Did I Miss Something?
Author
Discussion

DanBoy

Original Poster:

4,899 posts

272 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
Having seen Police in unmarked Imprezas and Evos, as well as Marked X5s, I did start to wonder where the money came from all of a sudden!

And if Ted's got it right, the latest addition to Plod's fast vehicle arsenal is the Fireblade...

But yesterday, I could have sworn I passed a marked Mercedes SL of some description. Or was I seeing things?

simpo two

92,709 posts

294 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
DanBoy said:
Having seen Police in unmarked Imprezas and Evos, as well as Marked X5s, I did start to wonder where the money came from all of a sudden!

Your Council Tax.

pesty

42,655 posts

285 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
Theres an unmarked Black Jaguar I have seen going up and down the toll road. Also several silver BMW's and those new Volvo 4x4 things I have seen around.

Seems there is plenty ofcash for un marked cars, not so much for marked Traf pol.

Liszt

4,337 posts

299 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
Enticing fleet discounts too.

crankedup

25,764 posts

272 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
I reckon the BiB are given these high performance cars by the Manufacturer, on trial for a limited period

FourWheelDrift

92,287 posts

313 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
DanBoy said:
I did start to wonder where the money came from all of a sudden!


Roadside cash machine's.

mrsbug

282 posts

284 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
Saw 2 of our BiB this morning in an unmarked black Peugeot 206 - they pulled a girl over on Otley Road, Headingley,Leeds for driving down the bus lane.

Liszt

4,337 posts

299 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
crankedup said:
I reckon the BiB are given these high performance cars by the Manufacturer, on trial for a limited period


Not really, one or two perhaps.

The police and other public service groups are big fleet buyers so get a hefty discount. Plus there is the prestige of supplying the Police. There is a lot of mystique and pub arguing about what tweaks/ performance the police variant of the rep mobiles have.

bluesandtwos

357 posts

289 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
You would fall off your chair if you knew how much the BiB pay for their cars. Some years ago my force was going to replace all traffic cars, they had sierras at the time. The cheapest deal for them to go to was the 325i BMW, but the powers that be said it was the wrong "image" for the force and they paid EXTRA for Mondeo ST24....



phumy

5,827 posts

266 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
I can remember way back in the mid to late `80`s when the Ford RS200 was being developed for Group B rallying (600+BHP). Ford special rallying operations, in Essex, gave one of these machines to the local plod, think it might have been Chelmsford, any way to cut a long story short the car didnt last long. It was wrapped around a big oak tree, suffice to say the two Bib didnt survive. Perhaps someone out there could clarify or even confirm.

phumy

gh0st

4,693 posts

287 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
bluesandtwos said:
You would fall off your chair if you knew how much the BiB pay for their cars. Some years ago my force was going to replace all traffic cars, they had sierras at the time. The cheapest deal for them to go to was the 325i BMW, but the powers that be said it was the wrong "image" for the force and they paid EXTRA for Mondeo ST24....





Well how can you ethically tell another driver off for bad driving if you drive a beemer

bumpkin

158 posts

284 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
phumy said:
I can remember way back in the mid to late `80`s when the Ford RS200 was being developed for Group B rallying (600+BHP). Ford special rallying operations, in Essex, gave one of these machines to the local plod, think it might have been Chelmsford, any way to cut a long story short the car didnt last long. It was wrapped around a big oak tree, suffice to say the two Bib didnt survive. Perhaps someone out there could clarify or even confirm.

phumy

i heard they (Essex Plod) put the blue lights in the engine air intakes and cooked the engine. when they asked for another one they were told another engine was a bit more than Ford had expected to pay for the test.

xxplod

2,269 posts

273 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
The answer to the money question is that BiB do indeed get offered outrageuously good deals on their motors. £16K for a Volvo V70 T5? That's what we pay for them.

We do also get cars on loan for testing. We recently had a Mercedes C320 estate and a Mercedes ML.

robocop

489 posts

266 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
'tis true...

We have just carried out a full review for our new ARV and we had each car on loan for a period to evaluate. Most manufacturers have a fleet of Demo's that BiB can book out.

We tried the new XC-90, Shogun, VW Toureg(V10) - [you would pass out at the price they would let us have them, just to be first Police Fleet in the country!], X5's and many more. Most offer about 20-30% discount, or even more sometimes. Some, like Volvo strangely, can't be bothered anymore.

So really you are getting VFM

To be fair we have had to drive round in Disco's and Galaxy's for the last few years at 90k mls/year!!

Rgds

Streetcop

5,907 posts

267 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
We should get all the decent cars...

We're the good guys....

Street...

hertsbiker

6,443 posts

300 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
Streetcop said:
We should get all the decent cars...

We're the good guys....

Street...


*You* lot on here maybe, but why are there so many 'rogue' coppers out there, that IMHO are just out for trouble? no worries, its a rhetorical question, the answer seems to be that if you are posting on here, you are either a) genuinely interested in motoring as a hobby or b) are trying something very clever that we haven't worked out yet. Which is a sinister thought from a (rightly) paranoid mind...

rude girl

6,937 posts

288 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
bluesandtwos said:
You would fall off your chair if you knew how much the BiB pay for their cars. Some years ago my force was going to replace all traffic cars, they had sierras at the time. The cheapest deal for them to go to was the 325i BMW, but the powers that be said it was the wrong "image" for the force and they paid EXTRA for Mondeo ST24....





'tis true. My brother was plod until he retired last year. They were offered Jags at a ridiculous price (less than my company paid per unit for 300 1.8L Avensises), but paid the extra for Mondeos because the Jag would attract adverse comments about cost.

Big_M

5,602 posts

292 months

Thursday 26th August 2004
quotequote all
phumy said:
to cut a long story short the car didnt last long. It was wrapped around a big oak tree, suffice to say the two Bib didnt survive. Perhaps someone out there could clarify or even confirm.

phumy
Yep - this is true. Apparently I heard that the car had about £20k worth of 'special' equipment on it as well. I also heard that the accident happened as the driver somehow managed to put the car into reverese gear at high speed.

towman

14,938 posts

268 months

Friday 27th August 2004
quotequote all
DanBoy said:
But yesterday, I could have sworn I passed a marked Mercedes SL of some description. Or was I seeing things?



In Surrey by any chance? Saw it on the A3 near Tolworth. Does look the nuts tho` doesn`t it?!

Steve

chrisgr31

14,275 posts

284 months

Friday 27th August 2004
quotequote all
Presumably some of the nicer cars will belong to the Chief Constable and/or assistants?

Of course living in Sussex we had a woderful previous CVhief Constable who managed to get down for Driving without Due Care or similar just over the border with Kent, when he crashed into another driver.

Suppose it should have been expected, as he was accident prone, his officers shot at least one un-armed civilian who was in bed at the time, and his daughter was arrested at least once for attacking his officers!

However to be fair to him at the inquiry into the death of the guy that was shot he stood up for his officers, and eventually I think he had to resign over it.