Most of the private hire cabs around here are Superbs, Octavias or Mark IV Mondeos. A few Priuses and Auris hybrid estates

If it were me buying a taxi, I think I'd go for a Toyota, probably a Prius as it has more room than a Corolla. I think the Avensis hs been dropped so one of these would need to be secondhand.

Diesels used to be the obvious choice for taxi work, but I wonder if there would now be DPF problems if most of the work is in town or city centres. One of our experts will probably be able to tell us if the frequent use compensates for the short journeys.

A Corolla TS has same wheelbase as Prius/Avensis & larger boot volume than a Prius or Avensis TS - no diesel option though.

I think that taxi DPFs generally don't suffer from short trips because the engines get to warm up thoroughly during the day & presumably also get a chance for the DPF to regenerate. The problem with DPFs & short journeys afaik arises where people are doing just the occasional short trip (e.g. mile or 2 to the station/shops) & the return - the engine never fully warms up, nor the DPF & a regen may not complete.

Edited by Heidfirst on 29/09/2019 at 14:23

There is a Skoda Superb taxi parks round the corner from where i live. Not sure, but i suspect it isn't a DSG, it appears to be a pretty basic spec. Does seem odd to be recommending a car with a gearbox like that, as, while what Avant says about the 'wet clutch' variant is correct, that 'correctly maintained' part doesn't really fit into the taxi ethos!. Not to mention the fact that lifespan will also be affected by how the car is driven, and given how taxi's round here are driven, i wouldn't hold up much hope for a DSG Superb, wet clutch or not!.

As for the Insignia, i see plenty of them as taxi's, so maybe trade avoiding them is geographic?. And apart from the Fiat sourced diesel engine (though i believe the 2.0 is better than the smaller ones?), i was under the impression they were fairly dependable.

Re the Civic, the trade may well avoid them, but i suspect not due to them being too small. Why?, because of the amount of Skoda Rapid/Seat Toledo taxi's i see round these parts. While the boot on that two are big for there size, they are smaller than a Civic, and the cabin itself is much smaller. Keeping with Honda, i am aware of a 7th gen ('02-'08) Accord estate taxi!.

I pass four Superbs liveried up with taxi signs every day on way to and back from work.

They seem popular around here.

Ah, apologies, in my rush to reply I failed to note the dsg part.

I'll need to look at the ones I pass if they are parked up in my town.

Yes, given the history of the boxes, I'm not sure they would be on a recommended list for taxi drivers.

The only taxi I have been in that was automatic was a Mercedes. The rest have all been manuals and Skoda Octavias are the majority. Especially with the old PD130 diesel engine. They will do starship mileages and are much sought after. I sold mine with over 210K miles and a guy came all the way from Essex to collect it. Paid me in cash too. He said the minor niggles on an 11 year old car didn't matter to him. The engine and gearbox were the main attraction. He might even strip it down for parts. I do now see a lot of Uber taxis with Toyotas though, A growing trend. If they are reliable then word spreads. Cheers Concrete