Police BMW engine issues
Discussion
Quite an in-depth article published today by the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-6447...
If the sheer volume of N57 cars with drilled engines being sent to auction is anything to go by, I didn't think there could be that many left in service?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-6447...
If the sheer volume of N57 cars with drilled engines being sent to auction is anything to go by, I didn't think there could be that many left in service?
340600 said:
Quite an in-depth article published today by the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-6447...
It's obviously linked to a niche use and or service interval, but it is bonkers if they still have cars with the same engine and usage strategy being used in current operations if the failure rate is 15% that's one or two in every ten cars! A dozen or more in end a fleet of 100 vehicles. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-6447...
Equally bonkers if this was happening across the UK forces and there was no formal joined up communication in the topic. Obviously individual forces need to have some independence to make purchasing and logistics strategies that suit their patch, and you can't and wouldnt want to run something as big as that completely centrally, but come on? Regional drivers and service technicians that don't know of the issues and service requirements, that can't access manufacturers databases due to firewall issues?
340600 said:
If the sheer volume of N57 cars with drilled engines being sent to auction is anything to go by, I didn't think there could be that many left in service?
I just a civilian, and can't get a good data on how how many police cars there are in the UK quickly, but a brisk Google around suggests something like 30,000 overall? Obviously only a fraction with be N56 engined fast response cars but it's still going to be a good number. You could auction off a lot and still have plenty left!Given BMW seem to have worked out why the engines were failing, suggested a work around isn't down to the police workshops to put it into practice and reduce the risk of failures and that privately owned N57's don't seem to catch fire in the same way shouldn't the police workshops manage it better = specifically those that run the fleets.
I would have thought for the abuse police cars get the last thing they would want to do is run them for 20k between services.
I would have thought for the abuse police cars get the last thing they would want to do is run them for 20k between services.
WolvesWill said:
Greendubber said:
Uniform....another absolute shambles. I ordered some new kit and one item took 14 months to arrive so over a year!!!
No one cares other than those who are desperate for new uniform to replace the absolute bargain basement s
t that keeps falling apart. Go to SLT, no one cares.....raise it with DHL, no one cares.
If it was a business operating like that with actual customers it wouldn't last a week. I dread to think how much money is wasted and how much awful kit just gets binned.
I had 4 new shirt sleeve shorts turn up, one of the arms literally fell off when I opened the packaging. A quick check on the rest of the shirts and they were just as bad. They were also build for someone with a 13" chest and 36" biceps.
Quality control is non-existent yet we're paying for this st.
I'm a regular response joe (in the same organisation as yourself) so no gucci trousers for me, I am yet to rip the arse out of a pair of the standard trousers yet, which means I am doing better than several others on my team, however I find the stitching on the pockets goes so the pockets bloom outwards, looks terrible.No one cares other than those who are desperate for new uniform to replace the absolute bargain basement s
t that keeps falling apart. Go to SLT, no one cares.....raise it with DHL, no one cares. If it was a business operating like that with actual customers it wouldn't last a week. I dread to think how much money is wasted and how much awful kit just gets binned.
I had 4 new shirt sleeve shorts turn up, one of the arms literally fell off when I opened the packaging. A quick check on the rest of the shirts and they were just as bad. They were also build for someone with a 13" chest and 36" biceps.
Quality control is non-existent yet we're paying for this s
t. I ordered a load of extra kit as I was permitted to as I was deployed for COP26, the last ordered item turned up in the April after the deployment (for a deployment in October to November)!
My biggest gripe is our kit is the current brand public order boots, which are absolutely terrible. Seams come unstitched after negligible use, toe protector has no internal padding so rubs the top of your fit, and the totally loose insoles so they come out with your feet every time you take the boot off (not ideal for something you could expect to be changing in/out of quickly in an operational setting), and move around, wrinkling up under your toes after being worn for any length of time. Comfort is non-existent and fit is poor.
