Sheriff's Auction: How Much Life Is Left In These Cars & How Much Should You Bid?

The Laramie County Sheriff's Office is hosting a silent auction for three police cruisers and other seized vehicles Wednesday.

We don't know about the seized vehicles, but we do have an opinion on the three cruisers and what you should think about if you're interested.

Here are the vehicles:

• 2015 Ford Taurus Police Interceptor sedan, mileage 118,700.

• 2014 Ford Taurus Police Interceptor sedan, mileage 136,500.

• 2014 Ford Expedition XL 4x4, mileage 138,500.

Despite being about 10 years old, the mileage isn't that bad. It's about average.

But keep in mind, as I’ve talked about before, those miles are deceiving as police cruisers tend to have a lot of idle run time and fewer highway miles than average.

All three cruisers are decommissioned police vehicles, so the lights, insignia and most of their added equipment have been removed. What should be left are a few body add-ons like the spotlight, steel wheels and trunk mount for antennas. Along with a few other details.

Two of the vehicles are 2014 and 2015 model year Ford Police Interceptor sedans. Ford made these sedans from 2013 to 2018 when the Taurus was discontinued. The sheriff’s office doesn’t designate what options were added to these cars, but they’re likely the standard 3.5-liter V6 with all-wheel drive.

The other vehicle on offer is one of the eventual replacements for the police interceptor, but in 2014 it was just a white Ford Expedition XL. This is a four-wheel-drive model with a few additions for patrol duty, but what’s basically a stock 2014 Expedition.

For value, we’ll turn to Kelley Blue Book, since former police vehicles are rarely of interest to auto dealers. I’m making a few assumptions about these vehicles, including no serious accident history. Which is probably likely, though they would have been subjected to more abuse than your average family car. 

The two sedans have a street value of about $4,000. Bid what you’d like, but I doubt either will sell for more than $2,000. The Expedition has more value, as it is a 4x4 SUV with a Blue Book of about $6,000. It will likely sell for more than half that. 

Because this auction is a silent one with no live bidding, what you bid is based on a guess against what you believe others might bid.

The bidding window is only an hour, though, so there won’t be too many competitors. I would "Price is Right" this one and put a value on them and add a dollar. That way if the highest bid is $1,000 and you bid $1,001, you win.

In either case, these police vehicles will probably have five or more years of service life left if they’re taken care of.

Getting them to 200,000 miles is probably realistic with normal use. These are extremely safe vehicles as a teen’s first drive.

Aaron Turpen can be reached at TurpenAaron@gmail.com

Aaron is an accredited automotive journalist with over a decade of writing about cars, trucks and more. His background includes automotive repair, commercial trucking, off-road expertise and technology.