Agenda - Council - 01/08/1980 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City of Ramsey 15153 Nowthen BoulevardN.W., Anoka, Minnesola 55303 * (612) 427-1410 POLICE DEPAR]MBNT December 17, 1979 Regarding squad car purchase: I have' sent, to eight dealers, a list of our specifications for a 1980 squad vehicle and asked them if they were interested, to submit a price quote. I have received, since these were mailed in the middle of Octo- ber, five replies. They are as follows: Main Motors (Anoka) Chev. Impala Greenberg Olds/AMC Olds. Delta 88 Metro Dodge (Anoka) Dodge St. Regis Country Chrysler (Elk River) Plymouth Fury Brookdale Ford Ford LTD ,. $7,446.64 6,600.00 7,412.26 7,038.14 6,958.64 Of these five I recommend we accept that quote from Greenberg!s, not because of its lower cost alone, but because of several other factors. First of all, we have a Delta 88 now and with 54,000 miles on it we have experienced very few maintenance Problems beyond norma~ wear (brakes, alignment). It is an excellent handling car for pursuit and emergency driving. It rides and handles well on our dirt roads and is good in snow. It has enough room in it to be comfortable and efficient when you consider it is an "office" for the patrol 16 hours a day. We are able to transport prisoners, citizens and equipment without janming everybody and everything into the car with difficulty. As to mid-size vehicles and smaller, I have talked to several represen- tatives of metro area departments and they are mostly all using full- size autos at this time and some use a combination of the full and mid- size. Brooklyn Center is using the Chev. Malibu which they say performs well but gets crowded and gets 9.6 mpg. (our Olds gets 10.8 to 11.5 mpg.) That city i§ eXPerimenting with the CheV Citation, a front wheel drive car with a six. cylinder engine but they say that if it doesn't work out they can '%ury" it in administration vehicles. Since they can afford to do this I prefer to let them be the' fore-runners for 1980. North St. Paul, also has a couple Malibus and did have the Nova after having full- size Fords. They also felt the Malibus and Novas to be crowded with the same general mileage figure of 9.5+. The' Chief the~ said they had con- tinuous trouble with the Ford and recommended we stay away from them. Coon Rapids has the Plymouth Volare and the officers say they handle reasonablly well but they find it hard to get anyone into the rear seat. They have had numerous problems with the front ends (torsion bars) col- lapsing.