No more BMW police cars, in the UK

[sapphireblack]

I've read about the issue previously but not that there had been a fatality, that's particularly sad. Doing a hard and potentially dangerous job, you don't expect your safe space to kill you. It won't bring the guy back but if married, i hope his widow is properly compensated by Cumbria Police or the Home Office, with a very large payout.

Poor sod

[StuBeeDoo]

Our neighbour is a former officer with our local constabulary. She was passenger in a police vehicle which lost a wheel on its first shift after a service. The car was a write-off, and both officers sustained injuries. In the case of our neighbour, her back injury was bad enough that she had to give-up the job. I don't know more about the other officer.
Our neighbour, with the help of her union, tried to get the constabulary to retire her due to ill-health, but they wouldn't - despite her having plenty of medical evidence & support. The constabulary refused to accept liability and insisted that she either return to work or resign. No compensation, no early pension.

[sapphireblack]

Our neighbour is a former officer with our local constabulary. She was passenger in a police vehicle which lost a wheel on its first shift after a service. The car was a write-off, and both officers sustained injuries. In the case of our neighbour, her back injury was bad enough that she had to give-up the job. I don't know more about the other officer.
Our neighbour, with the help of her union, tried to get the constabulary to retire her due to ill-health, but they wouldn't - despite her having plenty of medical evidence & support. The constabulary refused to accept liability and insisted that she either return to work or resign.

That is outrageous

[Alan Gunn]

Our neighbour is a former officer with our local constabulary. She was passenger in a police vehicle which lost a wheel on its first shift after a service. The car was a write-off, and both officers sustained injuries. In the case of our neighbour, her back injury was bad enough that she had to give-up the job. I don't know more about the other officer.
Our neighbour, with the help of her union, tried to get the constabulary to retire her due to ill-health, but they wouldn't - despite her having plenty of medical evidence & support. The constabulary refused to accept liability and insisted that she either return to work or resign. No compensation, no early pension.

Words fail me.

[StuBeeDoo]

This \/ \/ \/ makes interesting listening, although not exclusively BMW. If it's not fairly accurate, he's in deep do-dos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEryJeBcg-8

[sapphireblack]

This \/ \/ \/ makes interesting listening, although not exclusively BMW. If it's not fairly accurate, he's in deep do-dos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEryJeBcg-8

Interesting, potentially brave. As a Kent resident, if true those comments are shocking.

[Leslie]

He seems to talking sense , police cars have no history and are absolutely ripe for clocking so people pay more for them .

[X5Sport]

Based upon my own experience with Surrey, every vehicle has a daily log which records driver, times, fuel added, start and end mileage for the duty shift plus all servicing. Those logs were not thrown away when the vehicles went to auction but retained for a period after disposal. It should be possible to get that log, or at least the closing mileage at disposal from the relevant force.

The MOT exemption requires very strict adherence to the servicing rules - it used to be every 3,000 miles but will be higher now - no ifs or buts.

Drilling the block is part of each force ensuring that they have no liability should anything disastrous happen with the engine after sale. We do the same with electronic or electrical items so they are put ‘beyond use without needing a repair’. It’s all about liability avoidance.

The vehicles we used only had beefed up suspension to be able to carry the extra kit load and cope with high speed use (high speed being sub-130mph back then), bigger batteries (sometimes 2) and bigger alternators and radiators. The cars were also very low spec - no entertainment, basic seats, basic interior trim, no special alloys etc - and that hasn’t changed. The discounts were good because of the numbers sold, but even today they aren’t 50%. WBAC are known to suggest a good price on line but it has been said that the ‘actual’ price tendered is often much less. I’ve had the same and laughed at the individual. Organisations such as WBAC will base their price on a retail car, and Police Spec vehicles aren’t retail spec, they’re called ‘Authority Spec’ and only relevant authorities can buy one. Using organisations such as WBAC for a ‘book’ price is comparing apples with oranges.

Why don’t companies like JLR feature so widely? They don’t produce a vehicle to the right spec and forces look at total life cost including reliability. If that cost is too high and something better & cheaper to buy and run is available then that’s what gets bought. Some forces like the Met have deep pockets and big budgets, most county forces don’t. The Met and other big metropolitan type forces such as GMP may therefore be able to run a few Range Rovers, most don’t.

It’s also about payload and safety at high speed. BMWs could handle both relatively well in Authority Spec (they do pretty well in retail spec too) but others either need special upgrades or removal of things like air suspension and that may move the price point. Given the N57 engine issue that could be a moot point, but neither the previous M57 nor current B57 have problems.

If forces were looking to reduce running costs then cheaper oil or less frequent changes I can believe, but no evidence has been offered that I’ve seen in the public domain that states what BMWs service requirements were, what the Home Office (who approve Police Vehicles) permitted and what was actually done. That might be interesting.

If clocking is going on as suggested then that really does need looking at very closely. That raises all sorts of questions about who knew what in the civilian run fleet maintenance side and with whoever handles disposal. I’m not dismissing that there may indeed be an issue, recent press about problem officers demonstrates that all too clearly, but how widespread is it really. Time for a Daily Mail moment methinks.

I also accept that BMWs acknowledgement of issues in the past (other manufacturers are the same) has been problematic and secrecy rightly make folks such as us a wee bit cynical.

[StuBeeDoo]

I see that our local constabulary now have some Toyota estates on their fleet.