Apologies if this is the most anoraky post in the history of the Back Room.
I was, for reasons that probably wouldn't make much sense, in Newport in Gwent on Saturday night. It was a good night but the only motoring link I can make out of it is the cab we took into the centre of town, which was an E-registered (i.e., 1987 or 1988) Mercedes E300 Diesel.
DaveTaxiDriver's thread made me realise just how low mileage it was - over 17 or 18 years, it had done only 216,000 miles and still seemed pretty tight. That's a little over 12k per year.
Now 216k miles is not low, but 12,000 per year is very low indeed for either a big Merc diesel or a taxi, let alone a vehicle that is both. I suppose it could have been owned by an elderly chap who only did 3,000 miles p.a. for its first 10 years, bringing it up to a more respectable ~25k annually since then, but an E300D is hardly the car for such a low mileage, especially when in the late 80s, if money were no object, you'd almost automatically have chosen a petrol.
The other possibility of course is that it had actually done 1.216M miles (70k pa!).
Incidentally, it wasn't even the oldest cab I saw that night - there's also a D-plate Volvo 740 floating aroud the town; no idea of the mileage though
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Funnily enough, I was going to suggest - until I read the thread - a low mileage W123 for DaveTD. (Even his name suggests a TD!)
My second W123 (1984, near enough), bought last year, had done only about 100k miles. So 100k in a year would be a lot of miles!
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did you see the odometer clicking over? may have been 216k in 1995!
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It may, of course, have had a new instrument panel, or been clocked. A car that old is likely to have had at least some spare parts from a scrapyard fitted to it, if for example the rev-counter died it would be easier to fit a replacement instrument panel for 20 quid.
FWIW one of our guys has been driving an L-reg E-class for the last 8 years as a retirement hobby, it had only done 250k miles last time I looked.
If it was a rank taxi in the daytime you saw it may only be covering a low mileage around the town, the average for a hard-working London cab is around 40k so in a provincial town it could easily be less.
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To be honest I don't think taxi firms should be allowed to use very old cars.
Book a taxi with my local firm and you've got as much chance of the taxi being a brand new Merc C270 CDI as you have of it being a G plate Cavalier 1.8 LS.
Regardless of which pitches up, you pay the same money. Frankly I wouldn't take a Cavalier 1.8 LS taxi ride if I was paid to, let alone pay to ride in it. I've sworn that I'll send it away if it ever turns up when I've booked a cab, luckily it hasn't yet.
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To be honest I don't think taxi firms should be allowed to use very old cars.
Couldnt agree more. People seem to be running cars as taxi's and think they can stick to servicing schedules designed for private motoring. and it does show.
A few years back I saw a prog on the idiot box about enforcement & taxis in london. showed an inspector turning up at a rank of FX4's and giving them the once over. he issued a prohibition notice to one on the strenght of a bounce on the suspension made a bush creak. (I think it was supposed to swivel). another one I had never seen before was at a testing station where they pulled up with the n/s wheels against a painted line. they had to put on full lock and turn the car round within another painted (parallel) line. crossing over the line was an automatic failure.
WTM
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Be fair Michael - many (most?) taxi-drivers are owner drivers who use the firm as an agency to get their business. If a guy has just started up in business, a Cavalier may be all he can afford.
Anyway Mercs are just German taxis - it's only in the UK that they're status symbols, overpriced and over here.
That's not just prejudice - for the price of my well-specced 2.5 Audi I could have had a very basic 1.8 litre C-class estate without even air-con as standard.
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My local council (Elmbridge) is going to de-licence taxis and minicabs (hackney carriages and private hire vehicles) when they reach seven years old, unless there are special reasons not to. The special reasons have not yet been spelt out.
At the moment the age limit is ten years, without any mileage limit - provided the car passes its annual test.
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I've recently read of a Swedish taxi (Volvo 740) that the owner has retired after 800,000 miles. Now his son has taken it over as the family car.
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Anyway Mercs are just German taxis - it's only in the UK that they're status symbols, overpriced and over here. That's not just prejudice - for the price of my well-specced 2.5 Audi I could have had a very basic 1.8 litre C-class estate without even air-con as standard.
That's not true (new, anyway). I've recently compared them and bought a C270CDi estate. All C Class's have A/C and the pricing and equip very similar to A4. I reckon the Merc option prices are a lot better and simpler too - leather, auto etc were cheaper, and a lot of stuff comes in quite reasonably priced packs, such as metallic paint being included in the SE pack.
Secondhand, the market decides the price, of course. If it's true that Merc's are dearer secondhand, then, as a Merc owner, I'm glad about that.
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I'm thinking back to March last year when I got mine and the difference was greater than it is now; buying new and wanting a 6-cylinder diesel the 2.5 A4 Avant was a lot less than a C270. It's still a bit less, but I agree the C270 looks good compared with the A4 3.0 (but that has more power).
It also depends on the deal you get - in March 2004 Audi were offering SE trim free and Multitronuic for £500 instead of £1400. I don't think they're doing that with the new model.
Anyway, glad you got a good deal and I hope you enjoy it.
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