OK. Posted this before and was thereafter on the receiving end of some pelters afterwards. Please appreciate that not all cars/drivers/police officers are the same. No offence intended to anyone nor would I appreciate any back. Thanks.
Buying an ex plod patrol car? Personally, I wouldn't unless the price was really right.
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, sometimes lacking AC and other 'frills'. 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!! They are a wee bit lighter due to what are called 'delete options' rather than addins and are driven by drivers who have undergone advanced instruction.
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. It is easily possible to have 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, thrown around during 'special escort' type duties, suspension heavily loaded 24/7 with the kit in the boot as well as two big guys and their donuts etc.... 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. (was £25 per corner, irrespective of size, not sure how much now) . 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 in its life cycle - this could be 18 months later and us be a car short on the fleet till then.
One 5 series, recently to auction, had taken 3 very hard hits in 7 months (including a 120 mph plus rear wheel blowout, striking the central reserve etc
). Repaired each time to OE spec but it was never the same. Didn't handle worth a bu**er afterwards 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 corners can sometimes can and do get trimmed, as do some plastic guards in the enginebay etc to ease access as MarksDTM will attest to.
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.
Caveat Emptor?? Yup...
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Topic: Ex plodmobile owners . . . are you mad? (Read 1715 times)