No more BMW Police Cars in the UK... thanks to N57 Engine Fires

Ever been pulled over by a BMW 3, 5 series or X5? No more! BMW has stopped selling police cars to the UK government. In this video I look at the reasons why, and dive a little deeper into government procurement and ask some important questions.

Geoff's Police Car Videos
Part 1 - No more BMW Police cars in the UK

Part 2 - Holy Engines and Clocked Cars

#BMW #Police #PoliceCar #N57Engine

Sources:

BMW Halts the Sale of All Police Cars

Coroner Sums PC Nick Humphreys Tragedy

[GeoffBuysCars]

Geoff's Police Car Videos

Part 1 - No more BMW Police cars in the UK

Part 2 - Holy Engines and Clocked Cars

Bonus - The History of the Volvo 850 and UK Police

[wreython]

I'm an ex Firearms officer. Been retired for a year and six months.
My force used X5's as ARV's.
The traffic side used 530d's.
These particular vehicles were heavily used - especially the X5's as maintaining a 24hr armed response cover is a priority. There were times when the previous shift had just finished a job, they'd get back just as another authority was given and it would be 100mph plus, sometimes across the county border miles away. Overall, they performed well.
Vehicle maintenance on my force was very good.
Along with the engine notification you mention here we had issues with X5's being very sensitive to tyre tread depth and over-wear on inside edge's. Without constant checks carried, out poor handling would result.
Weight was also a problem. ARV's carry a lot of heavy kit which put obvious wear and tear on all running gear.
The best cars we ever used were Volvo T6's. Petrol, straight six engine was glorious but thirsty. They went for years.

[robt]

When I joined Hampshire Traffic in 1986 we had a selection of cars. Jaguar XJ6, Range Rover, Rover SD1 3.5 and the first BMW 5 series - then 525s. The Jags were always off the road being fixed, the SD1s literally fell to bits although mechanically they were ok. The Range Rovers were very specialist and quite slow, and averaged about 12 to the gallon! The BMWs just came along and quietly did the job they were asked to. The 525s were replaced with 528is and they just did a great job. Never broke down. I remember one that in under three years hit 177, 000 of hard usage and was still a good car. And for the bean counters, they were the cheapest to run. The purchase price is a small part of the lifetime costs! At that time, the BMW motorcycle I rode cost more per mile of its life that the patrol cars and thats one of the reasons you wont see many police bikes on the road today. We did have other cars to try. Rover 825 and 827 (great Honda engines but otherwise rubbish). Vauxhall Senators (great car and they were rebadged from Opel to look more "British!) but the BMWs were just the best at that time. Then along came the Volvo T5s and they took over that role..

[andycoombes]

I'm thankfully now retired but worked for a part of my career as a traffic officer in the Met. We used almost exclusively BMW 530 estates and in my experience NEVER once had an engine issue... EVER!!
We also had a 4 litre V8 Land Rover Discovery which did about 110 miles between fill ups and was ALWAYS in for repairs BUT coukd tow a fully laden articulated lorry if needed. The Mitsubushi Shoguns which replaced it them had a 3.5 tonne towing limit. British Cars were pretty crap back in the day and that's why we didn't use them

[eddie]

BMW has its own dedicated production line for emergency vehicles (BMW Authorities) so they've been able to offer UK Police forces big discounts. The cars arrive with lights, sirens, additional wiring looms and auxiliary power already fitted saving money. The N57 issue has made alot of forces switch brands though.

[jasonwelsh]

The government has never backed British businesses for a long time. I remember when we needed new trains I believe it was for cross rail. They singed a contract with Siemens German firm it almost bank ruptured the train builders company over here Bombardier.

[mikeymike]

I absolutely agree wholeheartedly, the higher ups in the emergency services love the backhand car freebie’s of family cars for the wife and kids, it’s happened to me/us in the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service when we moved from Fords (fantastic Ambulance)to crappy narrow Renault Ambulances, if you have a stretcher patient you can’t bring a family member with the patient because the Renault Ambulance is too narrow and you are not allowed to carry anyone up in the cab because they are not insured!!. The Fords were wide bodied with a stretcher either side and a pretty wide channel up the middle for ease of movement with no tripping over the patient’s family’s feet 😊😊.
Oh btw I was on the Ambulance steering committee, but you might as well just hit yer head off the walls, cause when Renault offers free family cars 🚗 everything else went out the window 🪟 😡

[tisard]

Wait until they have to have EV police cars. Lights on while at a call, then they jump back in to go to another emergency, but wait, the battery's flat. Oh dear!
Or are the emergency services going to be the only ones allowed to still use combustion engines?

