Thread: Police mode on BA Falcon

Originally Posted by DeanoH

Does anyone out there know how to disable this ?

Today I bought a second hand Ford BA II ute. Unfortunately the previous owner left the lights on this morning so when I arrived so it had a flat battery. When I tried to start it the rhs odometer display said POLICE as it went click click and didn't start. It defaults back to odometer when switched off but when started shows P and a digital readout of speed when driving. The trip button toggles this to SC but I don't know what this means. Normally this should show fuel consumption etc I think.

A quick google check talks about police mode and the rhs display certainly showed police first up. It's not a big deal but the std. functionality would be better.

Deano

Hmm. Had a BA for around 5 years and have never seen this. Sorry. Lotsa Ford forums out there though. Good luck, and please report back if you work it out. Could be me next...

OK

"police mode"

It looks like this





It would seem that 'in the day' when digital speedos were rare there was a sub program built into the Fords ECU that could swap out the fuel consumption info for a digital speed readout which enabled a following copper to get an accurate enough reading to book a speeding motorist.

The "their eyes were dull their heads were flat they had no brains at all" brigade also reckoned the sub program unleashed heaps of extra power/speed etc from the already 180 kW standard engine so many conspired to have their vehicles 'upgraded' with this mod. Their modern day peers now drive Commodores.

My local mechanic reckons he can restore it to normal for me

Deano

I used to have an ex police BA mk2 Ute when I bought it it had the digital speedo, interior light didn’t work and indicators didn’t flash on locking doors, and a few other things.

A ford dealer put everything back to standard, but I got them to put the digital speedo back as I liked it. So there’s obviously some programmability in the ecu.

A mechanic with a code reader should be able to adjust it.

It had a limited slip diff and a few other options not normally on a base model, but no extra power, not that it was needed 180 ish kw was quite enough for the leaf springs to cope with.

Thanks for the info

Interesting that this vehicle also has an LSD and a full length sump guard which may or may not be standard I don't know. The original owner was Fleet SA, Richmond Rd , Netley SA so it may have been a Police vehicle ?

Another interesting addition is a Nissan brand fuse block which holds 10 or so 20 amp fuses professionally fitted behind the main under bonnet fuse block.

Deano

Yes, mine had the full length steel sump guard too.

Mine was from Echuca an ex paddy wagon with a flat tray put on. They used to have a fibre glass body on the back that I guess they swapped to another vehicle.

Mine was only 10 months old when I got it, but it had 60,000 km 😲 and looking a little worn in places as expected. It must have had a hard life to start with, but it had been serviced every 5,000 and was mechanically fine.

It was a very good Ute I had it for 11 or 12 years and drove it all over Australia; I miss it. 😪

Yours was probably an ex paddy wagon too.

Funnily enough I’ve just bought an ex police Territory. Hang on I can see a theme here.......