Fleet Management/Observation

[tundraotto]

Originally Posted by GMguy84
This is why I pick up cheap police vics when I can drive for a few month or fix and flip


My 09 SAP vic was a traffic enforce car, only one driver, 118K miles/1600 idle hours and was able to obtain service history since new !!!


OKC PD had a napa auto contract so they were using ALL Napa parts. Oil was full syn 5W30 since new and napa gold oil filters

Best $2600 I ever spent on a car !!!


Dave


Yes - smart fleet management saves hours and miles for the subsequent owners too!!!! I am sure they saved money for the fleet while they were doing it - so WIN-WIN. It's getting rare in today's world....nobody gives a crap.

 

[Nick814]

I work at UPS. All of the current package cars(delivery trucks) run GM 6.0s and Allison 5Speeds. Those things get driven hard 5 days a week. Moving around 10-14k lbs. some also towing a trailer. Being shut off and started 150-300 times a day. Constant stop and go. Many hard accelerations on country routes. I believe they run Mobil Delvac 10w30 at 4-5k intervals. They started using these chassis in 2012-2014 and some are coming up to around 250k miles. Stock engines. All in all they hold up pretty well

 

[bullwinkle]

Surprising to hear of all the Caprice 6.0 failures, those seem to make 300K pretty easily in truck/van service. IMO, police service seems to be among the toughest job for any engine-LOTS of idling to keep the electronics running & the officer warm/cooled, then WOT runs for calls or traffic stops. Very few highway miles, lots of miles that lead to high wear. I may have missed something, but how long were the OCIs on these engines? Was it done by OLM, or by some random mileage number? Any oil analyses done to see if the cheap bulk dino could handle the demands?

 

[Kira]

The OCD angle is acknowledged here, thank goodness.

To the OP's general conclusion: The "just keep it clean / regularly changed" school of maintenance has always been expressed here too.

Me? I was the technician behind the "jug dino on sale every 5K" strategy for my sister's Jeeps.

 

[ka9mnx]

Originally Posted by RazorsEdge
Originally Posted by PWMDMD
This makes 98% of what is discussed on BITOG purely mental masturbation with no real world importance other than feeding the OCD needs of the group to obsess over things that do not matter.

Couldn't say it any better.

 

[FRMA]

Originally Posted by Nick814
I work at UPS. All of the current package cars(delivery trucks) run GM 6.0s and Allison 5Speeds. Those things get driven hard 5 days a week. Moving around 10-14k lbs. some also towing a trailer. Being shut off and started 150-300 times a day. Constant stop and go. Many hard accelerations on country routes. I believe they run Mobil Delvac 10w30 at 4-5k intervals. They started using these chassis in 2012-2014 and some are coming up to around 250k miles. Stock engines. All in all they hold up pretty well

The Chevy 6.0 were so bad the Chevy Fleet manager came to our facility in an attempt to keep us as customers of the Caprice. We had 12, and all 12 had engine failure between 30k and 50k. All of them! They repaired/replaced engines under warranty, only to fail within another 30k-50k. One vehicle was actually on it's 3rd engine and it was under 100k. Again, I'm no engineer and had to rely on the Chevy techs for my information. It was told the issue was with the metal used to make the overhead cams was deficient. Chevy was also having issues with the cylinder deactivation in these engines. Granted these vehicles were one of the 1st batches of vehicles produced, but Chevy should have worked out some of the bugs. They were in a rush to produce a rear wheel 4 door sedan police package, as Ford announce they were no longer producing the CV. Most of the Crown Vic interior parts, (cage, roll bar, center radio console) would fit the Caprice to save money. Chevy rep told me the Caprice was a Holden Caprice with a Camaro drivetrain. The 3.6lt V-6 version did better but was underpowered. I think word got out early about the engine issues and this is why the Caprice PPV is no longer made. The Tahoe PPV much tougher.

 

[mpgo4th]

Originally Posted by antonmnster
I worked in a muni fleet for a while. I asked a shop foreman how many engines they replaced, and he said two in the last decade. Both were from PCV freezing up. Almost all the fleet is ford 5.4. They used re-refined oil on 5k intervals.

I work with a different fleet now, and they swear up and down they're experiencing significant engine failures with Ford VVT in the F series. The fleet manager - and this is one of the biggest fleets in the state - says excessive idling is leading to VVT issues and valve/piston collisions. Honestly, it doesn't make much sense to me - I'd expect a code if the cams were that far off, if the engine even runs. But it's being used as a pretext to enforce anti-idling policies.

Idling is a killer. I'm in charge of a municipal fleet currently and that is my biggest gripe. I once found out that a mowing crew was letting their F250 idle all day in the July heat. They said it because when they took breaks the truck took too long to cool off to a/c. The police idle just as must but then take off from a dead stop and hit 80 mph then go back to idling. I still buy off contract bids but I try to use a quality product. Currently we run Chevron Supreme 5w30 and Baldwin filters at OLM or 6 months, whichever comes first. The police cars are different. I schedule them at 3,000 miles. Some follow this but some still come at 4-5k unless I make them. Makes you want to pull your hair out.
My diesel fleet of dump trucks, trash trucks and construction equipment get Chevron Ursa Super ec 15w40 and Baldwin filters every 250 hours. Too many variables to use miles on them.

