Ronan Dealership donates two cars to Hot Springs police department

The Hot Springs Police Department acquired two police cars Aug. 11, through a donation by Ronan Dodge in Ronan. When asked how he got the cars, Hot Springs Fire Chief and Mayor laughed.

“I’m better than a used car salesman,” he said.

The two cars are both 2000 Ford Crown Victorias that were taken on in trade from the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

Hot Springs Fire Chief and Mayor, Randy Woods said that he contacted Ronan Dodge and let them know that the town only had two vehicles in very poor shape and that the town’s budget didn’t allow for replacements. Ronan Dodge offered to donate the two cars.

“I gave them our story about how we were a small little town with a small budget,” Woods said.

He had only expected, at the time, to receive one car, but the dealership offered two — one car that worked and one car for spare parts. However, Woods said both donated cars are in much better condition than the cars the police department currently has and that after some routine maintenance they will both be ready for the road.

He said that both of the cars are outfitted. The only thing that Hot Springs will have to add are the lights to the top of the cars, which is something Woods said they already have.

“They gave us the divider between the front and rear seats and also the center console between the seats,” he said. “We just have to put up the lights.”

The cars aren’t in use yet, and Woods said that they’re going to drive them around for a little while to make sure there are no glaring problems and then do all of the basic tune-up and maintenance.

“It’ll probably be a week or two before we’ll have them out on the road,” he said.

Jim Pierce, of Ronan Dodge, said he and the entire dealership were happy that they were able to help out the Hot Springs Police Department.

“Their timing was just right,” he said. “This was something that we had and that asked us for at just the right time. We just happened to have something that would work for them.”

Pierce said that this isn’t part of a regular program at the dealership, it was just something that they were happy to do.

“We really don’t get a lot of cars from police departments, it happens every now and then,” he said. “We’ve had a few that we’ve sold to customers and then like in this case we donated them.”

He said that Ronan Dodge has a lot of customers in the Hot Springs area, so they were glad to help.

“We’re really happy to help them out,” he said. “We probably got more out of it than they did.”

He added that it was nice to see the cars go to a smaller community that otherwise might not have been able to get the cars due to budget restrictions.

“It’s nice to be able to have something like this and do something like this, that fits in a financial hole that they have,” Pierce said.