In recent months, more than one police department in the U.S. has ditched its fleet of Ford Police Interceptor Utility crossovers over reliability concerns or the mere cost of such models compared to the competition. However, the Ford F-150 based Police Responder has been growing in popularity thanks to its utilitarian nature and capability, coupled with an array of useful features and strong performance. Nowhere is that more evident that in the state of South Carolina, where the Highway Patrol is ditching its fleet of Dodge Chargers for the Ford F-150 Police Responder, according to The State.
As many are already aware, at least part of this decision stems from the fact that the Charger recently went out of production and will be discontinued at least for a short period of time before it returns at an unspecified date. However, the South Carolina Highway Patrol had already been eyeing the Ford F-150 Police Responder as a pursuit-rated possibility to expand its existing fleet – which also contains a number of Police Interceptor Utility models to boot.
“Although the agency was later notified of plans to extend the production date of those vehicles for another year, we had already put a contingency plan in place to purchase more Ford vehicles,” Kyle McGahee, a spokesman for the SC Department of Public Safety. “Effective fleet vehicle management is something that must be planned out in a strategic manner because of manufacturer production times and then on-site build-out time for technology to ensure the vehicle becomes the trooper or officer’s mobile office.”
Ultimately, SCHP plans to buy 35 Ford F-150 Police Responder pickups this year to replace some of its outgoing Charger sedans, with five assigned to each troop. “This is a very small percentage of our fleet,” McGahee said. “The majority of our fleet will remain Ford Police Interceptor Vehicles (Explorers) and Dodge Chargers. Of course, those will eventually phase out as part of our standard vehicle replacement process.”
We’ll have more on the Ford F-150 Police Responder soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford F-Series news, Ford F-150 news, and comprehensive Ford newscoverage.
Comments
The Dodge charger are a Piece of Sh*t (POS) anyway. Just because they are cheap cars doesn’t mean that they are good cars.
So they went from quality to garbage. Good luck with your poorly built and problematic Fords