2013 Impala 9C3, yay or nay?

My youngest son has been car shopping for a while now and this caught his eye. He drove it and likes it a lot. When he owned his 500 he also had an 06 Impala tht was very good to him, especially compared to the 500, so he has a soft spot for them. 9C3 is a 3.6 powered undercover car. It’s black and low mileage, 60k. I looked up the specs and it moves pretty good for a large car, and the handling Pkg, and other heavy duty parts are a bonus. My only concern is verifying that low mileage. Any thoughts, experiences, what to look for?

If it was a police car it should have detailed service records that will confirm the mileage.

Those '12-'13 Impalas are sleeper fast, being the last couple years of the old W-body chassis with the hotter 3.6L and 6-speed auto. The first time I drove one, after being used to the old 3500/3900 cars, I almost immediately had to pull over and pop the hood to see what was going on there.

They are deceptively fast.  That 3.6 in a front drive platform punches way over its weight.

Interesting. I didn't know that drivetrain made it into the old body style. There is a tire-screeching track video in a tiny window at the top right here, along with a surprising amount of tech info:

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/impala_ppv/2013.html

My son drove a 2007 (civilian) Impala with great success until a Very Confused Person left-turned in front of him.  It was just the right size and did everything competently.  There was unexpectedly large and convenient storage under the rear seat (although that feature might not have made it into a 9C3!)

GM paid close attention to its market for police vehicles; here's an excerpt from the 2013 MY intro in Police Fleet Manager magazine:

GM Fleet gave an update on Impala 9C1 cooling issues. First, the cooling fan problem. Electric relays that control the fan motors were originally mounted under hood in a black box — without ventilation. Under hot ambient conditions during periods of extended idling, the fan relays would overheat and fail. This shut off power to the electric radiator fans. GM fixed this two ways. First, the relay was upgraded to a heavier duty circuit. Second, the relays were moved to the cowl, away from the under hood area, where it is both cooler and ventilated. 

The second cooling issue is the HVAC that overheats at idle under hot ambient conditions, overloads and shuts off. The fix was to get more air into the condenser coils, which keeps the whole system cooler. Again, two solutions: One is a higher watt electric fan that forces air across the condenser. It was bumped up from 225 watts to 300 watts. The other is a baffle redesign. The baffle that moves air into the condenser was revised, including the elimination of any air gaps. With the new baffle, all the forced air does indeed cross the HVAC cooling condenser.

Be aware that 9C1/9C3 parts can differ from regular Impala parts; for example, the police front brakes are basically from a Cadillac DTS.

I say Go for it.  It will probably run forever if not rusted, and it will be completely invisible in Southern Ontario traffic.

Stealthtercel said:

I say Go for it.  It will probably run forever if not rusted, and it will be completely invisible in Southern Ontario traffic.

The invisible in traffic comment made me think of the opening of Drive.

 

Stealthtercel said:

...t will be completely invisible in Southern Ontario traffic.

One of the techs at the dealership I work at was going from Rome to New York City for a bunch of training to get his World Class Certification. It was pretty much every other week he was making the drive down, and the dealership was letting him take used cars off the lot for travel. He kept grabbing the '12-'13 Impalas because he said they would do 80-90mph all day and nobody ever even looked twice as he sailed up and down the thruway at those speed.

Invisible to some, very visible to others. He said during the test drive people were slowing down and getting out of his way. We're probably going to look at it together tomorrow. Hopefully it's legit, this thing would be an incredible sleeper hot rod commuter.

I can just imagine the discussion that leads to my kids lining up on a country road now. The older one daily's a DTS

Yeah, OK, plain black with steelies/centre caps?  I can, um, see that.  OTOH, with alloys (available in-period for the 9C3) and maybe fog lights (might have to sacrifice brake ducting) his profile might subside a bit.

"...it's got a 3.6 VVT, cop brakes, cop shocks..."