Auto-Facts.org Takes a Look at the New Police Cars

FHP Dodge Charger

I have pictures and videos of three new police cars as well as some details about all of them. The Dodge Challenger police car is at the bottom.

The motivation for this story was when I spoke with a Florida Highway Patrol officer (FHP) that I have become friendly with about his new Dodge Charger police car.

We were standing at the local county fuel island gassing up our government vehicles. He was lucky to get one of the V8’s as the county also got a few of the v6 models.

Although I must say the v6 option a 3.6-liter Pentastar, is not as lame as most v6 down grades can be. In fact, it delivers 292 horsepower and 260 ft/lbs of torque.

Of course the 3.6L in my Cadillac SRX is rated at 318HP which means I think I could whip the V6 Pursuit Dodge. However, the Mopars can burn ethanol blended fuels as its a flex-fuel engine that gets 27mpg highway. Cadillac is out classed in the fuel department.

The 2016 Charger Pursuit package has the mighty 5.7-liter HEMI V-8 that puts out 370 horsepower, yet pulls in 25 mpg highway. The officer began bragging about the Dodge as his top pick for the best police car of all time.

The Dodge Police Car

This is saying something because this particular officer was forced to give up his Z28 B4C optioned third generation Camaro highway patrol car.

The Camaro was forced into retirement due to age and extremely high miles, even though it was the fastest car they had. After the state of Florida took his Z away they put him in a standard Crown Victoria.

This made him very sad, because it was so slow, but it was short-term. He is now in a Dodge charger V8 black and tan. He told me that his Dodge seems to be faster than his old Z28. He also stated that the braking was much stronger then the Chevrolet Camaro.

He can thank the massive heavy-duty anti lock vented disc brakes with 18-inch performance tires on steel wheels for that. In the blues brother movie they called this cop tires.

I asked him about the handling and he conceded that the light weight of the charger and the higher center of gravity did not provide the same handling as his beloved Z28. The Charger Pursuit has Electronic Stability Control designed for the police package.

Dodge Charger Police Interceptor Problems

Dodge Charger police cruiser

Looking into the service record of the charger police cars there does seem to be some issues with the braking system. As stated above the vehicle comes to a screaming halt.

This comes at a price of extreme brake wear and brake dust. I found a few articles that tested the braking performance. The Dodge was measured against other patrol cars and returned the shortest over all stopping distance.

So it’s not a matter of stopping its how many brake jobs will it need? After digging into some fleet trade publications fleets reported needing to replace brake pads and rotors in as little as every 4k miles.

The average brake replacement came in around 10 to 12,000 miles that I could find. Dodge has addressed the issue by pulling back on the performance coupled with installation of harder material brake pads.

Public and private fleet organizations now have the option to purchase the slightly under performing V6 model that will get much better wear from the brakes. The Chrysler 3.6 comes in at 292 HP while the Chevrolet 3.6 Liter does 304 HP with less weight.

Ford Taurus Police Interceptor

Ford Taurus Police Interceptor

The standard issue Crown Victoria that has been around for so many years, but now it’s gone and replaced by another from within its own ranks. At the time of this writing the Ford police car is heading into a second generation.

By the time you read this the new and improved Ford Taurus police interceptor should be a reality. The plans are to offer some flexibility to local law enforcement departments. Although both will have a V-6 you will have a choice of performance options.

The standard normally aspirated 263 HP version that is E85 capable or you can get the twin turbo model with direct injection fuel injection that pushes the base horsepower to 365.

Note that the twin turbocharged model has a six speed automatic transmission and is all wheel drive, whereas the standard V-6 is just a front wheel drive.The all wheel drive model is currently the fastest police car on the market.

The newest police package Taurus will have a much larger alternator than the civilian models to run all the police equipment. Also different on the police interceptor package will be a new set of high performance brakes in all four corners.

It seems that Ford has studied the problems mentioned above about the Dodge Charger police vehicle. Their new units will have steel wheels and focus on high-performance brake ventilation to help cool the rotors and this in turn will reduce brake wear.

Doing some research I learned about Ford’s plan to eventually completely discontinue the Crown Victoria police interceptor met with much resistance. However, Ford beat its target goals to end the production of said vehicle sometime in 2012. The last model year for the Crown Victoria is officially 2011.

Dodge Challenger police car

There have been a lot of great police cars over the years. It would seem that these next-generations of patrol cars are not only as fast, but come with better braking and fuel economy.

It looks like my pick for the best police car of all time, the Chevrolet Caprice 9C1 police car package will be out done by these new police cars.

The home page is a good place to see what this car website is all about. A quick review is provided about the information that can be found here. You can also find other pages that answer specific questions.

If you are interested in some of my other articles and opinions about the automotive business this next link is for the automotive news page.