Police Cruisers

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Just out of curiosity, what type of oil does police intereptors use (synthetic vs conventional)? I'm assuming it varies from different police departments.
 
I would imagine for larger depts., whatever fleet bulk oil they service every gasoline vehicle with.

My local shop has the maintenace contract for the nearby NYS police troop, and they use a decent quality standard 5w30 bulk for a "normal" oil change. Interesting note, the cars get their brake pads replaced every oil change at about 6000 mi.

Drew
 
Most were spec-ed for 5-30 but the new CAFE standards got it set to 5w-20. Ford modular engines are quite tight and don't enjoy anything thicker unless very worn.
 
Its been said here many times that LAPD uses 15-40 in their Ford crown vic fleet. My dept which has prolly over 5000 vehicles total uses a synthetic blend in 10w-30. Most of our cars are Vics, starting to get a few Chargers as well.
 
My dept. has about 100 vehicles that are used daily. We use 10w-30 syn blend from a bulk tank. It is supplied by conoco-phillips according to the sticker on the tank. We run 3k intervals.

Our break down of vehicles is like this :
70 crown vics
10 suvs (explorers and one escape)
6 chargers(v6's-they suck)
10 impalas
4 taurus

We have about 20 specialty vehicles that are mostly atv's or diesel and I'm not sure what they do with them.

I'm sure anything from 5w-20 to 15w-40 would be fine but 10w-30 at 3k oci's must be working ok because I can't remember the last time we broke a motor. Transmissions are a different story. The vic's rarely lose a trans but the impalas are total junk. The chargers are not old enough to tell but ours seem to have alot more problems than the crowns.
 
Our state used (uses) Goodyear for their maint work and they did 3k oci's with Motorcraft oil and filters, probably a 5W20.It's been awhile so I may be off on the weight. Granted, the 3k's for me were mostly highway miles with PLENTY of WOT. Lots of hot weather idling too.
 
Originally Posted By: milwaukee
My dept. has about 100 vehicles that are used daily. We use 10w-30 syn blend from a bulk tank. It is supplied by conoco-phillips according to the sticker on the tank. We run 3k intervals.

Our break down of vehicles is like this :
70 crown vics
10 suvs (explorers and one escape)
6 chargers(v6's-they suck)
10 impalas
4 taurus

We have about 20 specialty vehicles that are mostly atv's or diesel and I'm not sure what they do with them.

I'm sure anything from 5w-20 to 15w-40 would be fine but 10w-30 at 3k oci's must be working ok because I can't remember the last time we broke a motor. Transmissions are a different story. The vic's rarely lose a trans but the impalas are total junk. The chargers are not old enough to tell but ours seem to have alot more problems than the crowns.



Our city garage:

Buses get Conoco 15w40(bulk)
Gas-powered vehicles get Conoco Syn-Blend 10w30(Bulk)
I also saw a bulk drum of Citgo ATF, and Napa Brand Coolant in gallon jugs.

Most other parts come from Napa.

I spoke to a mechanic there who told me that Conoco oils (from the local distributor) are usually a little cheaper than everything else, and they work just fine.
 
It just doesn't matter much in a fleet environment. The things have a higher probability of suffering a fender bender than they do effects of oil choice.
 
Originally Posted By: bobfather99
Originally Posted By: milwaukee
My dept. has about 100 vehicles that are used daily. We use 10w-30 syn blend from a bulk tank. It is supplied by conoco-phillips according to the sticker on the tank. We run 3k intervals.

Our break down of vehicles is like this :
70 crown vics
10 suvs (explorers and one escape)
6 chargers(v6's-they suck)
10 impalas
4 taurus

We have about 20 specialty vehicles that are mostly atv's or diesel and I'm not sure what they do with them.

I'm sure anything from 5w-20 to 15w-40 would be fine but 10w-30 at 3k oci's must be working ok because I can't remember the last time we broke a motor. Transmissions are a different story. The vic's rarely lose a trans but the impalas are total junk. The chargers are not old enough to tell but ours seem to have alot more problems than the crowns.



Our city garage:

Buses get Conoco 15w40(bulk)
Gas-powered vehicles get Conoco Syn-Blend 10w30(Bulk)
I also saw a bulk drum of Citgo ATF, and Napa Brand Coolant in gallon jugs.

Most other parts come from Napa.

I spoke to a mechanic there who told me that Conoco oils (from the local distributor) are usually a little cheaper than everything else, and they work just fine.


My car sees nothing but Conoco Synthetic blend 5w-20 FROM A LOCAL DISTRIBUTOR so I guess if it's great enough for city vehicles/police crusiers and the likes then it's superb for my little V6 Honda motor which sees pretty brutal summers as the one it is experiencing right now.


Originally Posted By: wantin150
Our state used (uses) Goodyear for their maint work and they did 3k oci's with Motorcraft oil and filters, probably a 5W20.It's been awhile so I may be off on the weight. Granted, the 3k's for me were mostly highway miles with PLENTY of WOT. Lots of hot weather idling too.