Why isn’t anyone held accountable for such a mess? Why haven’t people been sacked for failing to organise such essentials correctly?
stevemcs said:
I would have thought for the abuse police cars get the last thing they would want to do is run them for 20k between services.
You’re not thinking logistics. For a RPU car, 100 miles in a shift would not be uncommon (depending on force and type of area covered. South Yorks would cover more mileage than the Met for example, purely down to geography). Either way 100 miles per shift, 3 shifts a day (earlies lates nights), so 300 miles a day. So an RPU car could rack up nearly 10k miles in month…. If as the article suggests service intervals are 10k, that’s every RPU car in for a monthly service. Cuts have lead to running on the bare minimum of vehicles, so if they are in workshops the team will be a car short.
Do you see the problem?
IMHO as brilliant as they were as a high performance Police car, the 530d’s should just be decommissioned, period. Police officers face enough danger doing their job without their own vehicles trying to kill them.
105.4 said:
WolvesWill said:
Greendubber said:
Uniform....another absolute shambles. I ordered some new kit and one item took 14 months to arrive so over a year!!!
No one cares other than those who are desperate for new uniform to replace the absolute bargain basement st that keeps falling apart. Go to SLT, no one cares.....raise it with DHL, no one cares.
If it was a business operating like that with actual customers it wouldn't last a week. I dread to think how much money is wasted and how much awful kit just gets binned.
I had 4 new shirt sleeve shorts turn up, one of the arms literally fell off when I opened the packaging. A quick check on the rest of the shirts and they were just as bad. They were also build for someone with a 13" chest and 36" biceps.
Quality control is non-existent yet we're paying for this st.
I'm a regular response joe (in the same organisation as yourself) so no gucci trousers for me, I am yet to rip the arse out of a pair of the standard trousers yet, which means I am doing better than several others on my team, however I find the stitching on the pockets goes so the pockets bloom outwards, looks terrible.No one cares other than those who are desperate for new uniform to replace the absolute bargain basement s
t that keeps falling apart. Go to SLT, no one cares.....raise it with DHL, no one cares. If it was a business operating like that with actual customers it wouldn't last a week. I dread to think how much money is wasted and how much awful kit just gets binned.
I had 4 new shirt sleeve shorts turn up, one of the arms literally fell off when I opened the packaging. A quick check on the rest of the shirts and they were just as bad. They were also build for someone with a 13" chest and 36" biceps.
Quality control is non-existent yet we're paying for this s
t. I ordered a load of extra kit as I was permitted to as I was deployed for COP26, the last ordered item turned up in the April after the deployment (for a deployment in October to November)!
My biggest gripe is our kit is the current brand public order boots, which are absolutely terrible. Seams come unstitched after negligible use, toe protector has no internal padding so rubs the top of your fit, and the totally loose insoles so they come out with your feet every time you take the boot off (not ideal for something you could expect to be changing in/out of quickly in an operational setting), and move around, wrinkling up under your toes after being worn for any length of time. Comfort is non-existent and fit is poor.
Why isn’t anyone held accountable for such a mess? Why haven’t people been sacked for failing to organise such essentials correctly?
It's an absolute shambles, totally unacceptable but no one seems to care enough about it to do anything. It's absolutely terrible.
pocketspring said:
Does anyone know if HSE are involved with this? Employers duty of care etc?
HSE have said it’s out of their remit, not sure I agree with that though. The Office for Rail and Road Regulation could get involved on the vehicle front, they’ve recently prosecuted a company for not managing driving fatigue, but again no agency seems to want to claim responsibility with this issue. https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/contractor-reno...
105.4 said:
How the hell can it all be so bad?
Why isn’t anyone held accountable for such a mess? Why haven’t people been sacked for failing to organise such essentials correctly?
