Small Iowa Town Police Obtain $733,000, 49,000-pound, Armored Vehicle for Free!

[Fanatical Meat]

Originally Posted by Exterous View Post
I doubt the manufactures are going to make cheaper parts for the police when there is no competition to make them do so.

When the MRAP's drive train is based on semi truck chassis, they will be able to use standard OEM replacement parts rather those those that have to meet mil specs.

In 2013 the military spent~ $1M per MRAP on Operations and Maintenance. VSE was awarded a 4.5M a month contract to maintain\repair ~650 MRAPs or just under $80,000\yr per vehicle. I am not saying the MRAPs will need the same level of service for police duty but these do not appear to be cheap options for the small police department budgets that are getting them

I guess we'll see but I don't believe the cost to maintain an MRAP for an 8 person police department is going to be a good use of their funds

Guess you missed my last post.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost...0&postcount=72

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/a...WS03/711259873

Quote:
Annual maintenance costs were estimated to be $500 a year by County Highway Superintendent James L. Lawrence Jr.

See answers in bold above.

Let's just stick with the basics, regular maintenance stuff. How much are tires or an oil filter or an air filter what kind of oil does it take? where do you purchase these parts? How much will these cost as defense spending and deployment of these vehicles wind down? $500.00 per year sounds awfully low a middle aged regular car could average that number.
Are any of the Towns parking lots or garages going to need to be modified to house this? Can this drive on their roads without damaging them?

 

[werepossum]

I know those exist but they are a quarter mill+ to purchase. Does your average smallish town swat team have those? I live in a suburb of 450k people and have never seen ERT come out for anything with more than a suburban. I'm not even sure that we have one of those. Some of the suburbs around here do, but they are all high population.

That's a good point. Everybody has a SWAT team, probably most don't have an actual armored van.

Originally Posted by Exterous View Post
I doubt the manufactures are going to make cheaper parts for the police when there is no competition to make them do so.

When the MRAP's drive train is based on semi truck chassis, they will be able to use standard OEM replacement parts rather those those that have to meet mil specs.

In 2013 the military spent~ $1M per MRAP on Operations and Maintenance. VSE was awarded a 4.5M a month contract to maintain\repair ~650 MRAPs or just under $80,000\yr per vehicle. I am not saying the MRAPs will need the same level of service for police duty but these do not appear to be cheap options for the small police department budgets that are getting them

I guess we'll see but I don't believe the cost to maintain an MRAP for an 8 person police department is going to be a good use of their funds

Guess you missed my last post.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost...0&postcount=72

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/a...WS03/711259873

Quote:
Annual maintenance costs were estimated to be $500 a year by County Highway Superintendent James L. Lawrence Jr.



Let's just stick with the basics, regular maintenance stuff. How much are tires or an oil filter or an air filter what kind of oil does it take? where do you purchase these parts? How much will these cost as defense spending and deployment of these vehicles wind down? $500.00 per year sounds awfully low a middle aged regular car could average that number.
Are any of the Towns parking lots or garages going to need to be modified to house this? Can this drive on their roads without damaging them?

That does sound awfully low, probably to squash any objections to taking it.