Just watching Air ambulance. Paramedic in TD4 in Hull on a saturday night, Gets a call and the TD4 he's drivin doesn't fancy it and blows up. typical!
We used to use some Freelander XEDi for carrying emerency teams up and down the motorways of the southwest to various hospitals and to big incidents. They were the early models with weak transmissions and some had pretty expensive things go wrong. Totally thrashed, really. Replaced with people carriers, which were better suited to the job. THe Renault Espace is hated by the crews and constantly defective, the Ford Galaxy is more reliable and performs better.
We also had a coil sprung Disco II TD5 , which was used by our ambulance officers 24/7/365. Absolutely thrashed and packed to the gunnels with RTC equipment. It's a spare now, but has 230k on the clock.
Of course any vehicle can break down. Our air ambulance unit has a Volvo T5 and it is so old and worn that it is becoming unreliable, after years of excellent service. Our R and S-reg Mondeos wouldn't die. Our fleet of first generation Ford Focus were great, although there was a lemon or two, much better than the second generation Focus they were replaced with. We had two Proton's that we kept as spares - enginewise the most relaible cars ever and they went like rockets .... just bits kept falling off them!
Our new fleet is a mix of diesel Safiras and Astras with upgraded brakes and the SRi packs. Difficult to say what relaibility will be like for them.
The ambulances are a mix of Mercedes Sprinters and Renault Masters. They both do OK and the Mercs are very robust especially given the 24/7 hammering they get.
At the end of the day, emergency vehicles will break down at some point ... but its embarrasing when it is a Land Rover! Even though we should expect it!
