General Motors has ended production of its longtime police-car workhorse, the Chevrolet Caprice, and the ones still on the street are developing serious ailments. What’s a cop to do?
Call the squad “doc,” Bernie Collins, director of service operations for Shaheen Chevrolet in Lansing, Mich., who offers automotive CPR to aging law-enforcement vehicles.
Orland Park Police Cmdr: Jack Mattes said he read about Collins’ operation in a trade journal. “I ordered (Shaheen Chevrolet’s) video and after viewing it, we sent one of our cars to his place in October of last year.” he said. “It’s a ’92 Chevy Caprice, and we wanted to get three more years-60,000 to 70,000 more miles out of it.”
Mattes said it only took seven days for Collins and his crew to rebuild the vehicle and return it to the Orland Park P.D. on a car carrier. The cost was $12,000. “It has a three-year/50,000-mile warranty on the engine and transmission with a 12-month/12,000-mile warranty for everything else,” said Mattes. He recently sent three more vehicles to the Lansing, Mich., horsepower hospital for open-hood surgery. “Collins is so busy that you can expect it will take longer than a week from now on,” he said.
When GM announced in the fall of 1995 that it would discontinue the Caprice, a groan could be heard from police departments coast to coast. “That’s when I came up with the idea of restoring the existing ones,” said Collins. “If given a choice between restoring a Chevy and buying a new vehicle, most police tell me they prefer their Caprices.”
The full-size, rear-wheel-drive Caprice built for police use has an 8-cylinder, Corvette-powered engine, known for its performance and stability, and heavy-duty suspension and steering, according to Collins. Without it, police have only one new vehicle for their fleet–the full-size, rear-wheel-drive Ford Crown Victoria. Some departments have gone with Ford; others are beating a path to Collins’ door.
Shaheen Chevrolet has 72 mechanical stalls in 85,000 square feet; 36 are earmarked for restoring engines and transmissions on police vehicles and the other half are for other customers’ vehicles. Body work is done in the 60 stalls. Thirty-five employees, including a couple of quality-control managers, work on the police cars.
“We have a $2.5 million parts inventory, and about $600,000 of those are just for Caprices,” Collins said. Shaheen opened a second facility last summer, Team One Chevy in Portland, Mich., where they restore the Ford Crown Victorias.
Collins numbers his clients at close to 600 and counting, and from as far away as Seattle; Bangor, Maine; and Sacramento, Calif. Besides the typical squad-on-the-street, Collins and his crew restore Chevys for SWAT units, Marine patrol units, the FBI, undercover operations, the U.S. Park Service and the U.S. Marshal’s Service, plus prisoner transport vans.
“I have as many as 150 to 165 police vehicles in here at any given time. When I get them, they usually have between 100,000 and 125,000 miles on them. But what doesn’t show on the odometer is all the idling time, when a squad is parked on the side of a road after an accident,” Collins said.
Shaheen has five carriers to transport cars from the client to Michigan for restoration. “We criss-cross the country every day,” said Collins. Once the car is in the shop, there is a five-hour inspection. Collins said less than 1 percent of the cars are rejected because of their condition.
All the parts on the vehicle are pulled during the restoration, which takes 15 to 30 days if the work is just mechanical and longer if paint and body work are indicated. “Departments that send us dark-colored cars usually want them repainted white,” said Collins.
They repad and reupholster the seats and steam clean the engine compartment. “Before the car is returned to the customer, our quality-control guys give it a thorough road test to make sure there are no squeaks or rattles.” He mentioned the 3-year/50,000-mile GM warranty on the engine and transmission, and 12-month/12,000-mile warranty on the rest of the work. “That’s a better deal than you get on a new car,” Collins said. “Even after the 12,000 miles, if there is a problem not created by (the customer) or a part fails, we will take care of it.”
That’s what happened to a restored vehicle from Rolling Meadows, according to their superintendent of vehicle services, Larry Hoehler. “One of the parts malfunctioned, and Bernie had the car picked up and trailered back to us at no charge,” said Hoehler. “Plus the work was completed within a 24-hour period.”
Hoehler heard about the program at a regional gathering of the Municipal Fleet Managers’ Association. “Our police department reviewed the packet of information and the short video from Collins, and we sent our first car there in 1997.” Two more were restored there last year, and Rolling Meadows will have four cars restored this year.
The total on the invoice averages $10,000 to $12,000, according to Collins. But that beats buying a new car, which would cost about $23,000, he said. “We can restore two cars for the price of a new car.” Collins pointed out that there is even more expense for a police department if they have to switch brands.
That’s why Jack Gray, superintendent of building and fleet services for Elk Grove Village, chose the restoration program. “Our fleet is GM, and it has been for 20 years,” he said. “There’s a familiarity with these vehicles, and our mechanics are trained to work on them, plus we have the parts and equipment specific to Chevy Caprices.”
Elk Grove has had one police vehicle restored by the Shaheen team, and they have a contract to send seven more to Lansing. Gray said they got a bonus of sorts with their first vehicle. “The original estimate was $10,000, but when Collins discovered that I had an extended warranty on the car, all I had to pay was the $100 deductible on a new engine and the price dropped to $6,600,” said Gray.
As for competitors, Collins said there aren’t any that do restorations on the same scale as Shaheen. “A lot of facilities have tried it on a few cars, and then abandoned the program when they discovered how much trouble it is,” he said.
Managing this kind of an operation is very time consuming, according to Collins. “Sometimes I’m here at 4:30 in the morning and don’t leave until 10 at night. But I love it,” he said. “I’ve been in the automotive business for 38 years, and these past two years have been the most fun.”
Collins, 54, is a native of northern Ontario and has lived in Michigan for 30 years.
From time to time visitors show up. Some clients want to see the process before they contract for the work. And that’s fine with Collins. “About 25 percent come on site before they send their cars,” he noted. “Once the restoration is done, their chins drop to their knees when they see what we have done to their vehicles.”
Rolling Meadows’ Hoehler said the restored cars look and drive like new. “Collins does a full suspension, exhausts, brakes and some interior work, too,” he said. “He also takes preventive measures, replacing some parts that are not worn out but will.”
Collins said the move toward recycling police cars is just scratching the surface. “In 10 years it will be standard practice because it will save the municipalities a lot of money,” he said.
“The cost savings have been substantial,” Hoehler said. “We’ve spent, on average, less than $10,000 each for the three cars that have been restored, and we expect to get 75,000 miles more on each one.”
Gray said he was one of several dozen fleet managers from municipalities across the country who tested a prototype of a Chevrolet Impala built for police use and expected to hit the market in 2000, which could reduce the need for the restoration program, he said.
