As some of you may know, I have a wee inside line on such things as patrol cars and their use/abuse and whether I would buy one when out of police service. Heres what i said previously:-
- In my area, cars have a life cycle similar to this...
Bought at a heavily discounted price direct from the manufacturer (below 20K for a new model BMW 530D?). Vehicles are Police spec, generally with an extra battery, uprated alternator, extra wiring throughout the car and top spec brakes/suspension. We generally opt for alloys locally rather than steels 'cos were vain and prefer the look! Cars are not chipped, tuned or otherwise played with, generally speaking, although I know that a couple of T5's were chipped in a neighbouring force, completely unbeknown to bosses!!
Car normally used as a senior officers staff car or traffic driving school car for some months to get miles on them before being marked up and put into general service. But not always. I have had to drive a new (less than 20 miles on the clock) patrol car - all marked up and on its first day as a working car - at well into three figure speeds (talking red line in 5th type speed) with the car being blood lined at every gear due to a doner type run. By that, I mean organ transplant transfer against the clock, not the local donner meat pizza for dinner!! That particular car turned out to be a flyer throughout its service, for some reason!!
They then can be driven compassionately from cold, or jumped into and blatted hard on a B&2 shout, whatevers needed. They get driven over kerbs, rough ground, the nads revved off them in all gears, on the limiter, suspension heavily loaded 24/7 with the kit in the boot as well as two big guys and their donuts. And they get driven extremely sedately for the majority of the time, well within speed and performance limits.
Serviced regularly with OE parts and Goodyear tyres. (£25 per corner, irrespective of size?) . Can be crashed hard and repaired. We are insured via the local authority and have a horrendous excess. Its more cost effective to repair than scrap as the car will not be replaced until its due to be - this could be 18 months later and us be a car short till then.
One 5 series, recently to auction, had taken 3 very hard hits in 7 months. Repaired each time to OE spec but it was never the same. Didn't handle worth a bu**er and it was taken off ops and made back to a staff car. Another went to auction with 200 000 miles, made £2.5k, and still had its original exhaust! And several pounds of cataloy in various places!!
Our mechanics are local authority employees, not main dealers, and get local authority rates. The guys are good but have a lot of vehicles to deal with and workloads are high so.....
After an excess of 150K miles in a couple of years, they are decommissioned and auctioned off. Sometimes after the quickest of resprays to make them the one colour again, sometimes not. [/i]
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Its still the same.
I would not buy one, but I am aware of the use/abuse they have had in their short but eventfull lives thus far. Its an individual call, at the end of the day.......
HtH
B
