KokomoKid wrote:

> "Daniel J. Stern" > wrote in message
> n.umich.edu...
>
>>On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, KokomoKid wrote:
>>
>>
>>>As far as the Ford 4.6/5.4, while it may not be a good engine to hop up
>>>for street rods, it must be reasonably reliable in fairly hard use, or
>>>they wouldn't continue to be used by most police departments and taxi
>>>companies in the U.S.
>>
>>Your assumption is faulty. You're forgetting that there is no alternative
>>to the CV for a large RWD sedan in the North American market. When the
>>Caprice went out of production after '96, an industry sprang up based on
>>nothing but refurbishing police Caprices for further service -- several
>>such companies did very well, as many departments found the CV's
>>durability, handling and/or defogger performance unacceptable.
>>
>>The cops in much of Southeastern Ontario, which is a large market, have
>>been steadily changing over from CVs to Chevrolet Impalas. The cab
>>companies don't buy many CVs any more; they're buying mostly Impalas
>>(though Hyundai Sonatas, of all things, are making inroads). Every time
>>you ask, you get more-or-less the same answer: "Sure, the CV as a whole
>>can last a lot of KMs, but only with a lot of parts replacements; the
>>engines don't last."
>>
>
>
> Given that front drive cars would work fine as cop cars,

They don't. MANY police fleets have tried them, and they do not hold
together. They're fine for park police and parking patrol, and some
fleets use them that way. But for cruisers, they just don't hack it. To
be honest, I'm not entirely sure why they don't hold up. My own
front-drive vehicle has surpised the he// out of me by accumulating
215,000 miles (93 Eagle Vision TSi 3.5). But its driven pretty mildly
and cared for very well compared to a cop car..

and front drive
> minivans would work better than Crown Vics as taxis,

True, and a lot of the local taxis are minivans as well as Tauruses,
Intrepids, and Monte Carlos. FWD seems to endure better in taxi service
than in police service.

there is obviously a
> pro-rear-drive bias among many fleet operators. The fact remains, though,
> that the 4.6's must not be that terrible, or said fleet operators would
> "bite the bullet"


That's true, they are NOT "that terrible." Which is my point- it took
over 10 years to get them to be "not that terrible," and they're still
not quite where the Windsor engines were when they went out of
production. The Modular engine was designed as a light-duty, small,
lightweight V8 for FWD applications. It got pushed into heavy-duty truck
and RWD vehicle service as a cost-cutting measure (by reducing the
different number of engine families that had to be produced).