no choice" argument is BS. If they're so worried about safety and truly believe that the CV is the death trap they claim it is, then the CV should not BE a choice.