Boys in Blue get luxury BMW

Try1ng

Not sure if this has been posted before, got it from the Joe Duffy BWM site:
http://www.bmwdirect.ie/news.php?newsid=89939

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This is the top of the range new weapon in the garda battle against car crime – the BMW 530d.

Gardai have taken delivery of 15 new high end BMWs – 530ds and 525is – in the past few days and the vehicle are currently being kitted out for service at a garage in Offaly.

Most of the new cares, which cost up to €70,000 a piece, are specifically bought to help Gardai in high speed chases on the M1, M6 and M7 motorways.

The 530d can go from 0 to 60 in seven seconds and has a top speed of 240kph – around 20kph than the criminals car of the choice the Lexus 430.

The cars are currently the vehicle of choice for traffic police with the London Metropolitan Police. The new BMWs are today being given garda livery and are being fitted withteh forec’s telecommunications system. They will be deployed in the coming weeks.

A garda spokesman confirmed that the force had taken delivery of the vehicles and that they were being worked on to prepare them for deployment.

_____________________________________

fletch

Try1ng wrote:

The 530d can go from 0 to 60 in seven seconds and has a top speed of 240kph – around 20kph than the criminals car of the choice the Lexus 430.

Never knew the Lexus 430 was the criminals choice, I thought it was the Golf GTI/Octavia vRS

Seth Brundle

I saw that a few months ago. It would be better if the person who wrote that item could spell cars spelt 'cares'!

This is in addition to several other BMWs, Fords, etc. that the force are using.

unkel

Try1ng wrote:

Not sure if this has been posted before

Yup, I posted this a few months ago

It was on boards.ie before it was on any other public medium!

fletch

kbannon wrote:

I saw that a few months ago. It would be better if the person who wrote that item could spell cars spelt 'cares'!

This is in addition to several other BMWs, Fords, etc. that the force are using.

Yeh it's pretty poor "around 20kph than the criminals car of the choice the Lexus 430"

rowanh

Seems a bit unnesesary to me the gards getting new 5 series bmws, there are cheaper cars with similar performance.

I heard a while ago that police in northern ireland got evo 7s or 8s, seems to be the ideal car for police chases, would be funny seeing police power sliding around roundabouts chasing people, obviously wouldnt happen but would be funny.

DukeDredd

Nice cars but i think it's a waste of public money. Why do they need high end luxury cars if all they need to do is go fast? Safety can't be the reason - this model 5 Series got 4 out of 5 stars in the Euro NCAP. Theres plenty of other less expensive makes that would accelerate just as fast/faster for them. And aren't the Gardai always complaining about lack of equipment, state of some Garda stations etc - surely some of this money would have been put to better use with these issues.

Glad to see our hard earned tax dollars being put to maximum use.

Edit: rowanh was obviously thinking the same as me as i was typing!

kaizersoze123

DukeDredd wrote:

hard earned tax dollars

not sure where you work mate, but over here we earn euros!

prospect

Am I right in saying the cars issued to the police would be exempt of Tax and VRT, and probably subject to a volume discount?

How much would they be then?

DukeDredd

kaizersoze123 wrote:

not sure where you work mate, but over here we earn euros!

I know, but "hard earned tax Euros" doesn't have as nice a ring to it

prospect wrote:

Am I right in saying the cars issued to the police would be exempt of Tax and VRT, and probably subject to a volume discount?

How much would they be then?

Ned will verify this but i think he mentioned before that no discount is offered on them...

MAYPOP

Aren't all BMW's and Lexii limited to 250 km/h anyway?

What a rubbish article:rolleyes:

DublinDilbert

i'd hate to see what the lads up the phoenix park done when they were kitting it out inside, fitting the radio ect, typically they just screw stuff into the dash and rip out anything in the way with a big pliers....

Owen

I can't verify anything. Sorry lads, but whatever deal the Gardaí have done with the Revenue with regards to VAT and VRT is their own business.

Seth Brundle

rowanh wrote:

Seems a bit unnesesary to me the gards getting new 5 series bmws, there are cheaper cars with similar performance.

Like what?
The gardai do have other cars and it is not fuly clear on the function of these. Will they be used for carting around senior officers or pursuits or just speed enforcement on the motorways as the article suggests?
We don't even know how much was paid for these! Apparently BMW were keen on getting their foot in the door of the gardai and its likely that a special deal was done!
We don't know why these were chosen. Maybe it was for fuel economy, maybe it was for safety, maybe it was because the gardai just wanted them.

rowanh wrote:

I heard a while ago that police in northern ireland got evo 7s or 8s, seems to be the ideal car for police chases, would be funny seeing police power sliding around roundabouts chasing people, obviously wouldnt happen but would be funny.

The gardai got an Evo to test it. IIRC it drank too much (€300 per day?) to be a viable choice.

HashSlinging

never heard of a Lexus 430h(es) being robbed, has to be a mistake/morsketing babble by bmw to bad mouth the competition. The high powered 4x4 saloons like evo's and scoobs are much preferred for opening safes (dragging etc), unless they are getting environmentally friendly.

The Bollox

I heard they were getting EVO 8's a while ago. damn the grapevine!

michaelanthony

The Bollox wrote:

I heard they were getting EVO 8's a while ago. damn the grapevine!

They are not top of the range. A top of the range one is the 550i. They are low to mid range. And they are probably poverty spec with cloth seats.

craichoe

Yeah .. the cops get the BASIC BASIC model ..