 

[CKN]

Originally Posted by ka9mnx
Originally Posted by RazorsEdge
Originally Posted by PWMDMD
This makes 98% of what is discussed on BITOG purely mental masturbation with no real world importance other than feeding the OCD needs of the group to obsess over things that do not matter.

Couldn't say it any better.



Congrats my friend. This is probably the best one-sentence ever written on BITOG.

 

[metroplex]

Originally Posted by PowerSurge
Originally Posted by tundraotto
thats pretty low miles - I am sure that with extending oil change intervals and fuel economy benefits of using premium synthetic oils....the economics would have sided with premium oils, whether the vehicles lasted longer with them or not. Less downtime too...


Mileage a lot of times isn't an accurate measure since like he said police cruisers spend much of their time idling. Unless they equip them with an hour meter, of course.



The Taurus and Explorer have Engine Hour meters that can be unlocked via FORScan. I believe these are enabled as default in their respective Police Interceptor variants.

I've heard the Explorer 3.7/3.5 EcoBoost needed new water pumps every 50k miles.

 

[mpgo4th]

Originally Posted by metroplex
Originally Posted by PowerSurge
Originally Posted by tundraotto
thats pretty low miles - I am sure that with extending oil change intervals and fuel economy benefits of using premium synthetic oils....the economics would have sided with premium oils, whether the vehicles lasted longer with them or not. Less downtime too...


Mileage a lot of times isn't an accurate measure since like he said police cruisers spend much of their time idling. Unless they equip them with an hour meter, of course.



The Taurus and Explorer have Engine Hour meters that can be unlocked via FORScan. I believe these are enabled as default in their respective Police Interceptor variants.

I've heard the Explorer 3.7/3.5 EcoBoost needed new water pumps every 50k miles.

I have 9 of them in my fleet. None have needed water pumps.

 

[metroplex]

Originally Posted by mpgo4th
Originally Posted by metroplex
Originally Posted by PowerSurge
Originally Posted by tundraotto
thats pretty low miles - I am sure that with extending oil change intervals and fuel economy benefits of using premium synthetic oils....the economics would have sided with premium oils, whether the vehicles lasted longer with them or not. Less downtime too...


Mileage a lot of times isn't an accurate measure since like he said police cruisers spend much of their time idling. Unless they equip them with an hour meter, of course.



The Taurus and Explorer have Engine Hour meters that can be unlocked via FORScan. I believe these are enabled as default in their respective Police Interceptor variants.

I've heard the Explorer 3.7/3.5 EcoBoost needed new water pumps every 50k miles.

I have 9 of them in my fleet. None have needed water pumps.


What model years and how many miles are on them?

And I meant every 50k on the Police Interceptors.

 

[bullwinkle]

Originally Posted by Kira
The OCD angle is acknowledged here, thank goodness.

To the OP's general conclusion: The "just keep it clean / regularly changed" school of maintenance has always been expressed here too.

Me? I was the technician behind the "jug dino on sale every 5K" strategy for my sister's Jeeps.

Not sure that's a good comparison-the Jeep 4.0 (in your picture) will run pretty much forever on anything that resembles engine oil! Barring a cracked head, that is.

 

[nthach]

Originally Posted by mpgo4th

My diesel fleet of dump trucks, trash trucks and construction equipment get Chevron Ursa Super ec 15w40 and Baldwin filters every 250 hours. Too many variables to use miles on them.

I had a chat with a mechanic at the local transit authority while they were waiting for a tow truck to take a 60' bus back to the yard - burst hydraulic line. They said they run Chevron Delo 400 with 5K OCIs despite oil analysis. I didn't ask what filters they've used but I've seen Fram or Baldwins being used on their MCI D4500 fleet.

Buses also see a hard life besides dump/waste/concrete trucks and delivery fleets. Still, they've said in the past a Cummins M11/ISM or a Detroit S60 was able to go 1 million miles before a rebuild. Now, they keep a spare engine around in case a bus has a blown engine, they've both told me they're lucky if they see a new Cummins go 300K before croaking.

 

[mpgo4th]

I've heard the Explorer 3.7/3.5 EcoBoost needed new water pumps every 50k miles.[/quote]
I have 9 of them in my fleet. None have needed water pumps. [/quote]

What model years and how many miles are on them?

And I meant every 50k on the Police Interceptors.[/quote]
All of mine are police interceptor models.
My 2013's have the the 3.5 engine and all have 115,000 to 135,000 miles.
My 2014's have 3.7 engines and have at least 75,000 miles on all of them.
My 2015 has a 3.7 and is a K9 car that never shuts off. It has around 90,000 miles.
The rest are 2018 models with the 3.7 engine.
The newis of those has around 20,000 miles while the oldest of the 2018's has about 45,000.
No cooling system issues with any of them.

