This may come under the 'there but the grace of God go us' department, but a new slither of hope has emerged for Holden's US cop-car export program with the Caprice – one of the main enemies has gone up in flames while on duty.
A police pursuit version of the Dodge Charger (pictured) caught fire in March following a suspected fuel leak. The vehicle, assigned to a rural police agency in Oregon, still had new-car smell with just 6000 miles on the clock – although that smell has now almost certainly been replaced by the smell of burned metal and plastics.
Curry County Sheriff John Bishop told local newspaper, the Curry County Pilot, that Dodge would replace the police car and all the equipment destroyed in the fire. But the exact details of the deal – and the probable cause of the fire – are secret because the department signed a non-disclosure agreement with Dodge.
However, that hasn't stopped more than a dozen reports appearing on the National Highway Transport Safety Agency website of mysterious fuel odours leaking into the cabin of other Dodge Chargers across the country, a number of them police pursuit cars.
US police have also had their fingers burnt in the past with the Ford Crown Victoria; law enforcement agencies in the US reporting fire-related incidents for the Ford Crown Victoria — the default choice for police pursuit vehicles for the past 20 years. Some agencies even took legal action against Ford at the time.
While Ford is now offering agencies an all-new Taurus-based Interceptor as an alternative to the Charger and the Caprice, Ford's response to the allegations that the Crown Victoria was prone to combust will be remembered by police fleet managers across the nation.
Below is an edited complaint posted in the past 12 months on the NHTSA website regarding a possible fuel leak in the Charger:
"A 2010 Dodge Charger with a police interceptor package … [had] strong exhaust fumes [inside the cabin]. He was unable to determine where the fumes were coming from. This failure was not diagnosed by the dealer since it was a part of a fleet package of twelve to thirteen vehicles that have experienced the identical failure. Several vehicles within the fleet transport Police K9 dogs and the odour in the vehicle presented a safety risk for the driver and the K9 dog. The contact was advised that an engineer from Chrysler would notify them and investigate the failure approximately two to three months ago. He was told that he could continue driving the vehicle at this time due to the delay in Chrysler engineer conducting an investigation. The maintenance division spoke to the Dodge dealership in an attempt to have the vehicle diagnosed and they were told that they were unable to offer any assistance. The failure mileage was 5742."
See the photo of the cop car up in flames...
http://www.currypilot.com/20110525117807/News/Local-News/Chrysler-will-replace-sheriffs-car-destroyed-by-fire
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