As part of its annual fleet replacement program, the Chatham-Kent Police Service is buying eight new vehicles.
Seven of them will be unmarked vehicles that will be a variety of mid-size cars, minivans, and cross over vehicles.
Chief Dennis Poole says the eighth vehicle being replaced is a 2010 Ford Expedition used by the Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT). "It's been downsized to a Ford Explorer vehicle and this was a Ford Expedition, and you know it's a bigger vehicle. It certainly had better pay-load but it also was more expensive to operate with respect to fuel and maintenance," says Poole. "So the traffic unit wouldn't use it as much because it's not a regular patrol vehicle 24-7, so we got an extra year-and-a-half life out of it for that purpose."
Poole says the vehicles being replaced have at least 225,000 km on them. The total replacement cost comes in at $225,738.
