Police car service schedule - BS?

Police car service schedule - BS?

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yellowjack

17,065 posts

165 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
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john2443 said:
Happy to be corrected on this but AFAIK government vehicles don't have insurance, HMG is big enough to self insure so just pays out themselves. This was certainly true at Land Registry not many years ago when I worked there, I don't imagine it's changed.
Not true, as far as I know. MOD/Army vehicles are insured in the same way any civilian vehicle requires insurance. OK, it doesn't work exactly the same way, as it's one big overarching policy that covers "any vehicle used for official purposes whilst held on unit strength" and "any properly qualified driver whilst operating the vehicle for official purposes".

I had the misfortune to have my car bumped by a Landrover in a barracks car park, and initially had a nightmare claiming for the repair. This was because each vehicle has a "works ticket", which contains an accident pack. A note was left on my windscreen, along with a photocopied sheet containing the insurer's details. Unfortunately, the insurer had changed, but the old details in the work ticket were not. As soon as the correct insurer was contacted, everything went very smoothly, though.

What you're probably confusing 'self insurance' for is where damage to a military vehicle doesn't involve anyone else (ie: a 'third party'). In such cases the truck/LandRover will be taken to a unit or base workshop, body panels ordered, and the repair done in-house. It's pretty straightforward when most 'green' vehicles are brush-painted at some point in their lives anyway, as there's no need for a highly skilled paint sprayer and most panels are bolted on. Errant drivers can, and often do, face internal disciplinary charges, and can have repair costs deducted from their wages. The 'external' insurance is required for third party damages, as that could be anything from replacing a cracked bumper to paying for a lifetime of care and 'loss of future earnings' for an investment banker brain-damaged in an accident.

blueacid

435 posts

140 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
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john2443 said:
Interesting point - when police officers insure their private cars do they have to list accidents? Have you had any accidents in the last 5 years?... Yes 17, but 13 of them were intentional when I rammed other people off the road!
I'd speculate not, there's probably never enough room on the form if they did do!

"continue overleaf and attach any further sheets as may be necessary. We'll wait."

ChemicalChaos

10,360 posts

159 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
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hora said:
ChemicalChaos said:
To be fair, how do know you what kind of unhealthy slob may have previously owned any used car for sale?
In general you don't dribble, st yourself or spit inside your own car.
Remember that episode of Top gear with the forensic tests on the shagged-out BMW convertibles?.....

guindilias

5,245 posts

119 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
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hora said:
In general you don't dribble, st yourself or spit inside your own car.
Speak for yourself.tongue out

Sump

5,484 posts

166 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
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ChemicalChaos said:
hora said:
ChemicalChaos said:
To be fair, how do know you what kind of unhealthy slob may have previously owned any used car for sale?
In general you don't dribble, st yourself or spit inside your own car.
Remember that episode of Top gear with the forensic tests on the shagged-out BMW convertibles?.....
Yeah because it'd have been hilarious if the findings were nothing.

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
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rek said:
Most all of the trim and plastic was either scratched/broken/missing, but that was fixed by a trip to a scrapyard.
Bit drastic. Could you not have found some replacement pieces instead of weighing it in?

Medic-one

3,105 posts

202 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
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john2443 said:
Car for sale on Fleabay that says it was Government owned sasys For those in the know... all ‘Service’ vehicles, whether they be Government, Police, Ambulance, MOD or the like are serviced beyond belief. For example Police Vehicle have their Brake Fluid changed monthly and not just topped up.

Is anyone on here "in the know" - monthly brake fluid changes - meticulous servicing or Bull?
I don't know anything about police or MOD, but our trucks and cars are definately NOT "meticulous serviced".

Let's put it this way, this morning i had to swap cars (Skoda Octavia) as the one i was on was overdue it's service by 910 miles. Apperently we have a 1000 mile leeway hence often they don't come of the road for servicing when they should (garage will put a sticker with milage of next service due in the window).

I get 15 minutes in the morning to check everything, all my drugs, equipment, kittbags and the actual car, baring in mind checking and restocking all drugs/kitt takes about 20 minutes, and as we usually get a call straightaway that says enough about the checks the actual vehicle gets.

On the rare occasion i don't get send out straight away i'll check my headlights and engine oil levels, but that's probably as much 'servicing' as it gets.
The rest will get checked by our garage when it's due it's service (or a 1000 miles later...)

