While I disagree wholeheartedly with 2007CrownVic on both the relative quality of chargers versus crown Vics coming to auction and the source of the cam/lifter failure problem…. there are some things that we agree on. I agree that all the police vehicles which utilize a VVT engine (including the Tahoes and the Caprices) suffer from cam and lifters problems at very early ages. This argues in favor of something in the police method of using the vehicles that is hard on the cams, not to some metallurgical defect in the manufacture of the cars that is spread amongst different manufacturers.

As for what causes cam and lifter failure in Chargers, you don’t have to listen to either one of us, you can go straight to the Internet and weigh all of the many arguments in this long-running debate on all sides and make up your own mind. What all the theorists agree upon is the cost of the repair, which remains unchanged at around $4000 no matter what causes it. And yes it is cheaper if you do it yourself just as the Crown Vic intake manifold repair is proportionally cheaper if you do it yourself.

I cannot speak to the relative percentages shot-out Crown Vics hitting the auction market 10 years ago compared to the relative percentages of shot-out Chargers hitting the market now because I wasn’t shopping for either car at auction 10 years ago. I will have to take 2007Crownvics word for that. All I can go by is my own experience and what I am experiencing in my conversations with the many fleet managers with whom I have talked to regarding this issue. They all universally pine for the old days when they had crown vics in their fleets and at the same time they nurse the few remaining warhorse vics that are still running for as long as they possibly can because they love them and they give them no trouble. At the same time I’ve spoken to three Utah fleet managers this year alone who have told me they are sick of chargers and they are purging their entire fleet of them regardless of mileage, including the state of Utah’s entire highway patrol fleet.

Then there is the ultimate barometer that everyone should go by, meaning one’s own personal first-hand experience. I have owned 14 crown Victorias and Mercury Marquis that I bought at auction from police agencies. On those cars I have done no mechanical repairs to the vast majority of my fleet and on the few cars that I did have to repair the largest repairs were front wheel bearings and brakes on one car, a transmission flush and filter on a second car, blend door actuators on two more cars, and then your usual assortment of horn reconnects, window motors and door switches etc. on a half dozen other cars on other cars. that’s it… On 14 cars.

On the other hand all three chargers went straight from the seller to my auto shop for necessary repairs right out of the gate, two via triple AAA tows because they didn’t make it home on my drives from their local Utah sellers to my house. The two vsixes both had front end suspension issues averaging about $750 and the hemi is still in the shop with a seized AC compressor, cost tbd.

So I have managed to avoid the big repair bills in both cases probably because I am very conservative in the cars that I choose to bid on, but across-the-board the chargers cost me more money to get ready than the vics.

That's not my Govdeals truck, that was just a similiar one to what I purchased from Lemons Auctioneers/Fort Bend County a couple weeks ago. I try & flip a few a year as an individual, but with limited access to only public auctions which have gone mostly online, I only wind up getting to do a couple a year these days at best.

Basically I have to pay no more than 50% of expected retail sales price for a vehicle at auction for it to be worth the effort. Much more than that and it doesn't take much to push the car into break even territory. And trucks/vans at recent auction all sell for too much beyond that 50% target to be comfortable, as your example so aptly indicates.

Cam failure is happening in the same models that don't see police use. But police use does push vehicles harder and make those problems become more aparent. The biggest problem I have with both Chrysler and GM with this is that it's a well known issue but they do very little to fix it. Actually that's not entirely true, the hemi roller lifters do have bigger rollers now but the problem seems more whatever inferior metal they are made of.

Crown vics for sure are the safer buy but they were also in a very unique situation that they dragged on far longer then they normally would have if they had any real competition so they had more then enough time to improve everything, not to mention they are still an older technology car so there is less to go wrong with them. Part of the reason fleet managers like them is because they are easy to fix and more durable but some are also biast because that's what they worked on for so long and for a lot of them that's all they ever worked on. Service can be neglected and the cars don't care. Then they get Chargers dumped on them that have all the problems that come with newer cars and they aren't used to dealing with that. Other Fleet managers hate newer Fords, it seems to depend on what they're running.

I am leary of buying Chargers or anything else for that matter compared to cvpi's. In most cases it's been some sort of body issue that makes me pass, a couple didn't sound right when they were running. It wasn't cam and it could have been nothing but I wasn't willing to take the chance. For some reason a lot of Tahoe's Ive looked at aren't running. Then the ones that are have trashed interiors or they were converted for some other use. Probably the biggest thing that keeps me away from Tauruses, other then being bland and not wanting to dish out money to service them is that most are white and still have peeling paint problems!!!! Even the non white ones peel now.

One undeniable advantage the Chargers have over the Vics... they sell for MUCH more money at any age.

My 2005 P71 (Car 11) just sold for $3800. It was a tougher 3 week sale due to its 115k miles, which is higher than I like to sell them. Nothing wrong with it mechanically, very solid, I did nothing to it but grease the lower steering column. It only had peelformance white patches that I addressed with my rattle can secret sauce. I bought it for $1850, so I did fine, but still it was a slow seller.

Chargers, on the other hand, are easy sells to testosterone laden young men. Especially hemi chargers. They'll pay too much for them every time. This 2007 with 87000 miles that I just bought, and broke the serpentine driving it home on a seized AC compressor, will go for about $8500. Ain't no way I could ever get $8500 out of a 2007 Black and White P71. But I also had to pay $3550 for it.

I may not even have to repaint it from black and white, since it's legal in Utah to drive an Oreo. however the kind of knucklehead kid who would buy it like that shouldn't be allowed to drive it, and I'm a little torn about selling it that way.

2nd gen Chargers with the Cam/lifter problem sell for even more, even with the death tick. The state of Utah was selling off a half dozen of its 3 gen 2018 Chargers with over 110k miles AND with videos showing their death rattles and somehow they still managed to sell two of them for about $12k. I guess that's a "savings?" over the $18 to 20k that buyers were paying for the city of South Jordans 2018 fleet liquidation Chargers with only 20 to 40k miles on them. The other two V6 Chargers I had were also both quick and easy sells.

Curious, because police chargers are SUPER cheap and tinny feeling inside. But it doesn't matter.

Thats interesting to me. I spent quite some time recently in NYC, and one of the things I noticed is just how many different vehicles they have doing government or police work. They make police cars out of anything there it seems, specifically, larger trucks and vans. Aside from these weird kinds of police vehicles, all I remember seeing in NYC were explorers and Impalas. Didnt see any Tahoes. Did not see any chargers, but I did not venture out of the city either. You'd think with the conditions of the life a police vehicle has in NYC it'd be the most reliable thing they can find. That's why I was a bit surprised to see so many impalas.

Even through the winter, even with repeat covid cycles, it looks like used Vic prices are staying up there at the auctions. Especially for the low mileage vehicles.

I have a hard time accepting this big premium for the lower mileage cars because I know that the cheaper cars are going to drive just as well, I don't think P71's will ever have collector value, and I'm never going to dump more money into them than I get back out. But the reality is showing me that spending $3 to $4000 at auction for a low mileage Vic is not money wasted.

Ain't this the truth! And it's not just Vics... it's every vehicle... My Nephew is trying to buy a van for his plumbing business... every dealer wants $5-$6K over Monroney... I think Rick finally settled for a Dodge Ram.

I've been looking for a replacement for my 2019 Fusion that was wrecked a week ago...

Today, they're asking about $6000 more for the identical car that I bought two years ago next week.

I paid $20k for my 2019 Fusion Energie, and an identical 2019 Fusion Energie is listed at $26k this afternoon.

OMG...