New Car Order Question

[K1W1]

Without getting too off topic I'm fully aware how the taxi industry fare structure works. I have probably spend $5k in cab fares in Australia in the last ten years. The point I'm making is that the industry believes rightly or wrongly that they will miss out on lucrative fares by having vehicles that are not reasonably comfortable for 4 adults. Groups of adults are often travelling longer distances like to and from airports and the like and the owners and drivers are scared that they will be consigned to running little old ladies short distances rather than groups longer distances which net them a far better return. It's $120 from my place to Melbourne airport and I reasonably regularly do that trip with three other adults. When I book the cab I specify that there will be four adult passengers. If the driver feels he can't accommodate four passengers he won't take the booking and will resent the driver who does and complain to the car owner that he is missing out on income.
The perception amongst the Taxi industry is that the Superb is not wide enough in the rear seating.

[spellbound]

No current sedan will take 4 adults and LUGGAGE comfortably , a mpv maybe .

A falcon is not comfortable with 3 men in the back unless they are very slim and fit , the average male is overweight , we do it coming home from a night out and its ugly .

The whole issue is that the taxi industry is locked into aussie built cabs , the skoda is out because its imported , nothing to do with a perception its not wide enough .

Maybe in europe they love them because they can take 3 people as we did ,in comfort , but were not fat .

All superb taxis are diesel and manual for maximum economy , no taxi drivers could cope with that in oz

[Ozsko]

To take this a bit further off topic what advantage has there been for the taxi industry to change? I can certainly see none but the prospect of dearer LPG due to the introduction of higher taxes etc which are now being implemented will certainly make them wake up. The new taxes may be a trigger to change to a different (diesel?) fuel but it may also introduce electric powered cars into the fleet. I can see no advantage to using an imported car and if I was an owner the car would be Australian, to own anything else would not make good business sense and to own a European taxi would be totally dopey. It would be about the same as running a Falcon taxi in Berlin, now that would make sense wouldn't it.

[Brycem]

except that German cars are sold here and Falcons aren't sold in Berlin and in 10 years will be obsolete even in Australia. In terstingly BMWs depreciate much less than Falcadores and require to be serviced much less frequently and are infinitely better made. I suspect over 300000kms the BMW would have had a lot less spent on it. Ford parts are cheap but that is just as well as you will need to buy plenty of them!


I regularly see two VW Passat Wagons being used as taxis in Brisbane. Now wouldn't it be a pleasure for the driver to spend his days in one of those as opposed to something with plastics of the same quality as the toys found in happy meals?

[brad]

back in the early '80s, one of my alignment clients ran a baby Mercedes diesel taxi. Strange man - he was 65, retired from business & did it because he like talking to people. Said that he had the Merc because he was the only driver & liked being comfortable. He reckons most of his passengers got a kick out of being in a Mercedes & were willing to excuse being a bit cramped.

The cabbies outside of Sydney seem a bit more open to change. Cairns had a lot of Camry & (brain fart - the bigger camry that we bought all the tooling from the USA....)

I don't think depreciation is an issue - once the car has done the usual 300,00-600,000 taxi kilometres it's worth nothing no matter what brand it is.

Of note: A german taxi spec Bimmer/Merc/whatever is a very different beast to what is sold here.

Personally, I quite liked all the Toyota Corona diesel taxis in Singapore

[Ozsko]

Mercedes diesel taxis were not uncommon back in the 1960's or thereabouts.

[brad]

Mercedes diesel taxis were not uncommon back in the 1960's or thereabouts.

What? In Sydney? Pull the other one.

[Ozsko]

What? In Sydney? Pull the other one.

And you are how old?

[brad]

And you are how old?

49.

Can't remember any Merc taxis, only Holdens, Fords, Chryslers and some of the more mundane Pommie stuff. Mercedes has a 12-24 month wait list & the import duty was sky-high. I can't see how the could have competed against the more mainstream product.

Fair enough I was <10 so maybe my recollections are more the late 60s/early 70s

[Ozsko]

I am 63 so go back a bit further than most here. There was not a lot of Mercs but they were certainly around but why the owners even thought to use them I wouldn't know as Holdens gave pretty good service for the dollar...... btw this was pre-Falcon. I don't even know why it sticks in my mind but memory is a funny animal at times.