7Mary3

First off, that officer was lucky more than anything else. I would imagine he was ejected during the collision, and had there been someone in the passenger seat my guess is there would have been a fatality. Granted, any other car in a similar collision would have been just as bad if not worse. As for the 'idiots' who sued Ford, please remember that a good many of them were law enforcement next-of-kin who lost loved ones in Crown Vic crashes, and think of how you would feel if you had lost someone under similar circumstances. Ford stepped up to the plate in 2005 and fixed the defect, but a problem existed in the earlier models. Two officers in my area were very nearly killed when their 2002 Crown Vic was rear-ended by another car traveling at an estimated 35 m.p.h. on a surface street, not a highway.

In anything, Ford may have too much plant capacity for the 6.7L Powerstroke. I think the 6.7L will find it's way into the 650.

Can't be done! The Ford V-10's have a balance shaft driven off the right camshaft in the right head. If VCT was used, it would cause the balance shaft to go out of phase every time the cams advanced.

Swank.

Fleets spec'ing one make to streamline fleet operations was a common practice, but not so much anymore. When I first got into the fleet buisness, the organization I worked for was almost all Dodge, passenger cars up to heavy trucks (yes, Dodge built heavies back in the day- good truck too). Nowadays it's all about the deal. And in addition, many fleets buy medium and heavy trucks 'turn key' from the upfitter, and let the upfitter choose and spec. the chassis. There are some advantages to that. Hino incidentally realizes this, and is making a sales push to upfitters rather than end users.

In any event, it is good news that there will be a 2012 F-650. Last summer the rumor was the 650's and 750's would be dropped. Now, if only Ford would do a F-850 tandem axle with an 8.3L Cummins......

Could very well be one of the reasons. I heard a large fleet twisted Ford's arm a bit too.

Have to disagree with that one. Th 8.1L was comparable to the 6.8L 3 valve in commercial applications in my experience, but it is not an even comparison as Ford never offered the 6.8L in the 650 or 750 in the past. I have no idea how a 6.8L 3 valve would do in something with a 30k GVW.. The 8.1L was noticeably more powerful than the 2 valve 6.8L, and more durable as well in class 3-5 trucks.

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=32925 Must say, I was a bit surprised by this. A big rental fleet wanted Ford to build this truck a few years ago, but Ford refused. Also, I thought the V-10 was scheduled to be phased completely out of production over the next few years. In any event, the V-10 will probably work well with the new transmission. The question is will this truck find a market? GM wasn't doing too well with the 8.1L Topkick and Kodiak 6500/7500 the last few years it was offered, even with the dramatic increase in diesel engine costs and maintenance headaches. The truck did find favor with some municipalities, however.

Yes, and the regulations change every 10 months.....

I think he has very realistic expectations about what sort of vehicle the TC is (this guy does commercial and municipal buildings). It was interesting that he didn't balk at the price as the contractor did. The turn-off was the broken parts, not the lack of creature comforts. He may look at them again.

When I first heard the Transit Connect was coming stateside, I thought it would be a good seller. Market pretty much to itself, and nothing really comparable since the old Dodge Caravan CV. I have a friend that is a general contractor, and he is looking for a vehicle to replace a Brand X small pickup he uses for light jobs, inspections, and bidding. I suggested he look at a TC, and he did. He will not consider it. While he liked the size and the concept, he was turned off by the price and the lack of quality. He commented that it was a tin can, and he might be interested if the price was around $10,000. No way would he pay more than that. Another friend looked at them just this past week. He is an architect, and thought the TC would be handy for going to jobsites and carrying models, large drawings, ect.. He thought the price was steep, but not a deal breaker. He commented on the 'quality' too, and noted that there were a number of broken plastic parts in the new one he saw on the dealer's lot. I wonder if quality control is going to be an issue.

Wise move on both Ford and GM's part, building mid-size trucks in Thailand of Asia and Europe. Without a doubt, the vast majority of those sales will be in Asia, the profits will be made in Asia's booming and growing economy, and if they can unload a few in Europe, so much the better. Personally, I don't think anything will be selling in Europe after Greece's financial meltdown and the collapse of the Eurodollar. Spain is probably next. GM will be wishing they unloaded Opel, and Ford will be wishing for less exposure to the European market.

We have a 2005 6.0L F-550, and I am reminded of the 6.0L's issues every time it winds up in the shop. Which is often! I agree 100% with your theory about International's use of EGR. I think International thought that not having to use 'exhaust fluid' in their diesels would offset the poorer fuel economy and potential EGR issues in the minds of medium and heavy truck buyers, but it looks like the other manufacturers didn't see it that way. Ultimately the buyer will make the decision.

