Snohomish County police cars evolve away from ‘Crown Vics’

EVERETT — Buying a car is stressful.

Try buying a few dozen police cars. Nearly every law enforcement agency in Snohomish County has faced that decision since 2011, when the Ford Crown Victoria Police Intercepter was discontinued.

For decades, the “Crown Vic” dominated the market for squad cars. Now many local agencies are switching to the Ford Police Interceptor Utility — essentially a souped-up Ford Explorer.

That group includes the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, the Washington State Patrol and the police departments in Arlington, Edmonds, Everett, Monroe and Mukilteo. Some departments, including Lake Stevens, have selected other models for patrol, but use the Ford sport utility vehicle for supervisors.

The Everett Police Department is shedding Crown Vics as they age out of the fleet.

“We purchased our last Crown Victorias in 2010,” said Bob Carlson, who oversees vehicle maintenance for the city.

The Everett department took a unique approach in finding a replacement. In 2012, they purchased three kinds of patrol vehicles on the market and tested them on the road. They tried to get each of Everett’s 200 police officers behind the wheel for feedback, Carlson said.

“Then they went back and did a survey for everyone about what they liked on each vehicle, what they didn’t like, and graded them out, and the Ford Utility was the winner, with about a 90 percent preference rate,” he said.

Trunk space was a major reason. Officers have to travel with bulky gear such as traffic cones, a fire extinguisher, a shovel and an ax.

“The back end of the Utility is a nice big trunk for storage and for carrying the stuff they have to have,” Carlson said.

The SUV has a smaller engine but more horsepower than the Crown Vic, he said. It has more than 200 modifications for police use from the original Ford Explorer. Each runs about $45,000 including after-market additions.

Everett police have 50 Crown Vics still in use, and 22 of the SUVs, Carlson said. The city budget calls for the purchase of 10 more SUVs next year.

People in town may notice another difference. Everett police have been trading up from their old design of a white car with a blue stripe. Like many departments around the country, they’ve been going back to black-and-white. It’s the first big change in graphics for Everett police cars in at least 20 years, officer Aaron Snell said.

“We wanted to get back to tradition,” he said. “We believe they were more recognizable to the public.”

So far, the SUVs are costing Everett about 15 cents less per mile compared to Crown Vics, including maintenance costs, Carlson said.

Fuel use is about the same.

“The mileage is pretty much even Stephen,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lynnwood uses Dodge Chargers for patrol. Mountlake Terrace and Lake Stevens use both Chargers and Ford SUVs, as does the Island County Sheriff’s Office.

“It sounds like the plan is to stick with mostly the Chargers and mix in a few SUVs every once and awhile,” Island County detective Ed Wallace said.

Arlington started adding the Ford SUVs in 2015, with more expected to arrive this year, city spokeswoman Kristin Banfield said.

Edmonds police prepared for the decision by buying extra Crown Victorias, Sgt. Shane Hawley said. That allowed them time to watch how the choice played out for other departments. Before going with SUVs, they had even talked about removing front passenger seats from some models to create more storage space, he said.

Mill Creek has two Ford police sedans and about a half-dozen SUVs, Cpl. Chris White said.

“Because it’s a shared fleet, it was to fit all body types, all equipment,” she said. “The SUVs are much bigger, and we have a lot of equipment that we have to carry around, and it was all-wheel drive because of our terrain. It’s hilly.”

Some of the recent changes represent a shift in thinking at the Snohomish and Island county sheriff’s offices and the State Patrol, all of which originally had planned on moving to the Chevrolet Caprice police edition.

Reasons cited included room for gear, handling in snow and ice, and maintenance costs.

Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.