[williamoakes]

I run an n57 powered 330d and it’s fantastic, I wouldn’t change it despite these concerns as it simply doesn’t do/suffer the same sort of work.
It’s the idling that kills any diesels performance…as for the egr cooler that’s the part being recalled in all these models (including mine) it’s the most likely part to suffer carbon build up from an engine sitting idling for long periods or being used on lots of local stop start journeys (combined with a plastic intake manifold creates a fire risk) then booted to sustain +100mph stints.
Diesels work best when hot and the problems occur for these bigger engines in particular when used in the wrong environments and ultimately allowed to build up excessive carbon deposits.
I try and refrain from using my car on short journeys and retain it for the open road journeys where it keeps itself clean
One key thing you can note regards a bmw running an n57 is that the temperature gauge on the dash is displaying engine oil temperature as opposed to coolant temp…this is unique compared to almost any other car I’ve run and is very telling, drive it to the shops and back and it’s barely registered from cold, get it out on the open road and get it to the middle setting and it’s in its happy place, I’m willing to guess that all incidents come from a car being ragged having sustained long periods at idle and ultimately sitting with a cold engine.
Hence the police decision to remove from their fleet is probably a wise move considering what they do with them…maybe the best option would have been to stick with beemer (who else could they use to keep up with the baddies in high powered German whips) but switch to the b58 powered petrol lumps that would suffer the idle to flat out scenario better than the diesels…for the rest of us domestic users they’re wonderful devices that combine economy with blistering performance.

[charfont]

I used to know an m6 patrol office when they used rangerovers but stop using them because they “ looked too aggressive “ I’ve also wondered why we don’t use uk made vehicles. Once again spending some else’s money is easy.

[cestfixement]

Anecdotally I was told that the tender process for the emergency services came down to Skoda and BMW, they both had competitive pricing and service packages cheaper than any other manufacturer could offer. The ambulance section went with Skoda because it was slightly cheaper and police went with bmw because for the slight extra cost bmw conveys speed and power to the layman, a person with no interest in cars will “know” a bmw is fast and would be less likely to initiate a chase

Edit: so my source for this was a police car mechanic and a couple of old ex police fellers (you know the kind, secret handshake)

[LeeJonesNPT]

Back in the late 80's we had Rover 827's together with Vauxhall Senators as a patrol cars. All general patrol vehicles were escorts, Montego maestro, Rover 214/216, Transit and sherpa vans. The 827 Rovers used Honda engines and these similar to the current BMW engines overheated easily. The reality was the Leyland Rover cars fell apart due to so much "misuse' . The majority of forces moved to British built Peugeot 309 GP vehicles and Volvo patrol cars, the T5 had massive brake issues due to so much abuse and after that the German cars came in. There were no British made cars left to purchase.

[Clilne]

I agree with you.
I'm italian and we had BMWs police cars as well in 2017 while we should be using Alfa Romeo Giulia.
I visited England several times and i noticed police using BMWs or Vauxhall (Opel) and I was wondering why, because i know you guys have a great great car culture there.

[nickangel]

Hi Geoff,

Just so you’re in the know :) Generally it’s only the specialised Traffic Department that use premium brand vehicles, the rest of us are in Astras and 308s, BMW and Volvo offer massive discounts on police vehicles. At one point BMW offered to match the price of Vauxhall Astras and replace all front line response vehicles with the BMW 3 series. They would only do this if a large group of forces agreed and would serve to benefit them as it’s seen as a massive advertisement to have the police using their vehicles. This didn’t happen as forces were worried about public perception of every officer going around in a BMW

[JustLimburger]

The only car in my family that caught on fire was a 1999 mk1 Land Rover Freelander petrol. Small disclaimer, it was the BMW made K-series I4 engine that Land Rover decided to put into it. It was a disaster... a lot of them broke and/or burned down.

[IanDarley]

I've owned 3 330ds 1 335d and currently run a 530d all without issue with overheating or coolant loss (though I've just had a recall letter for the EGR cooler, it's going in to have it changed next week). They probably chose them because they do 40-50 MPG average and have the best part of 300BHP.

[Hadronyx]

And here I am sitting with my BMW X3 f25 35d with over 380, 000 km on it with no Problems.

Stop giving regular working people exotic engines to handle. They won't drive them correctly - no warming up the engine, permanent switching off and on the engine, not waiting 2-3 minutes for the turbo chargers to cool down before switching off the engine.

This engine is a piece of a art.
If you change the oil every 30.000km, don't warm the engine and let components cool down, I have bad news for you

[theostickley]

Interesting what you say about loyalty regarding using British made cars etc. Cunard and P&O have not had a ship built in the UK for decades. People will say well there are no yards to build them and I get that but if we keep going overseas there won't be anything British left.

[mohammadcheema]

Good question about why forces never bought Rovers in bigger numbers in the early 2000s. Sadly, if you’re middle aged like me you might recall Stelios the EasyJet founder complained, back in the late 90s, that when he phoned Rover to discuss a fleet purchase for his new car hire firm. They never called him back - so he ended up buying thousands of Mercedes A classes instead. Maybe the police got a similarly lacklustre response.

[bentullett]

I agree with what you are saying about the British police not using British made cars. They were using Jaguar's and Land Rovers in the Midlands but they didn't last very long as they spent more time in the garage. Vauxhall is mainly used by the police for small patrol cars in various locations but they no longer sell a high performance car to keep up with faster vehicles on highway patrols.