And don't forget budgets, our force has to make £6m of savings this year, so every dept, well, most depts, have to show savings. Stores hold on to orders now for many months to try and push costs down the line. We ordered some class 3 reflectives over 6 months ago. I doubt we'll ever now see them.Why isn’t anyone held accountable for such a mess? Why haven’t people been sacked for failing to organise such essentials correctly?
Our so called wick away black shirts now cost the force less than £1 each. As you can imagine, the quality and wick away properties of those are very poor indeed.
As has been said above, the people in charge of uniform/ fleet etc have no operational experience with use, and don't really care tbh. So when they can get something cheaper they will. Uniform is classic, they'll do a trial of new kit, the officers will give feedback, then either the new kit never appears or is quite different from the stuff that came top in the trial.
BlindedByTheLights said:
pocketspring said:
Does anyone know if HSE are involved with this? Employers duty of care etc?
HSE have said it’s out of their remit, not sure I agree with that though. The Office for Rail and Road Regulation could get involved on the vehicle front, they’ve recently prosecuted a company for not managing driving fatigue, but again no agency seems to want to claim responsibility with this issue. https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/contractor-reno...
blueST said:
BlindedByTheLights said:
pocketspring said:
Does anyone know if HSE are involved with this? Employers duty of care etc?
HSE have said it’s out of their remit, not sure I agree with that though. The Office for Rail and Road Regulation could get involved on the vehicle front, they’ve recently prosecuted a company for not managing driving fatigue, but again no agency seems to want to claim responsibility with this issue. https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/contractor-reno...
wiliferus said:
You’re not thinking logistics. For a RPU car, 100 miles in a shift would not be uncommon (depending on force and type of area covered. South Yorks would cover more mileage than the Met for example, purely down to geography). Either way 100 miles per shift, 3 shifts a day (earlies lates nights), so 300 miles a day. So an RPU car could rack up nearly 10k miles in month…. If as the article suggests service intervals are 10k, that’s every RPU car in for a monthly service.
Cuts have lead to running on the bare minimum of vehicles, so if they are in workshops the team will be a car short.
Do you see the problem?
IMHO as brilliant as they were as a high performance Police car, the 530d’s should just be decommissioned, period. Police officers face enough danger doing their job without their own vehicles trying to kill them.
But it’s only the last 10/15 years where vehicles have started to switch to long life or condition based service. When service intervals were 6000/10000 miles years ago how did they manage. I get that the cars can cover great distances and be abused and an extra service adds to the cost and time off but it’s part of fleet maintenance. If a lorry was involved in an accident and it was proved to be lack of maintenance wouldn’t the police prosecute? Cuts have lead to running on the bare minimum of vehicles, so if they are in workshops the team will be a car short.
Do you see the problem?
IMHO as brilliant as they were as a high performance Police car, the 530d’s should just be decommissioned, period. Police officers face enough danger doing their job without their own vehicles trying to kill them.
I’m just curious- not trying to pick a fight
How are the Volvos holding up ?
stevemcs said:
But it’s only the last 10/15 years where vehicles have started to switch to long life or condition based service. When service intervals were 6000/10000 miles years ago how did they manage. I get that the cars can cover great distances and be abused and an extra service adds to the cost and time off but it’s part of fleet maintenance. If a lorry was involved in an accident and it was proved to be lack of maintenance wouldn’t the police prosecute?
I’m just curious- not trying to pick a fight
How are the Volvos holding up ?
We used to have vehicles have a major service every 10k with a workshop check/minor service every 5k I’m just curious- not trying to pick a fight
How are the Volvos holding up ?
