Did I get a good deal?

Just bought a 2007 police impala with 63,000 miles on it for $5,400 (total price, including tax, tabs, all repairs, an oil change and transmission flush). The dealer said it was driven by college security and not the cops. Did I get a good deal, or ripped off?

>2007 impala
You got fucked

If you have to ask, it's probably a bad sign.
but let's be real here, it's an Impala, you got fucked no matter what.

>college security
so tons of idling? yea you got fucked. especially if it has displacement on demand. you're gonna need new cams if so.

I had a mechanic take a look at it before I bought it. He said it looked in good condition aside from a few minor things which are all included in the $5,400.
I thought Impalas were supposed to be good long-lasting cars? I got a ride from a friend the other day who had 290k on his. They had one at the place I bought mine with 330k on it and still running.

is it the V6 or 5.3 V8?

Got cucked if its the V6 and did mediocre if V8 since its a fwd sedan

3.9l v6
Do those have lots of problems?

The cost of maintaining an impala to 300k and a camry to 300k are two completely different things.

Not any more than the v8, just v8s are more fun to hoon.

>Impalas
>good long-lasting
cheap to maintain, but rapidly become shitbox mode. Think of it as the vehicle equivalent of a plank-walled shack in a swamp outside Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Don't expect it to be cool, and don't expect it to be efficient.

It'll be cheap to maintain but expensive to feed, and the V8 has a thirst for oil like nothing else; not to mention the cost of keeping it gassed. Expect sub-13 MPG in winter (if you have a winter where you live) and no better than maybe 18 MPG downhill with a backwind. They're heavy and have heavy cop wheels (steelies with a silver center cap, oh man) which wears brakes faster, if it has plugs in the trunk lid from cop radio equipment, expect to leak eventually.

The transmission didn't change for the V8 so they usually break more and are less reliable.

OP got a meh deal. V8 Caprices and Dodge chargers are in the $8k range and falling.

i bought a 2003 in 2007 for 6k. the cop BCM died the first year i had it. it had to be replaced with a regular impala one. other than that it was fine for the first 2 or 3 years then there were constant overheating problems with it. the fuel gauge went to shit around that time, too. alternator finally died in 2016 at which point i just scrapped it because it was worth jack shit since it was essentially rusting away for the previous 3 years.

the only way i'd buy another cop car is if it was an overstock vehicle.

Don't get locked into the name "Impala". The original police car used to be a body on frame, rear wheel drive, v8. That's no longer the case. The "Impala" used to to be set up as, basically a chevy truck, only lowered, with somewhat better handling...that's the "dependable" version. Body on frame, RWD, V8.

You could have easily got a used HEMI charger for that price so meh....

>$5,400
>decade old vomit comet Impala

You couldn't have fucked up harder if you tried.

Too be fair those are low miles but yeah, its prob got tons of idling and its all "city" mileage.

Did your mechanic check the total idle time? Usually on patrol or security cars the idle time is 5x the mileage shown on the odometer

>Pre-bailout GM
>Police car
>Paying more than $2000 for this

...bro

this is a decade old campus security car with relatively low mileage. the idle time will be even higher than that.

OP here.
For that price range, is it really worth it to get a "better" vehicle for lots more miles? The fuel isn't bad at 20/29, the hp is 233 and is plenty and then some for highway merging and more. It's front-wheel drive which is decent for the winters we get around here. It may cost more to maintain than a civic, but a civic has 53 less hp. And the cheapest civic with those type of miles I can find near me is $7,800, plus tax and repairs. I don't need a drag-racing vehicle or a smart car, just a jack of all trades commuter.

>local nowhere town I grew up in
>Crown Vics for years, occasionally they have an SUV that just goes to the fire department after the cops get tired of paying for gas
>first year it was available they buy three Impalas and put the CV's in reserve
>fast forward to now
>Impalas are nowhere to be seen, CV's are still being used, found out a while ago they have one that they've never gotten rid of with some ridiculous amount of miles on it
>cop I know said pretty much after the first three years the Impalas got too expensive and were quietely auctioned away

>jack of all trades commuter
My dad had a Kia sportage that did that all just fine. An old cop car is always a losing deal, and a really old cop car is worse than that. As far as cop cars go, there's a reason you don't see Impalas being used anymore.

5.4k, did you at least check blue book on that? A Crown Vic is hailed as a bulletproof fleet car that can run for up to 500k miles (just wait, someone here will sperg out at that last one), and an 07 with decent miles... maybe 5k, if it was clean and in decent shape. The fact that you said "repairs" in the price would have worried me. Exactly what's wrong with the car to begin with?

Well you seem to have already bought the car and just came here to try and justify your decision so have fun with it OP.

It needed a valve cover gasket, oil pan gasket, HVAC door actuator, evaporative canister purge solenoid, and some small shit. The blue book on a 2007 impala LS (cheapest version made that year) with a 3.5l engine and no police suspension is $7,000 as a "fair purchase price", so with a better suspension and more powerful engine, I think mine was worth the "purchase price" of around $5000 since tax and dealer fees would be on any car. And the mechanic said it looked damn nice, and that they'd buy it if I didn't. He seemed really impressed with it's condition.

I'm happy with the deal, just looking to see if the dealer gives fair prices since they have a car a friend wants for cheap. At $2,000 below blue book and in great shape I thought they gave good prices.

Then why even make a thread if you're just here for asspats on the bad deal you got? This is Veeky Forums we're just going to tell you how badly you got fucked in the ass go to reddit if you want people to jerk your cock and tell you you did good.

you need to realize that the car is fucking wrecked after being idled for 10 years.

my car was only 4 years old when i got it and it still had constant overheating issues from all the time it spent idling. some of the coolant lined rotted when it was about 6 years old. how the fuck does that happen on a car that new?

the engine was a trooper, i'll give it that, but everything else around it started crumbling way sooner than it would have in a non-cop car.

I'll have to have a mechanic check, but I don't think it will have been idled nearly as much as a cop car. Whereas I'm pretty sure cops aren't allowed to turn their engines off while waiting to catch speeders, nor would they want to, I don't think there's any such rule for colleges. At my campus most security cars I see are parked and sitting after being driven a whole mile or so in a circuit around campus. And from the sound of it it seems the college maintained their vehicles a lot better than most. The mechanic didn't mention any issues with the cooling system at all, and even before the repairs it ran well and didn't overheat.

Sure, there are lots of better cars out there, but for 63,000 miles, good overall specs and nothing wrong with it after the repairs, I'm not seeing how the price is too high.

At that price and miles most of what I found while searching were cars from the last century and trucks/vans.

Should've bought a crown Vic for less.

You bought a pre bailout GM product.

There's a reason you don't see any impalas on the road anymore.

Our local pd uses Chargers, Crown Vic's, Explorers, and Tahoe's.

You didn't get ripped off if the car holds up, but I just don't feel a pre bailout GM product will.

I've given up on GM products, except the lol visibility Camaro and the Corvette.

Why do the cops use such heavy rims? Is it for greater ramming force?

I work at a college dispatch center and all these squad cars are driven to death and back.

You get what you pay for though, a decent little shitbox for a few years...maybe. These guys don't drive them hard but they idle all night. I see them leaving the cars on and going inside to eat lunch in the break room constantly. Thought about taking the car and hiding it sometimes just to freak them the fuck out for about 5 minutes because they'll have to come into dispatch to see the camera footage.