By the horns

Some officers in the Kinston Police Department have been driving around in style.

Over the past two years, the department has begun replacing its old Ford Crown Victorias with Dodge Chargers, a car the manufacturer bills as a "performance sedan."

Kinston Department of Public Safety Director Greg Smith said style isn't the reason Chargers have become the department's current vehicle of choice.

"The year before we started doing the Charger, they were slightly cheaper than the Crown Vics," he said. "...They are rated at a higher miles per gallon fuel (rating) than were the Crown Vics. Our experience has been slightly better."

There have been "few" maintenance issues with the Chargers, Smith said.

Smith said the cost of the Dodge Chargers is a little more than $20,000 each and get between 10-15 miles per gallon, while the Crown Victorias are closer to $21,000 and get 8-12 miles per gallon.

"Fuel has become so important to us," he said. "Anything we can do to get a little better fuel mileage we're going to try."

The vehicles are bought through a state contract program, which knocks a few thousand dollars off the price. The most basic Dodge Charger model retails for $22,520; for the fully-equipped model, it's closer to $27,000, according to Dodge's Web site.

The new sedans come in as a part of the department's vehicle replacement program, Smith said.

"We try to replace between 10-15 vehicles a year," he said. "Recently, we've been getting 10 per year."

Smith said people in the department were unsure about the switch at first, which is why they waited until after a few others, namely the Shelby Police Department and the State Highway Patrol, tried the Chargers first.

"They got high marks from the Highway Patrol," Smith said.

The department's experiment with the Chargers is in its second year, Smith said. KPD currently has around 12 of the sedans.

KPD tries to maximize the life of the cars and the warranties, Smith said.

"Just whoever's vehicle is up for replacement is generally the way it works," he said.

The cars generally go to administrative staff for about one year because they don't put many miles on the cars, only about 5,000-8,000 miles, Smith said. Then, they get passed along to patrol officers, who put about 15,000-20,000 miles on their vehicles in one year.

Still, despite Smith's assertion that the Chargers are cheaper and get better gas mileage, nothing's set in stone. He said if by some change the Crown Victorias were to get more miles to the gallon than the Charger, they could switch back.

"There's not commitment to any one thing," Smith said.

Vanessa Clarke can be reached at (252) 559-1076 or vclarke@freedomenc.com. Check out Vanessa's blog at http://vclarke.encblogs.com.