Vehicles that didn’t do high mileages had checks at 6 months and major service at 12 months … regardless of mileage
The workshops held a large number of spare cars that would be issued out to cover for servicing core vehicles .. they have gone and now your vehicle goes for a service/repair and you are down a vehicle. This can sometimes mean vehicles are not defected for faults because the unit can’t afford to lose it
The other factor was vehicle replacement cycles which were much more rapid than today
In the Met for example RT cars/Traffic cars/Vans used to have a projected service life of 2.5 years OR 80k miles. It was not unusual for some cars in high mileage roles to go for disposal at 12 months
Panda cars were 3 years and CID cars were 5 years
In GMP it was four years across the fleet
What we have seen due to “austerity” is a massive reduction in the size of the vehicle fleet and consequently the vehicles expected to work longer and so far more
In GMP it became the norm to see 10+ year old divisional cars in service and 7/8 year old traffic cars
The motorway unit (as was) reduced down from 50+ vehicles to 28 before being disbanded for example
Switching to manufacturers civilian service regimes massively reduced the time off the road meaning less vehicles were needed to meet operational requirements
Of course it has meant that instead of cars being replaced at say 3 years/100k they are in service for 6/7 years and upto 300k. That came with the increased maintenance downtime of worn out vehicles so a double edged sword
But the accountants were happy because the vehicle replacement budget was massively reduced as was the overall maintenance budget despite the increased downtime on the older elements of the fleet
I’m retired now but on the Volvo’s from what I’m hearing they aren’t great
Edited by Earthdweller on Saturday 29th July 11:50
BlindedByTheLights said:
blueST said:
BlindedByTheLights said:
pocketspring said:
Does anyone know if HSE are involved with this? Employers duty of care etc?
HSE have said it’s out of their remit, not sure I agree with that though. The Office for Rail and Road Regulation could get involved on the vehicle front, they’ve recently prosecuted a company for not managing driving fatigue, but again no agency seems to want to claim responsibility with this issue. https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/contractor-reno...
BlindedByTheLights said:
I agree and it should be with the HSE under Health and Safety At Work Act, but it is falling between agencies with none taking responsibility.
If you ever wanted an example of how the establishment closes ranks to protect itself, this is as good as you'll get. Everyone directly involved has a cover story with just enough plausibility, and those who would be able to probe further choose not to.blueST said:
BlindedByTheLights said:
blueST said:
BlindedByTheLights said:
pocketspring said:
Does anyone know if HSE are involved with this? Employers duty of care etc?
HSE have said it’s out of their remit, not sure I agree with that though. The Office for Rail and Road Regulation could get involved on the vehicle front, they’ve recently prosecuted a company for not managing driving fatigue, but again no agency seems to want to claim responsibility with this issue. https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/contractor-reno...
Collectingbrass said:
blueST said:
BlindedByTheLights said:
blueST said:
BlindedByTheLights said:
pocketspring said:
Does anyone know if HSE are involved with this? Employers duty of care etc?
HSE have said it’s out of their remit, not sure I agree with that though. The Office for Rail and Road Regulation could get involved on the vehicle front, they’ve recently prosecuted a company for not managing driving fatigue, but again no agency seems to want to claim responsibility with this issue. https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/contractor-reno...
stevemcs said:
But it’s only the last 10/15 years where vehicles have started to switch to long life or condition based service. When service intervals were 6000/10000 miles years ago how did they manage. I get that the cars can cover great distances and be abused and an extra service adds to the cost and time off but it’s part of fleet maintenance. If a lorry was involved in an accident and it was proved to be lack of maintenance wouldn’t the police prosecute?
I’m just curious- not trying to pick a fight
How are the Volvos holding up ?
You’re absolutely right, but when the service intervals were less 10 odd years ago we had more cars. We literally had spares to ensure if one broke or got smashed up we could still deliver a service. I’m just curious- not trying to pick a fight
How are the Volvos holding up ?
In terms of Road worthiness, the cars are over serviced. Also, and I can only speak for my force, if the car goes in for anything, let say tyres, before it is sent back out it will effectively have a MoT to check all the important bits are good.
Also I should imagine it’s a nationwide thing, all officers are duty bound to fully check their cars before every shift. Generally, in terms of roadworthy aspects the cars are very good. Sadly the internals of an engine are somewhat out of reach.
Meh, let’s just say the Volvos are in workshops a lot with dashboard lights on…
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