 

[metroplex]

Originally Posted by mpgo4th


I've heard the Explorer 3.7/3.5 EcoBoost needed new water pumps every 50k miles.

I have 9 of them in my fleet. None have needed water pumps. [/quote]

What model years and how many miles are on them?

And I meant every 50k on the Police Interceptors.[/quote]
All of mine are police interceptor models.
My 2013's have the the 3.5 engine and all have 115,000 to 135,000 miles.
My 2014's have 3.7 engines and have at least 75,000 miles on all of them.
My 2015 has a 3.7 and is a K9 car that never shuts off. It has around 90,000 miles.
The rest are 2018 models with the 3.7 engine.
The newis of those has around 20,000 miles while the oldest of the 2018's has about 45,000.
No cooling system issues with any of them. [/quote]

Those are fairly low miles. Is this a big municipality or just a small township? I'm surprised you are keeping them in service past 100k miles. Most of the departments around here replace them at 100k miles and that happens within 2 or 3 years.

Do you have the total engine hours for those vehicles?

 

[Railrust]

I worked in a fleet situation that was similar, had vehicles from all three American manufacturers. They did a cost analysis across the country and came to the conclusion that 7,500 mile intervals were the sweet spot, using conventional and factory filters. In all my years there we never replaced one single engine because of an oil related event. I can only recall two engines being replaced at all...one hydro locked Ford Taurus and a 3.8 Pontiac Grand Prix (almost new, Mexico made engine). That was it.

Now this was before direct injection. Not sure I'd feel comfortable doing this now.

And of course we'd always get the people that would go 10,000-12,000 miles before bringing them in.

As far as actual repairs back then (2000-2007) Chrysler was the absolute worst. Followed by GM, then Ford. Chryslers had issues from bumper to bumper, virtually every car/truck they made. GM had all sorts of gasket, power steering racks, suspension, electrical issues. Ford actually was pretty solid, believe it or not.

 

[mpgo4th]

Do you have the total engine hours for those vehicles?[/quote]

This is a small town. Most of the older vehicles are between 4-5000 engine hours. I wouldn't call 145000 mile on a police car low miles. My point was that your statement that police interceptors need water pumps every 50k is a bit of an exaggeration. I've never done one on these internal water pump cars.

 

[Navi]

The 3.7 liter V6 and 4.6 liter V8 is a proven tough engine. It wont need the same TLC as other engines might. Ive been running various oils through my MKT 3.7 liter and getting the same results. However its a different story with my Navigator 3.5 liter V6 2nd Gen 450 horse ecoboost. I wouldnt dare run the suggested 5W30 semisynth. 5W40 for that all the way.

 

[Navi]

Ford gives livery vehicles 150k warranty and police vehicles 100k. Fords expectation is they wont need work until at least that long. I think this is very much the case for the 3.7 liter V6 / 4.6 liter V8 but not so much for Ecoboost.

 

[john_pifer]

Originally Posted by FRMA
Originally Posted by Nick814
I work at UPS. All of the current package cars(delivery trucks) run GM 6.0s and Allison 5Speeds. Those things get driven hard 5 days a week. Moving around 10-14k lbs. some also towing a trailer. Being shut off and started 150-300 times a day. Constant stop and go. Many hard accelerations on country routes. I believe they run Mobil Delvac 10w30 at 4-5k intervals. They started using these chassis in 2012-2014 and some are coming up to around 250k miles. Stock engines. All in all they hold up pretty well

The Chevy 6.0 were so bad the Chevy Fleet manager came to our facility in an attempt to keep us as customers of the Caprice. We had 12, and all 12 had engine failure between 30k and 50k. All of them! They repaired/replaced engines under warranty, only to fail within another 30k-50k. One vehicle was actually on it's 3rd engine and it was under 100k. Again, I'm no engineer and had to rely on the Chevy techs for my information. It was told the issue was with the metal used to make the overhead cams was deficient. Chevy was also having issues with the cylinder deactivation in these engines. Granted these vehicles were one of the 1st batches of vehicles produced, but Chevy should have worked out some of the bugs. They were in a rush to produce a rear wheel 4 door sedan police package, as Ford announce they were no longer producing the CV. Most of the Crown Vic interior parts, (cage, roll bar, center radio console) would fit the Caprice to save money. Chevy rep told me the Caprice was a Holden Caprice with a Camaro drivetrain. The 3.6lt V-6 version did better but was underpowered. I think word got out early about the engine issues and this is why the Caprice PPV is no longer made. The Tahoe PPV much tougher.


Well, first off, these don't have overhead cams. 2nd, how could it be so much different from a Tahoe? It's the same engine and trans, but in an even lighter vehicle.