I was looking over HJ's police auction report.
Looks like some cracking bargains
This one caught my eye.
Ford Focus 1.8LX 5-dr, Y reg, 108k miles, white, £1,000s
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Just bear in mid they will have covered 108K hard miles.
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and another 30,000 parked up probably
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SAAB 9-5 2.3 Aero auto, 2001Y, 90k miles £3,650s ...
... caught my eye.
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SAAB 9-5 2.3 Aero auto, 2001Y, 90k miles £3,650s ... ... caught my eye.
Just imagine how that will have been driven, though. It's an awesomely fast car, limited only by (most) peoples respect for the law. Without that limitation to worry about, I'm amazed it survived 90K miles!
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Personally the last thing I would ever want is an ex-police car.
They have nothing going for them, ie high mileage, hard life, driven very hard on frequent occasions, and driven by 100's of different drivers with no sympathy. Iknow people would say they are well-maintained, but this doesn't counterbalance the rest. The only reason I can see for ex-police cars to be on sale is because they are well past their best.
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I wouldnt touch a small ex police car, but the saab, I wonder who used that, auto, only 90000 miles. I would be less suspicious about the logic in selling it if it had 140000 on it, but generally speaking, an ex motorway car, usually is a cracking buy, what pressure are they under in use.
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> They have nothing going for them
4 grand on the dealers forecourt, 3 grand on autotrader private sales, A bag of sand for this one.
I don't think anyone is arguing it'll be the best Y reg Focus out there, but it might be cracking value.
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I wouldn't touch them and I drive them for a living. Motorway cars generally have an easier life, but stil suffer.
The Vectra's, Volvos and BMW's that I drive on a Roads Policing/ARV unit are absolutely cream crackered at 100k.
As for Pandas...the less said the better.
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Well maintained Police cars used to be the case when the Police ran their own garages. With maintainence now outsourced, in many Forces, to the lowest bidder you can imagine the rest....
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> I wouldn't touch them
so , at what price would you be interested ?
800 ?
500 ?
300 ?
75p ?
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Ex Panda Focii are pretty risky in the electrical dept. Imagine all them electrics, blues, twos, radios, computer gubbins running off a standard Ford electrical systems, apparantly they drop their ECUs quite often because of eletrical spikes. Not my choice for a bargain basement car
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when the police get rid of a panda, and yes i remember why they called them that, they are basically dead, I would not recommend anyone to buy one unless they know the history. I would have bought my old panda, because I was the only person who drove it, out in the sticks of Worcestershire. On another theme, why do all these little Parish councils have to request a 30 speed limit through a village which for years had a 40 limit and never an accident.
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I've bought loads over the years,same as anything else really,some good,some bad,and some are really cheap bargains in surprisingly good condition,then of course some are so bad you wonder who was actually using them.All in the price really.
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Would say, a red saloon Volvo have been driven more sympathetically then a white Volvo estate? Would the saloon have been used for ferrying the chief constable around rather than tearing up and down the land with a load of heavy kit in the tailgate?
Or am I in a world of my own just asking the question?
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I remember reading a tongue-in-cheek article some years ago in an in-house force magazine that listed the ways police cars differ from 'ordinary' motors.
The one that really stuck in my mind was something like 'able to go straight into reverse while still travelling forwards at speed'
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The Vectra's, Volvos and BMW's that I drive on a Roads Policing/ARV unit are absolutely cream crackered at 100k.
I'm surprised about BMW being included in that comment. I've done high mileages in Cavaliers, Mondeos and 406s and they are basically dead at 120K in 3 yrs (and I'm gentle with cars). My cars still looked good on the outside but they develop fault after fault.
But I would have have expected a BMW could shrug off that kind of mileage?
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BMW 530d Touring. Has constantly broken during our ownership. Doesn't seem to like 'response' style of driving. The most reliable cars on the fleet and the ones which get the most stick are the 3.2 Vectra C's. Other than routine servicing (every 9000m) they very rarely go wrong.
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The most reliable cars on the fleet and the ones which get the most stick are the 3.2 Vectra C's.
So they're ok for the occasional 159mph blast down the M54 then? ;-)
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Or 132mph if you want the truth as opposed to the 'Truth as told by the Mirror'
(CPS currently appealing against the not guilty verdict, followed by internal discipline)
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Or 132mph if you want the truth as opposed to the 'Truth as told by the Mirror' (CPS currently appealing against the not guilty verdict, followed by internal discipline)
From memory, article in late-50s Motor Sport on 'Building a Bentley Special' (4.5 litre engine in cut-down 3-litre chassis with homemade body, not handsome as I remember): On a trial run, the author is followed out of a built-up area by a police Wolseley or Riley... 'In the mirror, I saw a delighted grin spread over the face of the sportsman in blue, as the speed soared into three figures...' Those were indeed the days. Even in the nanny future, though, my impression is that quite a lot of police officers have a more nuanced attitude to discreet, non-dangerous speeding than the politicians, knee-jerk commentators and ecofascists whose views no one dares argue with.
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>> The Vectra's, Volvos and BMW's that I drive on a Roads >> Policing/ARV unit are absolutely cream crackered at 100k. >> I'm surprised about BMW being included in that comment. I've done high mileages in Cavaliers, Mondeos and 406s and they are basically dead at 120K in 3 yrs (and I'm gentle with cars). My cars still looked good on the outside but they develop fault after fault. But I would have have expected a BMW could shrug off that kind of mileage?
I'm surprised about Cavaliers being included!
As I have mentioned previously one of ours did over 200,000 on the same clutch and same engine, despite being driven very hard. The only things which went wrong were the coil, and some sort of relay plug-block thing for which we just bought a replacement for a few quid. And one exhaust.
Others did well over 120,000 with no problems; and looking on the license plate lookup at DVLA I saw the 200,000 1990 example was still running as late as 2001.
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