reverse.entropy
Member
- Joined
- January 21, 2017
- Messages
- 15
- Reaction score
- 11
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2015 Explorer PIU
Hi Everyone!
Nice to meet you all, my name is Jason and I recently picked up an explorer. I was surfing the web looking for a few answers to some questions I had and came across this forum. I figured what the heck and decided to join up and introduce myself. Hoping to geek out with you all and talk shop on everything explorer.
I bit about me first. My first car as a kid back when gas was 99 cents a gallon was a '86 VW scirocco which served it's purpose but wasn't that fun to drive. A few years later I finally saved enough to buy my first Ford which was a '99 mustang and I loved it. Had it for 10 years and ended up selling it in favor of more of a commuter car for work with a automatic transmission since I was stuck in traffic for 3 hours a day. At any rate - I had a great experience with my 1st ford and I always knew I'd own one again. I got a Acura TL and had that until recently.
I moved from California to Washington state last July. Needless to say it gets pretty icy during the winter time, let alone all the rain that pours down throughout the year. My 2WD acura just wasn't cutting it anymore and decided to upgrade to an AWD or 4WD SUV. So..I started looking at explorers.
I was looking online and stumbled upon this 2015 Explorer Police Interceptor Utility for sale 30 miles north of where I live. I went down on a friday to look at it and returned the next morning to sign on the dotted line. They wouldn't disclose what agency it was used in, but there was one previous owner between me and the police department it served. According to the carfax report, it was involved in a front end collision in the line of duty and the police rotated it out of service. The impact wasn't enough to deploy the airbags, so I felt good about buying it after closely inspecting the engine to make sure no major components were damaged or patch-worked together from non-factory parts. Because of the accident the previous owner replaced the bumper with a different model so it ended up with fog lights which I don't mind. He also did a bunch of other stuff to it, including murdering the whole thing out and converting the interior to look like the civilian model. Ripped out the column shifter and installed a regular gear shift in the column,
I decided to go for it because of the low mileage, price it was selling for, and the fact it was a former police car - designed to go 300k miles without having major issues, beefed up suspension and sway bar, slightly higher HP and torque than the civ models, improved engine cooling, better breaks, bullet proof doors (hey...you never know!).
Here is what it looked like on the lot when I took it home that day.
There were a few issues with it from the get-go, but nothing major. Rear view mirror was loose, 2amp fuse in a 10amp fuse slot which blew and caused the check AWD error message to pop up along with shorting out the cooling fans in front of the radiator which caused the car to overheat one day while I was idling. When the coolant blew all over the engine I discovered the previous owner (or the dealership) put the wrong kind of coolant in there. A new fuse, radiator flush and new coolant fixed all of it and I was back in business.
I bought this car about a month ago and have been steadily modding it as time and money allows. One of the first things I did was install a westin push bar.
The next job was to get a roof rack setup. I decided instead of the OEM rack I bought a low profile Thule rack which I'm quite happy with. I can remove the cross bars and the rails sit so low you can't even tell there's a rack up there. It's pretty quiet on the freeway too.
Next up were some mud guards, made by Husky.
Although I like the black on black look I wasn't a huge fan of the smoked out headlights and taillights. It was very difficult to see at night, even with the HID kit I installed to replace the halogens. Not to mention it's highly illegal and I was asking for a costly fix-it ticket. The previous owner, instead of putting a simple tint film on there opted to use the spray on paint tint which is fairly permanent. I had to sand it off and chemically treat it and then polish the housing smooth to get it all off. i haven't done the taillights yet but the headlights are giving off a lot more light at night.
Day pic of the tinted headlights with HID kit:
Night pic of tinted headlights with HID kit:
Night pic of clear headlights with HID kit (current setup):
When I get some more time and replenish my bank account I'd like to focus on some performance mods to get a little more HP. I'm thinking about some exhaust, cold air intake, and a chip. I'd also like to consider getting some bigger/wider wheels but I'm not sure how big I can go with the current suspension and clearance setup. Can anyone recommend a few options for wheels and tires? I kind of like the look of the Velgen VMB5.
If anyone has any ideas, recommendations or advice please feel free to share your thoughts - I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of you and checking out your posts. Have a great weekend!
