Looking at buying an ex police car, anyone ever bought one?

[Nellybobs]

Alright guys, I'm looking at buying an ex plod Skoda Octavia VRS its ex CID so no holes or damaged trim, looks totally standard.
The guy I'm buying it off deals in ex plod cars and has a few, he says there isn't any history as the police sometimes dont provide it? Bit strange I think?
Other than general ware and tear it looks a good bus, has anyone here any experience of ex police cars and are they worth going for?
Cheers

Paul...

[trickywoo]

If its really cheap no reason not to.

I wouldn't pay anywhere near private sale price for it though.

[MrAverage]

we had an ex police terrano some years ago it had a fully documented service history when we bought it, all 370k miles of it. we had various bits of trim with holes in/required tidying up but all in all if was a good vehicle. no idea how much cheaper it was than other terrano's at the time but we paid £1200 so i assume a fair bit cheaper?

anyway probably doesn't help you too much but all in all it served us well and was sold about 18 months later at a profit. go in with your eyes open and you can get a good car.

Edited by MrAverage on Friday 2nd September 14:19

[Jimmy Recard]

Look out for broken driving seats. A lot of ex police cars have dodgy frames, rails and mounts due to having people jumping in and out and adjusting them all the time.

My parents bought an ex-police Range Rover in about 1989 because it seemed cheap. It was fked. That's anecdotal and is probably simply representative of four year old Range Rovers at that time

[Bomma220]

There have been quite a few threads about ex police cars, have a look here:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=160...

[Nellybobs]

Thanks for the replies guys, it an ex CID car I'm looking at and its surprisingly well specced for old bill!.. Sat nav, high end dash and parking sensors. Only down side is that the paintwork isn't the best, couple of small dings and scratches on boot lid. From what I can see it's the only one so highly specced and its about a grand cheaper than similar cars! Should only be a couple hundred £ to sort the bodywork so I'm really tempted.

[LordGrover]

Click?

[Camoradi]

I recently picked up an ex Met Police Volvo V50. 2011 60,000 miles, had been fully serviced each year including after being taken out of service, and had 4 brand new disk brakes and pads and a cam belt change which isn't due until 100,000 on this model according to Volvo. Mechanically it seems spot on, and has the Volvo "D3" 5 cylinder engine which is better than the Ford four pot.

Cosmetically it has a few downsides. The carpets in drivers footwell are badly worn and the paintwork looked like it hadn't had a coat of wax in 5 years, but polished up OK with a bit of effort.There were a few badly repaired scratches but nothing terrible. The wheels were kerbed in a few places but I've had them refurbed and they look great now. The interior is pretty basic. Black cloth seats and no extras. It cost me about £2500 less than it would have from a main dealer. I would describe it as an "honest" car

[R8Steve]

I bought an ex armed response vauxhall senator 3.0 24v

It was a strange spec -

analogue clocks
manual windows
cloth seats
manual gearbox
LSD

Basically put back to extreme poverty spec and then some. It still had the gun safe in the boot (empty of course)


It was the only manual senator 3.0 i've ever seen. Was great for drifting!

Abused it as a track car for about a year then sold it for what i paid for it (which wasn't very much, about £900)

[Ste1987]

My dad's had an ex-plod Mondeo estate for a couple of years or so with over 100k on the clock, says he's never had any problems with it and it sails through its MOT.

[popegregory]

I had two T5 V70s in succession. They were, in honest retrospect, utter nails.

Fast cheap fun though!

[TazLondon]

I've toyed with the idea of buying an ex-police car before but was put off by the thought of the type of people who may have been invited to take the back seat: crackheads, murderers, prostitutes, etc, etc. You never know what bodily fluids may have seeped into the seats and carpet!

[N-TY4C]

My partner's mum has one. Brilliant! Not sure how she got it though. I will ask.

[Ilovejapcrap]

I had a octavia vrs that had been on its roof.

Was fine only thing every time i took something apart i found a st load of wires from old lights / sirens etc.

I used to cringe I hate the thought of wire looms being cut about.

Never let me down mind.

I personally think they are normally overpriced from what I've seen on eBay.

They always use the fully serviced line which to be honest means little to me.

every time I buy a car ( second hand ) I give a full service and cambelt if it runs ok it runs ok.

[spookly]

Jimmy Recard said:

Look out for broken driving seats. A lot of ex police cars have dodgy frames are fat bds , rails and mounts due to having people jumping in and out and adjusting them all the time.

My parents bought an ex-police Range Rover in about 1989 because it seemed cheap. It was fked. That's anecdotal and is probably simply representative of four year old all Range Rovers at that time

FTFY