(WSBT) We're used to seeing police cars on the road. You may also see some old police cars that look very similar to current squad cars but police are not driving these vehicles anymore; and buying and driving an old police car is legal.

Once squad cars get about 120,000 miles on them, the city prepares to sell them at an auction. Before that happens, the lights, sirens and almost everything else that makes them look like police cars are supposed to be removed.

We found an old police car on South Bend's east side, parked in someone's driveway. It's easy to tell that it's an old SBPD car because outlines of the decals are still very visible.

"If it's readily identifiable as a police car and somebody can make that misidentification that would be a problem," South Bend Police Captain Phil Trent said.

The city's Central Services Director Matt Chlebowski says his department removes all the markings and police equipment on squad cars when they're decomissioned. But why does the car we found look so much like the other South Bend police cars that patrol the streets?

Chlebowski said workers in his department use a heat gun to remove the graphics, but there was some glue residual left. He also said he's never heard of something like this happening before.

"When it left our building here for the auction, we did not realize that the dirt was going to stick to the glue, that there was that much glue left that would leave it look like it was a graphic," he explained.

Jim Vanzant works at Don Nagy motors on South Michigan Street. He buys used police cars at auctions to sell at the used car dealership. He says there are laws they watch and follow very closely.

"The first law is that they cannot be equipped with any red or blue lights," he told WSBT. "The second thing is the color. If they're 1994 or newer, they must be painted a solid color."

Still the cars can legally be sold with the antennas, spot lights and amber strobe lights in the front. Police admit it's sometimes difficult for them to tell whether a police officer is driving a car that looks like the real thing ... but isn't.

"We get confused too sometimes," said Captain Trent. "There are quite a few problems that can arise from that and it's very, very serious."

The director of Central Services says now that he's seen what happened with one South Bend squad car, he's going to be much more thorough with the process of decomissioning cars in the future.

The man who owns that squad car wouldn't talk on camera. He did tell us he's an Italian researcher at Notre Dame. He says he bought the car at a public auction to use as cheap transportation. He also says he doesn't plan on painting it a solid color.

Police told WSBT the used cars usually sell at the auctions for around $2,500. All that, of course, depends on the year and mileage.