How often are police interceptors cycled out?

The local po' in my area got awd ecoboost Taurus' and I'm wondering how these vehicles get cycled out. Is it mileage, condition (wrecks), or years?

Would Love an awd ecoboost.

I think you will find that the answer is "all the above."

City finances will have a lot to do with it too.
Local story here...3 separate police cars from the same city break down while chasing one Dodge Neon. Story reveals that of the 59 cars in the fleet, none have less than 100k and the city is buying used and repainting retired Hyw Patrol cars.

http://www.fox19.com/story/31306168/elyria-police-chief-worried-about-safety-after-3-cruisers-break-down-during-chase

Most around me retire at 5 years and about 115,000-130,000 hard miles.

They use 'em up and get rid of them when they are thoroughly junk. Usually by 80k or so.

depends on the dept really. Some smaller depts will run them 10-15 years. Larger state groups may be 2-3 years and 100k. Dad got his 91 9C1 in 1993 with 88k miles from Michigan State Police.

LA was still running a lot of pre-facelift crown Vic's.

my city shuffles them downstream to other departments as they get older. Our state cars are different. You can find somewhere that does just about anything.

I tend to think 100k miles generally and then they get sent out elsewhere..

I think I would rather have an ex-highway patrol car than one from a city or small town. At least you know the highway car did not spend 90% of it's life idling or barely crawling along

In reply to mad_machine:

Eh. We in a small rural town anyways.

I work for a large department. Our cars get replaced when they are approximately 8 years old or get high mileage. My buddy had 200k on his last impala before it was replaced.

Police cars spend a ridiculous amount of time idling. Yesterday i drove approximately 50 miles in a 12 hour shift. The car ran for at least 9 hours to accumulate those 50 miles.

You are all missing the point. These old cruisers are STILL around, grabbed up by the local taxi fleets, and run to 200-300K miles.

Watch ebay and online police auctions, You can find lower mileage and detective cars easier although you might have to fly and drive.

I'm thinking an awd, turbo'd, shielded, "tore ass" interceptor would make a good rally car once cheap enough. Heavy as a pig, but very tank like.

Come spend some time in my area. Our poor as dirt community seems to get new state and city police cars every other year whether they need them or not, no idea where the used ones are going though, always see shiny new ones.

Trackmouse wrote: I'm thinking an awd, turbo'd, shielded, "tore ass" interceptor would make a good rally car once cheap enough. Heavy as a pig, but very tank like.

Where? You wouldn't be able to run it in the US. IIRC you can only have one turbo, and the max displacement on an AWD turbo is in the 2.3l range.

They USED to allow twin turbos with a 22mm restrictor on each vs. a single 34 (36?)mm restrictor, in the mid 90s when someone wanted to run a twin turbo Supra. Back when they had restrictors on 2wd turbo cars, before they realized that restricting power on a 2wd as redundant so they said you can run whatever. Hint hint.

Which brings the question of why anyone would want to run AWD anyway... in a lot of cases 2WD is faster, and it's almost always cheaper and more reliable.

In reply to Knurled:

I dont know whos rules your refering but i feel her refuring to rallyCROSS.

He is referring to stage rally rules. You can't run a 3.5L turbo under most sanctioning bodies in North America.

I am just fascinated with the story of one Neon outlasting three cop cars.

Who says I want to be in a "sanctioned" race?

I would love to see a Hobbs meter on a squad car and see how many HOURS are on it by the time of retirement.

I haven't seen any Ecoboost Taurus Interceptors up for sale here yet; based on the VINs they all seem to be 3.5L NA engines so far, even the AWD models.

Probably still a good deal if you can get lucky at auction.

I want one of the Explorers the police are using around here. I don't know why but I think they look much better than the normal ones I see.

The cop Explorers were all over my cars.com results just a few months back.

Appleseed wrote: I would love to see a Hobbs meter on a squad car and see how many HOURS are on it by the time of retirement.

IIRC 06+ P71s had an idle hour meter.