I am seeing an awful lot of new Dodge chassis/cabs, and there are a lot of class 3-4-5 users that are still upset over the 6.0L Powerstroke. Still those sales numbers are a surprise. Don't be so quick to condem SCR. SCR is an aftertreatment system, it does not effect performance or fuel economy. EGR is bad news in a diesel. Kills economy, makes the engine run hotter, and you are asking the engine to swallow a lot of abrasive garbage. SCR allows the manufacturer to get by much less EGR. International's 'solution' is to use a lot of EGR to meet the new NOX standards. Internationals engines are not going to match medium duty Cummins in performance or economy, and in a few years Interational may have to adopt SCR anyway. Cummins is sticking with EGR for the Dodge Ram. Compare the output of the 2011 Ram Cummins (EGR) with the 2011 6.7L Powerstroke and 6.6L Duramax (both SCR).

Let's face it, Mercury was another Pontiac. A decent RWD platform and a nice little sports car couldn't save Pontiac, and there is no reason to think similar cars would have saved Mercury either. Nonetheless, I am sorry to see Mercury go. As for Lincoln, if dropping Mercury can save Lincoln, then so be it. The problem is currently Lincoln competes with Buick and needs to more upscale in a hurry. Small Lincolns to replace Mercurys that were not selling is clearly not the answer.

If Mercury is not going to have any exclusive platforms and all the dealers will be consolidated into F-M-L stores, there is no reason to keep Mercury. That having been said, I hope Mercury stays. Mercury's greatest weakness has always been it's lack of distinctive. The best remembered Mercury was the early Cougar, and I think that was because even though it was based on the Mustang, it was different enough that it was perceived as a unique car. I will admit I was always fond of the Torino-based Cougars too.

The FWD A-body? The Cutlass Ciera/Century/Celebrity/6000? I'll take issue with that. Those cars were not fancy, but they were tough. I still see 1000's of them still around, but yet I never see Tempo's or even first and second generation Taurus' around anymore. Those old A-bodies were really inexpensive to repair and didn't have any mechanical vices other than intake manifold gaskets on the V-6's. The 3T40 automatics were bullitt-proof, unlike Ford's ATX. An A body with the 2.5 'Iron Duke was admittedly a pretty miserable car, but it would get you where you needed to go.

No, I don't think the Chevy W car is scheduled for retirement anytime soon, though I suppose it is possible the 9C1 version may be dropped when the Caprice is introduced. I have fleet experience (not law enforcement) with the Impalas, and they are actually a pretty decent car with repair and fuel costs below average. Total cost-of-ownership is only fair due to low resale. So many of them end up in fleets and daily rentals.

As I pointed out, I believe there is a favorable business situation for GM when it comes to importing vehicles from Australia. It is possible that a similar situation does not exist for Ford.

I had a lot of names for the 400 back in the day..... The above posts are right, for most of it's life the 400 was a smogged out big car/light truck engine. There is performance potential in there somewhere. In light trucks, they all had Motorcraft 2bbl. carburetors, and the heads had this goofy integral air injection system thay really screwed up the exhaust ports. The combustion chamber design was supposedly a problem too. Something about the quench area requiring low compression and retarded spark to limit detonation. But with the right intake, cam, and heads you could make something out of them.

I guess the bottom line is that I am quite disappointed Ford didn't import one of their wonderful RWD Austrailian products to be the next police car. I have a bit of a passion for police cars as you can tell, and I don't believe any currently available FWD sedan will make an acceptable Shop. That having been said, I really can understand why Ford is not putting much effort into replacing the Crown Vic P.I.. As I have said before, we are talking low margin fleet sales. Dodge can offer an 'acceptable' RWD car in the Charger, as it is based on a retail car. My understanding is G.M. can import cars from Australia at a favorable price because it allows them to offset import duties on parts exported from the U.S. to Australia (can anyone elaborate on that?). Anyway, I think the Taurus would have a better chance if it wasn't for RWD alternatives. Maybe Ford was betting that Chrysler wouldn't be around and G.M. wouldn't bother........

It is funny, but I think Ford proved a pickup/light truck cab is clearly best for class 4 and 5, and GM (and the other medium builders) proved that a larger cab is preferable for class 6 and larger. I think (as do others here) that the new International Terrastar will not be a success, as it makes the same mistake GM did with their Topkick and Kodiak 4500 and 5500.

If you look back to my earlier post, I said 'enforcement' fleet. By that I ment cars specifically procured for patrol and pursuit work. Naturally a medium or large sized agency will have a number of different vehicles for a multitude of tasks. I would hope you wouldn't need municipal fleet experience to realize that. I assume Ford is marketing the P.I. to be a patrol car, not a car suitable for administrative tasks only. Then again........