Cheers,
Jason
Nice to meet you all, my name is Jason and I recently picked up an explorer. I was surfing the web looking for a few answers to some questions I had and came across this forum. I figured what the heck and decided to join up and introduce myself. Hoping to geek out with you all and talk shop on everything explorer.
I bit about me first. My first car as a kid back when gas was 99 cents a gallon was a '86 VW scirocco which served it's purpose but wasn't that fun to drive. A few years later I finally saved enough to buy my first Ford which was a '99 mustang and I loved it. Had it for 10 years and ended up selling it in favor of more of a commuter car for work with a automatic transmission since I was stuck in traffic for 3 hours a day. At any rate - I had a great experience with my 1st ford and I always knew I'd own one again. I got a Acura TL and had that until recently.
I moved from California to Washington state last July. Needless to say it gets pretty icy during the winter time, let alone all the rain that pours down throughout the year. My 2WD acura just wasn't cutting it anymore and decided to upgrade to an AWD or 4WD SUV. So..I started looking at explorers.
I was looking online and stumbled upon this 2015 Explorer Police Interceptor Utility for sale 30 miles north of where I live. I went down on a friday to look at it and returned the next morning to sign on the dotted line. They wouldn't disclose what agency it was used in, but there was one previous owner between me and the police department it served. According to the carfax report, it was involved in a front end collision in the line of duty and the police rotated it out of service. The impact wasn't enough to deploy the airbags, so I felt good about buying it after closely inspecting the engine to make sure no major components were damaged or patch-worked together from non-factory parts. Because of the accident the previous owner replaced the bumper with a different model so it ended up with fog lights which I don't mind. He also did a bunch of other stuff to it, including murdering the whole thing out and converting the interior to look like the civilian model. Ripped out the column shifter and installed a regular gear shift in the column,
I decided to go for it because of the low mileage, price it was selling for, and the fact it was a former police car - designed to go 300k miles without having major issues, beefed up suspension and sway bar, slightly higher HP and torque than the civ models, improved engine cooling, better breaks, bullet proof doors (hey...you never know!).
Here is what it looked like on the lot when I took it home that day.
There were a few issues with it from the get-go, but nothing major. Rear view mirror was loose, 2amp fuse in a 10amp fuse slot which blew and caused the check AWD error message to pop up along with shorting out the cooling fans in front of the radiator which caused the car to overheat one day while I was idling. When the coolant blew all over the engine I discovered the previous owner (or the dealership) put the wrong kind of coolant in there. A new fuse, radiator flush and new coolant fixed all of it and I was back in business.
I bought this car about a month ago and have been steadily modding it as time and money allows. One of the first things I did was install a westin push bar.
The next job was to get a roof rack setup. I decided instead of the OEM rack I bought a low profile Thule rack which I'm quite happy with. I can remove the cross bars and the rails sit so low you can't even tell there's a rack up there. It's pretty quiet on the freeway too.
Next up were some mud guards, made by Husky.
Although I like the black on black look I wasn't a huge fan of the smoked out headlights and taillights. It was very difficult to see at night, even with the HID kit I installed to replace the halogens. Not to mention it's highly illegal and I was asking for a costly fix-it ticket. The previous owner, instead of putting a simple tint film on there opted to use the spray on paint tint which is fairly permanent. I had to sand it off and chemically treat it and then polish the housing smooth to get it all off. i haven't done the taillights yet but the headlights are giving off a lot more light at night.
Day pic of the tinted headlights with HID kit:
Night pic of tinted headlights with HID kit:
Night pic of clear headlights with HID kit (current setup):
When I get some more time and replenish my bank account I'd like to focus on some performance mods to get a little more HP. I'm thinking about some exhaust, cold air intake, and a chip. I'd also like to consider getting some bigger/wider wheels but I'm not sure how big I can go with the current suspension and clearance setup. Can anyone recommend a few options for wheels and tires? I kind of like the look of the Velgen VMB5.
If anyone has any ideas, recommendations or advice please feel free to share your thoughts - I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of you and checking out your posts. Have a great weekend!
Cheers,
Jason
