EcoBoost Police vehicles update

Turtle n Peeps wrote:

Crown Vics DID have problems with excessive idling - just like any car can. In talking to mechanics, 2 basic things would happen: 1 - after idling for possibly hours, the officer would get a call, jump in, and roar off -- the engine going from idle to redline rpms instantly. That is tough on any engine. 2 - biggest reason for problems according to mechanics I talked with, was the departments trying to "save" money by not using the proper oil which I believe was supposed to be synthetic. Departments realized cheap oil would save a decent amount of money at budget time, so they went with that. The synthetic could handle the crazy idle-to-full-acceleration much better than dino oil.

So what if anything failed in the engine? Or did it just not run right? The only thing I could think of is the cam advance?

I was at a large shop once that had a maintenance contract with the state police. The mechanic had the top of the V-8 from the Vic taken off and all the valves and camshaft were coated in sludge. He told me about the idling issue and cheap oil - another aspect of that was heat build up in summer, which is why sometimes you'd see police cars that were doing traffic duty with their hoods popped open. He said he spent almost everyday doing a tear down of V-8s due to oil issues - which he said would almost entirely be solved if they used the correct oil at the correct intervals. Other mechanics have told me similar. As with many cars, the Vic was great as a general purpose police car as long as correct maintenance was done.