Northumbria Police conducting trial of the Vauxhall Astra as beat car
Northumbria Police is currently conducting a comprehensive and comparative trial of 56 Vauxhall Astra beat cars supplied as per police specifications. Astra is listed within the Police National Framework for use as the beat car.
Two of the six area commands of the Police Force would be replacing their entire fleet with Astra in order to get accurate feedback from officers. This key part of the trial would eliminate any element of preference between Astra and competitor’s model.
According to Force Fleet Manager Keith Wilson apart from getting officers’ feedback on Astra, the trial would also look at aspects covering reliability, servicing and repair and performance of key equipments which were new for the Force,
The Police Astra is a combination of estate and hatchback models. 48 cars 1.3 CDTi engine hatchbacks and 8 are 1.7CDTi estates. These cars would be joining Northumbria’s 1,100 vehicle feet as the first Vauxhall products.
The cars were delivered in finished condition which included LED flashing lightbar, incident recorder, siren Battenberg stripes and aerial for radios.
Keith Wilson informed that cars would be running for four years covering an average of 10,000 miles for which Vauxhall had extended warranty for full 4 year lifetime.
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