They don't even have a stereo in the car, just a radio

E@gle.

fletch wrote:

Never knew the Lexus 430 was the criminals choice, I thought it was the Golf GTI/Octavia vRS

that article was probaly written by someone from BMW so they are just trying to rip at lexus one of there rivals

Yakuza

As far as I know, all State cars are exempt from such taxes as VRT, VAT Road tax etc. It doesn't make sense to for the state to charge itself taxes...just would be shuffling money around from one account to another.

On an unrelated note, was the original post on BMWDirect written by a badly-trained monkey?
"Cares"..."withteh forec’s "...."around 20kph than the criminals..."

rowanh

kbannon wrote:

Like what?
The gardai do have other cars and it is not fuly clear on the function of these. Will they be used for carting around senior officers or pursuits or just speed enforcement on the motorways as the article suggests?

Well if its for senior officers, then i think even more so why do they need luxury cars there cops not bankers.

In terms of performance i would think there are quite a few cars you can buy new with better performance that cost less than 70K, first thing off the top of my head was a Skode RS as it was mentioned by someone in this post, just looked up the spec

Performance: maximum speed (mph): 149, maximum speed (km/h): 240 and acceleration 0-100 km/h (secs): 7.3

so .3 secondsd slower to 100kph and same top speed for 30K rahter than 70K. If you spent 10K tuning them id say you could raise the horsepower up quite a lot and totally out perform the beemers.

Id prefer to see the money going twords training the police than have them driving cars that imo no state employee should have as a work vehicle.

But then id like to see Bertie being driven around in a fiat punto maybe

Seth Brundle

A Skoda RS will draw attention to itself whereas I presume these were selected to be relatively covert.

R.O.R

Vehicles owned by the state are exempt from VAT and VRT. I used to deal with one of the Government bodies who told me what they were buying LandCruisers for - they were coming in less than 50% of the on the road cost to the public. Road tax is free as well regardless of engine size.

The Gardai don't fit them out themselves, as mentioned in the article as conversion company in Offaly does the work, and they do a damn good job too. Do most of the squad cars and last time I was down there (early 06) they were fitting out about 20 Forresters that we now see up and down the motorways.

ando

has anyone got any pics or evidence of these beamers being brought in??

Owen

Yes indeed, but nothing that can be shared publically.

layke

I tells ya, the day guards start using Tegs for Garda cars is the day we have propper high speed equiped force.

The older models are already white too

rowanh

kbannon wrote:

A Skoda RS will draw attention to itself whereas I presume these were selected to be relatively covert.

If they are used for high speed pursuits would that matter. Actually thinking about it new cars are pathetic in terms of price to speed ratio, How about R34 Skyline GTRs, they would make awesome high speed chase cars and you can get really nice ones for 30k

Or even

http://www.autokrata.pl/ogien/482/spyker_w_holenderskiej_policji/wszystkie/

see the saleen about halfway down.

Turner

They already have Skoda RS's and FSI's.

All are unmarked.

MrPudding

prospect wrote:

Am I right in saying the cars issued to the police would be exempt of Tax and VRT, and probably subject to a volume discount?

How much would they be then?

Also, given that it is the gov it will most likely have been subject to a competative tender. BMW obviously wanted the business more than the other manufacturers.

MrP

kbannon

kbannon wrote:

Like what?
The gardai do have other cars and it is not fuly clear on the function of these. Will they be used for carting around senior officers or pursuits or just speed enforcement on the motorways as the article suggests?
We don't even know how much was paid for these! Apparently BMW were keen on getting their foot in the door of the gardai and its likely that a special deal was done!
We don't know why these were chosen. Maybe it was for fuel economy, maybe it was for safety, maybe it was because the gardai just wanted them.
The gardai got an Evo to test it. IIRC it drank too much (€300 per day?) to be a viable choice.

Yeah the 530d is one of the quickest diesels out there at the moment. When you take into account size and passenger safety (which was a major consideration after that yob killed two gaurds with a stolen sports car) its a bit of a no brainer to go with the BMW brand.

The EVO would be a nightmare for them to keep on the road, service every 4500 miles and < 20mpg at best...

Terrontress

I recently saw a Five Series which was an army vehicle.

Santa Claus

ned78 wrote:

I can't verify anything. Sorry lads, but whatever deal the Gardaí have done with the Revenue with regards to VAT and VRT is their own business.

The Gardai never pay VRT/VAT or road tax on their cars as they are exempt. So are the military, fire brigade, ambulance and coast guard vehicles (and possibly civil defence but they hardly ever get brand new vehicles, mostly army hand me downs).

skyhighflyer

I think it's a fantastic idea, should have happened sooner.

Of course the Joe Duffy brigade will be talking the usual ****e about "Garda luxury cars", etc, but the fact is these cars will be ordered without any luxury equipment at all and half of the standard equipment will be taken out anyway.

These are the same people who will complain about the guards when their house or business is robbed and the criminals make off down the M50 in an Impreza while the guard has to try and use a van or a 1.6 Avensis to catch them. As far as I know the Foresters aren't even Turbo models :eek:

Also, given that there will be no VRT or tax on the cars the state won't be paying anywhere near list price, probably closer to 40k than 70k.

The Skoda Octavia VRS would be good but no way would a turbocharged petrol engine last as long as a diesel, while probably getting half the mpg.

My only complaint is that they should have bought a fleet of 535D's instead, there's still plenty of cars that will outrun a 530D, or a 525i.

Also senior Guards don't get drivers, possibly the Commissioner and Assistant Commr but that's it.