Pulled the Trigger

[Steve_F]

Joined here last month and the membership here has been helping me make my decision on what to look for in the Caprice. I've been watching auctions and classifieds up and down the east coast for 6 months and saw a unit just pulled from service being auctioned by the Borough of Middlesex, NJ, about 2 hours from me. It's a 2017 with 72,000 miles. I bought it based on the listing and what I could make out from the photos sight unseen. I'm extremely pleased with how it worked out!! Two small dents that I think can be rubbed out, padded rear seat and the engine sounds smooth as silk!

The base car is white and I was hoping the black was wrapped but it's painted. If things go as planned I'll have the car painted white, should be a pretty easy job. I'm going to have it checked over to make sure it's in good enough shape to go forward with and if so plan a cam swap and exhaust upgrade. I'm looking to build a fun daily driver.

I dragged it home today and only got a couple pics. I'll post my progress as I go along. Thanks everyone for the info you've shared with me!!

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[elc32955]

Very nice find, welcome to another Panda owner! The low miles certainly does help things....

Eric

[Steve_F]

OK, so where the hell is the battery on these things???

[s/c'd cav]

OK, so where the hell is the battery on these things???

in the trunk , main batt is on the driver side , aux batt on pass side

[CrashTestDummy]

Welcome!! Odd that 'low miles' in these things is anything less than 100K. miles!!

Our '12 has a little access panel cut into the trunk lining to get to the primary battery on the driver's side, but it's really just about as easy to. undo the 3 screws to get the panel out of the way for free access to the battery and cabling.

Note that if you're trying to get to the battery to charge/jump it, there's a jump post in the engine compartment you can use. I hook the Battery Tender to those posts on our car, since it sits in the garage most of the time.

[Steve_F]

Yea, car was dead when I tried to start it. I tried charging the battery through the jump posts under the hood but it wasn't registering anything. That's when I started looking for the battery.

Thanks for the info, I found it and discovered when they decommissioned it they left the ground cable less than hand tight! It's taking a charge now. Seems to be a pretty heavy draw when the car is shut off though I'm going to have to trace out. I'll have more pics tomorrow.

[Steve_F]

I spent the afternoon inspecting the car closer, it really is in very good condition! I wasn't able to get it started, the battery seems stone dead. It's dated 2020. I had it charging at 60 amps for an hour plus had my truck hooked to it with jumpers, it has dual alternators. It brought all the electronics on but not enough to turn it over. There seems to be a fairly high power draw even with the key out. Cables arced pretty good when connecting them. I'm going to have to get this figured out.

I meant to take pictures of the interior, it's in good shape. I'm going to need a center console. The driver's seat doesn't seem to extend full to the rear, there's about 2 inches left on the track. I'm 6'4" so I'm going to have to chase this too. There's a plexiglass prisoner compartment that isolates the rear passenger on the right. That will come out. There's several exterior LED flasher I imagine are red or white or a combination of the two. I can see hideaways installed too. I hadn't seen the trunk and there's a slide tray in there. Whatever was mounted to it has been removed. All kinds of wiring loose in the trunk. I'm going to work on removing it, seems like it could be a fire hazard.

It was raining when I picked it up, today was clear. There's quite a few dents in the right rear door, this is where they'd put the arrestees. Might be easier to locate a replacement than have it repaired. There's a small tear in the front bumper cover, not sure if it's repairable. The car is clean underneath too. More to come

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[elc32955]

Good lord, you have enough cable in that trunk to have your own Spagetthi Western! Your draw may be coming from some of that excess cable & any attached devices. High priority you have there to sort out that bloody mess & disconnect/remove most if not all of it. Parasitic drain can send any battery to happy land if not caught early enough, leave an AGM battery flat for too long and it's bye bye time.

If you get a good battery in there even to test with, you can measure the key-off current drain easily enough. You need to get that puppy started & let it run for a while. Also something else to do might be to contact that department's fleet section & pull the maintenance records on the car. Helpful information knowing what was done when...

Good luck!
Eric

[Steve_F]

Did some more inspecting today, this car really is in good shape! The car is full of communications wiring, and I found evidence of a DVR being in the trunk. I never expected to find the amount of upfitter wiring that is in it, it's going to take quite a while to unravel. I disconnected the battery just to be safe.

The back seat has some dog hair on it and I'm wondering now if this was a canine unit? What I thought was a prisoner confinement area may have been a dog confinement instead. Fortunately it doesn't stink like a wet dog. I can read all of the former decals and don't see anything designating it a K9. I don't find any evidence of a door opener either. I can't think of any other reason the dog hair would be in it though.

I posted pictures of the divider below. I'm removing it and have no need for it if anyone is interested.

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Does anyone know what this loop is for? It has Velcro on the inside of it

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[NewToMe2013PPV]

Welcome to the club!

Funny, mine is panda paint too, but it’s a black car with doors and roof painted white. Flip of the coin, I suppose.

There is a different config that is specific to K-9, but I suppose they could’ve used yours for some K-9 work? That center plexiglass divider is interesting. Surprised you don’t have a plastic back seat and slick back door panels. That saves you some money.

Your trunk tray looks similar to what mine looked like. It was done so nicely I felt bad about ripping it out. It’s fun chasing wires and removing them…passenger battery too. I pulled 40 lbs of wires out of mine and 400 lbs total. Just plan on removing most of the interior…I took the opportunity to add a bunch of sound damp throughout the car.

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