Elroy Blue

8,686 posts

191 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
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john2443 said:
Happy to be corrected on this but AFAIK government vehicles don't have insurance, HMG is big enough to self insure so just pays out themselves. This was certainly true at Land Registry not many years ago when I worked there, I don't imagine it's changed.

I can't imagine what the premium would be for police cars!

Interesting point - when police officers insure their private cars do they have to list accidents? Have you had any accidents in the last 5 years?... Yes 17, but 13 of them were intentional when I rammed other people off the road!
My Force self insures the first £10000 (or did).

Should your car be damaged in a TPAC, it is not classed as an 'accident' as it is a recognised tactic.

Baryonyx

17,990 posts

158 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
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Sump said:
They're serviced as per manufacturer.
If that, even.

guindilias

5,245 posts

119 months

Saturday 23rd May 2015
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The Civil Service don't even take out insurance for their own buildings in Northern Ireland - all covered by their own pot of pennies.
That's why they were recently able to buy a large building from Turkington's - it had sat empty for 9 years, because it was right in the flight path of an airport, and nobody could rent it because they couldn't get insurance for it.
But the Civil Service? Not a problem. Rent it for a few years at a very discounted price, then buy it for buttons. Hurray!

matchmaker

8,463 posts

199 months

Saturday 23rd May 2015
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abitlikefiennes said:
rek said:
Most all of the trim and plastic was either scratched/broken/missing, but that was fixed by a trip to a scrapyard.
Bit drastic. Could you not have found some replacement pieces instead of weighing it in?
rofl

Speed Badger

2,667 posts

116 months

Saturday 23rd May 2015
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I manage our police fleet (Met) and I can confirm that they are serviced more anally than Stacy McAnal, 5 time anal champion. However they are ragged to buggery and usually feature some kind of 3 week old McDonald's bag that has melded into the footwell carpets, plus first aid kits strewn around the boot full of blood and mucus smile

hedgefinder

3,418 posts

169 months

Saturday 23rd May 2015
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long gone are the days when police traffic cars were taken home by their drivers and their general care and clenliness were the responsibility of their 1 or 2 police drivers ( usually partners)
I have heard tales from the 70s of cars being practically rebuilt in the workshops the week before they were due to be sold off at auction..... only for the SGT in charge to be the winning bidder at said auction.....

jith

2,752 posts

214 months

Saturday 23rd May 2015
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Derek Smith said:
Back in the late 70s a City of London driver of a response car (there were only two) hit a bus at speed. He stated that the brake pedal hit the floor during a high speed run. There was medical evidence to support this as his right leg was fully extended at the time of impact going by the damage to his hip joint and pelvis. The rebuild, he told me, was often referred to in medical teaching.

He was a mess.

The vehicle was sent to an outside agency - non-police - to check, as if he'd been telling porkies he would have been charged with reckless driving. Passengers on the bus were injured and the conductor (who remembers them?) was thrown the full length of the lower deck and suffered injuries to shoulder and head.

It was discovered that the brake fluid had taken on a degree of 'water' that was sufficient to cause the brake problem described. The argument was technical and out of my depth. The service record showed that the brake fluid had been changed according to the schedule.

There was a recommendation that brake fluid should be changed annually, i.e. at half the time of the schedule. The City took this on board.

I would assume that the accident raised the insurance premium the following year.

Brake fluid, I was told, can be easily checked for the degree of water in it. I seem to remember a service schedule that requires the fluid to be checked for water every service.
My, how things must have changed over the years, and changed dramatically. To expel a few myths.

I don't know what make of car you're talking about Derek, but most cars of that era were not fitted with synthetic brake fluid. Brake fluid is hygroscopic, which means it absorbs water from the atmosphere over a period of time. Due to constant operating pressure the water tends to settle behind the pistons in the brake calipers at each wheel. When the brakes are then used very hard as they are in the case of a traffic or pursuit car, the caliper temperatures rises to a point where the water boils in the calipers and you lose all operating pressure: pedal to the floor in a heart stopping instant!

It is utterly mandatory that brake fluid is changed very frequently in a car that is used for police purposes. I can assure you that would never have happened up here in that era. We serviced these cars almost to an aircraft standard. Having said that, the only experience I had of the Met was when visiting friends in London I was taken to a police garage where they had 2 Rover 3500S saloons with superchargers on them. They were utterly mental and were only used in serious pursuit situations, such as collecting the doughnuts before the shops shut.

