I'm coming to y'all for some suggestions. My police department uses a rotation of lease vehicles for surveillance and we're going to start using them for apprehension, so we'll be using these vehicles to pull up on suspects on foot and in vehicles for take downs. We need them to be as covert as possible but have lights that make it obvious we're the police when activated. We also have the issue of needing them to work across a wide variety of lease vehicles, which are rotated out somewhat frequently to keep our local clientele guessing, so they need to have fairly universal mounting options with little or no permanent modifications.
We are thinking of a very slim interior LED lightbar at the top of the windshield using one of the various universal mounts that wedge or clamp between the existing sun visor mounts, with a strip of tint at the top of the windshield (not as far down as the AS1 line because that screams narcotics/surveillance vehicle around here, just low enough to hide the lights and then cut at a curve at the ends to match the OEM windshield look). We're also thinking of a pair of LED light heads in the grille, likely clamped or drilled into a brace or bracket, and tinted to reduce their appearance when off. And last we're thinking a rear LED stick or two wider LED light heads at the top of the rear window, with the rear window tinted to hide them. Universal mounting of the rear lights looks like it may be trickier, we use all kinds of vehicles (trucks, SUVs, sedans, minivans), but we were thinking if nothing universal and covert exists maybe we could fabricate some sort of long and wide metal L bracket that tucks up into the headliner. We'll also mount a siren speaker out of sight behind the grille or front bumper and are leaning towards one of those all-in-one PA mic/light/siren controls on a coiled cable that could be hidden under the seat or in the console and pulled out when the needed.
We ruled out hideaway LEDs in the factory head/turn/tail lamps because we'd have to drill into the assemblies and risk the weatherproofing, and it also looks like newer cars these days have less space inside a lot of lamps with factory LEDs. Also, with the variety of vehicle models a head/tail flasher module seems unlikely to be universal enough to swap from make to make.
Last, we hope to keep the install relatively simple since those of us in the unit are going to be installing, removing, and swapping these between the lease vehicles ourselves. With new cars getting rotated in and out on short notice we'd likely need to swap lights out of one and into another within a day or two, and we can't get scheduled that quickly with the outfitter we use for our fleet. I assume easiest would be all the same brand lights/siren with a central module the lights/siren/controls can be wired to, which can then be wired to the battery and ground? I have a tad bit of amateur vehicle wiring experience but one of the other guys in the unit did a lot of electronics and wiring in a previous career, so we should be able to make it work.
And of course, since it's a government agency, we're trying to keep the costs down. That said, if there's a setup that'd be pricier but heads and shoulders above others in terms of light output through tint while being small and hidden we may be able to sell it up the chain of command, but if there's an affordable option that's nearly as good as the rest we'd have more luck getting that approved.
So, what would you recommend for us?
Here's roughly what we have in mind (minus the tail/reverse flashers):
We are thinking of a very slim interior LED lightbar at the top of the windshield using one of the various universal mounts that wedge or clamp between the existing sun visor mounts, with a strip of tint at the top of the windshield (not as far down as the AS1 line because that screams narcotics/surveillance vehicle around here, just low enough to hide the lights and then cut at a curve at the ends to match the OEM windshield look). We're also thinking of a pair of LED light heads in the grille, likely clamped or drilled into a brace or bracket, and tinted to reduce their appearance when off. And last we're thinking a rear LED stick or two wider LED light heads at the top of the rear window, with the rear window tinted to hide them. Universal mounting of the rear lights looks like it may be trickier, we use all kinds of vehicles (trucks, SUVs, sedans, minivans), but we were thinking if nothing universal and covert exists maybe we could fabricate some sort of long and wide metal L bracket that tucks up into the headliner. We'll also mount a siren speaker out of sight behind the grille or front bumper and are leaning towards one of those all-in-one PA mic/light/siren controls on a coiled cable that could be hidden under the seat or in the console and pulled out when the needed.
We ruled out hideaway LEDs in the factory head/turn/tail lamps because we'd have to drill into the assemblies and risk the weatherproofing, and it also looks like newer cars these days have less space inside a lot of lamps with factory LEDs. Also, with the variety of vehicle models a head/tail flasher module seems unlikely to be universal enough to swap from make to make.
Last, we hope to keep the install relatively simple since those of us in the unit are going to be installing, removing, and swapping these between the lease vehicles ourselves. With new cars getting rotated in and out on short notice we'd likely need to swap lights out of one and into another within a day or two, and we can't get scheduled that quickly with the outfitter we use for our fleet. I assume easiest would be all the same brand lights/siren with a central module the lights/siren/controls can be wired to, which can then be wired to the battery and ground? I have a tad bit of amateur vehicle wiring experience but one of the other guys in the unit did a lot of electronics and wiring in a previous career, so we should be able to make it work.
And of course, since it's a government agency, we're trying to keep the costs down. That said, if there's a setup that'd be pricier but heads and shoulders above others in terms of light output through tint while being small and hidden we may be able to sell it up the chain of command, but if there's an affordable option that's nearly as good as the rest we'd have more luck getting that approved.
So, what would you recommend for us?
Here's roughly what we have in mind (minus the tail/reverse flashers):