Matter of fact, I get my Conoco oil from a local distributor and they indeed work real fine. Checked my stash and I got 5 quarts left good for one more oil change and I just dropped my oil about 3 weeks ago so I am at 90% useful oil life left on my MMS! Great oil and btw, I use(d) Mobil One oil filter and I am getting great gas mileage.

Ahh, I'm in one of my good moods, maybe I will fill her [censored] up and see how many miles I can eek as soon as I get some new rubber tho..these Toyo Proxes 4 are looking worn out at almost 60 thousand miles!! wow!! out of a 100 dollar and some change tire!!

The store bought CP Motorcraft is superb oil too but the numbers from the Syn blend available from distributor(s) are better!

Originally Posted By: foxer
I saw a barrel of 5w-20 76 blend in our shop a while back. We have a case of Napa 5w-20 for top offs.

I was also eying 76 products for 5w-20 blend but have not found any in 5w-20. Is this a CP product as well? I am looking to add some quality 5w-20s (blends, synthetics) to my fleet of CP products use.

IT'S GOOD TO SEE THE PRODUCT I CHOSE TO USE SEE BEING CURRENTLY USED IN CITY VEHICLES BECAUSE IT LEADS ME TO BELIEVE IF IT IS GREAT FOR AN ENTIRE FLEET, IT HAD TO BE THE SAME ON MINE. I MADE A SUPERB CHOICE TO DE-VIRGIN MY CAR FROM FF AND DINO-LAND AND INTO IT'S CURRENT SLICK STATE!
 
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The department where I serve uses what most governmental agencies use: the lowest cost bidder.

I was somewhat disappointed when I found out that our department has for years been using bulk drum Wolfshead 10w-40 HD, I think in SJ forumation. Not because it's a bad oil; although I don't consider it "outstanding" by any means.

The issue is that they use this fleet oil in all gas powered equipment at the county highway garage, where the CVPIs (Crown Vic Police Interceptors) get their routine service. All vehciles get 5k mile OCIs on that regular basis. They don't care that Ford specs (previously 5w-30) a 5w-20 SM for the 4.6L. They use this stuff everywhere; in the light duty trucks, in the CVPIs, in the Impala run-a-bout cars, in the lawn tractors; all the 4 stroke engines get this stuff. I asked the foreman in the garage about it, and his comment was to the effect of "Thicker is better."; that was the extent of his knowledge, and he is in charge!

Trust me when I say this realtively young guy is "ol' skool" in his shade-tree mentality concerning lubricants in general. There is no such thing as ploy-urea, lithium, moly grease; it's all just "grease". "Oil is oil". DexIII/Merc equivlants go in everything tranny related. Yikes!

On one hand, it's disconcerting that they won't follow OEM recommendations. On the other hand, we put around 100k miles on a CVPI and then trade it in. They get pounded on, as you can imagine. And yet, they continue to run with no problems. All the vehicles are serviced with this fluid, and in general there are no mechanical issues to report relative to oil. Perhaps an engine teardown would reveal something, but I can assure you that there's no budget to cover that endeavor, simply for "infomation retreival".

If there's anything to learn from this, perhaps it's that committment to service is more important than fluid choice. The highway department is religious about OCI's in all respects. The fluids are changed at 5k miles for engine oil, 20k miles for tranny oil, diff fluid at 50k. Greased at 10k miles.

Kind of puts the anal-retentive BITOG experience in a perspective, don't you think?
 
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Originally Posted By: dnewton3
On the other hand, we put around 100k miles on a CVPI and then trade it in. They get pounded on, as you can imagine. And yet, they continue to run with no problems.


Its hard to kill a CVPI. In the county I am in we got about 400 Chargers mixed in with the CVPI's. There are about 1600 cars total. The Chargers after 20K miles are pretty much shot. The CVPI's are no problem. In the next county over they keep their CVPI's till around 150K miles with very little problems.
 
We've just started getting the Chargers. Love the speed, hate the ride. They remind me of the LT-1 Chevy's of the mid-90's. Ran like stink, rode like poo. We do 12 hours shifts; that's a lot of time in a car that rides rough. Time will tell how the Charger will hold up. I'm always skeptical of any uni-body car for hard fleet work.

Body-on-frame will never handle quite as well as the new uni-body cars, but they can take a beating like no one's business, and do it around the clock.

The 4.6L CVPI engine is about as indestructible as they come. NEVER had one in our fleet down for anything internally related. We burn up alternators and such, but never the basic engine. Indestructible.

The CVPI certainly isn't the fastest, but it's fast enough to get you there in a hurry, and fast enough to get you into trouble if you're not paying attention. The CVPI ride is far better than any other cruiser I've been in, in my 13 years in LE.
 
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
We've just started getting the Chargers. Love the speed, hate the ride.


That's unfortunate. I want any cop that stops me to be in a good mood.
grin2.gif
 
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