This business of police cars being standard. Things doubtless have changed enormously over the years, because from the late sixties on absolutely every traffic and pursuit car was a special build. All the Fords, mostly Granadas and Capris, had a chassis plate fitted on the landing panel that stated they were Police Specials. The suspension and engine were heavily uprated as were the brakes. If the car arrived with standard brakes we would uprate them ourselves, as the standard pads and discs were simply not up to the job. Even the police Jags had vinyl upholstery and no electric windows and anything that was considered a luxury or unnecessary was not fitted.

As time went on cars in standard form became much quicker and the need for modification became less. But the issues of brakes is still a problem unless the police use top of the range cars such as the S and RS versions of Audis that are fitted with Brembo braking systems.

If what some of the BiB are stating on here is true about the mileage and state of modern vehicles it is a bloody disgrace and an accident waiting to happen over and over again. A sad endictment on government and police management policies.

J

Dr Mike Oxgreen

4,101 posts

164 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
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I don't understand the fear of buying an ex-plod car "because it has been ragged".

Police cars will generally be doing long periods of work, so the engine will be spending the vast majority of its working life at full operating temperature. That is a very good thing.

So the engine may have used full power and high revs a lot more often than a car owned by a yummy mummy taking her kids to school. So what? Given that the vast majority of the time it will have been doing so at full operating temperature, that won't have done any significant harm to the engine, because it's designed to do that.

I'd far rather buy a car with 150,000 miles of continuous running, especially a motorway patrol car, rather than the yummy mummy's car that has done 50,000 miles of short journeys to school and back hardly ever getting properly up to temperature, thus polluting its oil with acidic water that never gets boiled off.

The plod car's brakes will have had a hard time, but the discs and pads will have been changed as required, so not a problem. The suspension may also have had a hard life, but ultimately that's just a bunch of bushes that might need replacing - again, not much of a problem.

Give me the motorway patrol car rather than the school-run car every time, please!

Elroy Blue

8,686 posts

191 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
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Dr Mike Oxgreen said:
, especially a motorway patrol car, !
I drive m/way cars. They are knackered when sent to auction. They now usually have 200000+ miles and are totally worn out when they are got rid of. All of them are diesels now and hours spent at idle at RTCs causes havoc with the DPFs and drivetrain faults are common. They usually have had numerous panels changed (more than once) and the repairs get progressively worse as they get older. Panel gaps definitely aren't to factory standards.

You'd be mad to buy one.

JimmyConwayNW

3,056 posts

124 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
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I have had a couple of met police vehicles but the logbooks said care of Babcock critical care services. Very comprehensive servicing on these unlikely to have been used for a throng more than just driving back and forth to visits etc.

FurryExocet

3,011 posts

180 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
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john2443 said:
Happy to be corrected on this but AFAIK government vehicles don't have insurance, HMG is big enough to self insure so just pays out themselves. This was certainly true at Land Registry not many years ago when I worked there, I don't imagine it's changed.

I can't imagine what the premium would be for police cars!

Interesting point - when police officers insure their private cars do they have to list accidents? Have you had any accidents in the last 5 years?... Yes 17, but 13 of them were intentional when I rammed other people off the road!
We have insurance for our police vehicles. I also have to tell my insurance company of any accidents I am involved in, during my patrols. This doesn't include any intentional ramming of vehicles (otherwise my premium would be sky high!)

ging84

8,828 posts

145 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
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FurryExocet said:
We have insurance for our police vehicles. I also have to tell my insurance company of any accidents I am involved in, during my patrols. This doesn't include any intentional ramming of vehicles (otherwise my premium would be sky high!)
How often do you actually have to do that? pursuits have to be fairly rare these days, especially ones which end in a hard stop, i can't imagine a traffic cop does that many outside of training.

silentbrown

8,793 posts

115 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
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jith said:
This business of police cars being standard. Things doubtless have changed enormously over the years, because from the late sixties on absolutely every traffic and pursuit car was a special build. All the Fords, mostly Granadas and Capris, had a chassis plate fitted on the landing panel that stated they were Police Specials. The suspension and engine were heavily uprated as were the brakes
Police spec parts for some cars are quite sought-after. Pretty sure that we had a police spec gearbox in the Mk1 Triumph 2000 racecar some years back.