After owning the car for about 8,000 miles the Check Engine light came on. The dealer ended up replacing the engine. I should have known something was wrong when the dealer voluntarily offered to pay half the $4800 price without any prompting from me.
The next major thing to go wrong was the transmission at about 58,000 miles. I did not like the dealer's attitude when working on my engine, so I went to an independent transmission specialist. The transmission would fluctuate (downshift/upshift) when decelerating (by coasting) through the 38-42 MPH range. This infrequently happened around 70 MPH as well. No other speed ranges seemed affected. This took 3 visits to fix the problem. The problem has since re-occurred aroung 94,000 miles.
The next problem was that the car wouldn't start. The starter was replaced and this didn't help. The problem occurred about four times. Once the car started up about a half hour later, 2 times the car was towed (once to the dealer and once to a local gas station). Once the AAA guy just banged on the starter and this worked. The problem was found by the local gas station. When the car was put up on a lift, there were sparks from wires that could only be seen from under the starter. The wires were replaced and the problem has gone away.
The current problem involves the front driver's seat. Two front bolts and a read bracket have detached. The front bolts are normally attached the the underside of the upper portion of the seat. A 1 1/2 to 2 inch circle of steel has pulled out of the upper portion of the seat leaving both front bolts detached. Since then, one of the rear steel brackets has snapped. The seat is now held together by one rear bracket. The dealer has offered to weld the seat for $400. I will be seeing the dealer shortly. I don't see any other option.
Have you ever seen how a policeman takes off in his Police Interceptor? No cop treats his own car that way. Some of these cars have to be ready for the wrecking yard. Yet, if you read the glowing reviews in this section from people who have purchased former police cars, you will see that the Ford Crown Victoria is the most reliable American car made.
Before you blame the transmissions for those bucking problems in that range (35-45mph) do a complete filter and flush and buy the mercon oil at Ford. It is the recommended fluid and a flush sometimes solves these problems. Then change every 30,000kms. Its not guaranteed to fix the problem, but these trannys may exhibit problems with dirty oil. A quick check will tell you. Red is good. Deep red or brown with a burnt smell means new oil and filter. I have a 1994 CVPI and it works really good. Not real fast, but I have highway gearing in the rear end. Nice on turns and when loaded up due to the heavy duty gear underneath. Will definitely last longer than a LX model if you get a Supervisor or detective car rather than regular patrol.
I also have a 1994 CVPI which I bought used in April 2007 with 175000 KMS. My car was obviously maintained well by the police department as I am still running it and have only put on a battery post ($2.50), 2 front tires, and a few oil/filter changes. I run this car like its stolen most of the time and still after over 35000kms it runs great. Also not super fast as I have 3.08 rear end but not too bad on fuel and awesome on turns but rough on bumps due to heavy duty suspension. Get one of these if you like to run a car hard. They will definitely be able to take it.
Note: A Comments RSS Feed is available. New comments appear in the Members Area before the main site