Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion

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Mon 22 Oct 2012 21:31
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - nick62

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20031436

Looks like the Chinese shareholders decision to source the steering system from China has put the final nail in their coffin? So it's not only US and European management that employ beancounters.

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 11:51
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - Ed V

Have to say I always rather felt that the taxi-specific market made no sense, when so many of the mass produced modern cars can do anything needed to be a viable taxi.

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 11:59
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - unthrottled

Good riddance. I hate the London cab and all the mawkish sentimentality that keeps it lumbering on. Horrid uncomfortable, bouncy ride with the accoustic backdrop of the unrefined diesel engines mated to droning automatic gearboxes (use a manual, you slobs!). Awful. Truely awful.

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 12:38
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - 659FBE

I'm sorry to say that this outfit with their "heirloom" products represented some of the very worst aspects of British Engineering.

How they continued for so long with this non-engineered relic is quite beyond me. Alas, the usual decline sequence applied in this case - starting with a sell out to the Chinese and being finished off by the complete lack of engineering expertise to solve a problem which should never have been there in the first place.

My sympathies to the employees of this company and the customers whose livelihoods have been threatened. The product was a heap of junk.

659.

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 12:42
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - veryoldbear

Just about every other country uses slandard saloons or MPVs. In Yurop just about everybody (except France) ues Mercs.

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 12:53
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - BenG

I'm just surprised that a '50s throwback with high emissions, low mpg, poor performance and agricultural ride quality could survive for so long in an emissions-controlled modern city.

Will taxi drivers still use diesels with the attendant DPF clogging issues?

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 12:58
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - unthrottled

I imagine the torque converter slip will be working the engine hard enough to make DPF regen a breeze!

I think the LX4 survived because it compied with equality regulations ie it was wheelchair accessible. I'm all for easy wheelchair access, but is it really necessary for every cab to bbe whelchair accessible?

Besides, there are far better van type cars that can easily be modified to be wheelchair accessible.

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 13:42
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - Bromptonaut

II think the LX4 survived because it compied with equality regulations ie it was wheelchair accessible. I'm all for easy wheelchair access, but is it really necessary for every cab to bbe whelchair accessible?

.

Unless every cab has to be wheelchair accessible why would anyone bother? Bad enough trying to find a cab with it's light on during a wet afternoon. Even more so if you need to find one that's chair carrying.

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 11:27
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - Engineer Andy

I'm just surprised that a '50s throwback with high emissions, low mpg, poor performance and agricultural ride quality could survive for so long in an emissions-controlled modern city.

I don't know why - after all, lokk how long London had the old "Routemaster" double-decker buses!

The best thing about the London black cabs was their turning circle - there's no way a Merc or similar would have one as small today!

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 13:47
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - RT

Have to say I always rather felt that the taxi-specific market made no sense, when so many of the mass produced modern cars can do anything needed to be a viable taxi.

It's a throw-back from the days when the London cab regulations were such that no volume vehicle met or could be adapted to meet their regulations.

The advent of volume vans modified into cars at their factory meant that sales outside London had all but stopped - and I believe London has changed it's regulations to allow the van-based taxi's to operate.

Ending UK production and moving the whole facility to China to build Bejing taxis is about their only hope.

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 14:43
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - Bromptonaut

How many other places apart from London specify this model or turninig characterisitcs only it plus possibly the old MCW Metrocab or modified Merc, can meet?

Northampton used to but we now have a mix of older LX cabs and Peugeot, Merc or VW products, most with 6 seats.

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 23:14
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - dacouch

They could have saved a bit of money by not bothering to fit the bulbs in the indicators

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 23:55
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - gordonbennet

As far as i know its still only the Mercedes version with its rear steer that can meet the present regs, how thats standing up to heavy use i haven't a clue.

I must be the only one here, i like driving proper London Taxi's, the auto box is a dream and the ride i found soft enough to iron the worse bumps out.

The competition referred to in the form of Eurotaxi is indeed a good vehicle, economical and long wearing...however i'm not sure if it has the option of a proper auto box or even if satans automated manual is available, not as that would last 5 minutes in London traffic.

But, has anyone ridden in a Eurotaxi on pot holed urban roads, suggest you take your ear defenders with you as every panel and fitting sounds like its falling apart, the engines stink too after a couple of years, certainly on the ones round here.

As for manual boxes, last time i looked London authorised cabbies were not on day release from the local nut house why would anyone expect someone sane to drive round London 12 hours at a time in a manual, you'd need help, i used to deliver truckloads of LTi cabs to the few wholesalers of the marque, can't remember the last manual box i delivered to London....but Manchester, B'ham and Glasgow took a lot of manuals, not a pleasant drive IMO.

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Tue 23 Oct 2012 23:47
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - Avant

I was amazed to read in the paper that a new TX4 costs £35,000.

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 01:33
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - Bilboman

The jet engine. Raleigh bikes. The Routemaster bus. The London Taxi. How many more?

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 09:22
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - RT

The jet engine. Raleigh bikes. The Routemaster bus. The London Taxi. How many more?

We now make jet engines profitably - and get them fitted to new Boeings.

The problem with jet engines was/is the politicians - they thought it was proper to give the Yanks the jet engine and the atomic bomb, for nothing, for helping us by them entering WW2 - not helped by the politicians inability to stop our own spies giving the jet engine to Russia !!

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 10:40
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - TeeCee

The problem with jet engines was/is the politicians - they thought it was proper to give the Yanks the jet engine and the atomic bomb.....

Er, cobblers. The yanks, in Lockheed, had a perfectly good jet engine design in the very early part of WWII, the L1000. An axial flow unit and it had reheat too(!)

The fact that they canceled the project and ended up sticking British radial flow Goblin units into their planes when it became obvious that they had to have a jet, is a political pig's ear, but one of their own making. It's probable that the canning of the project was due to the fact that the proposed Lockheed L133 aircraft design, powered by two L1000 engines, was to have been capable of supersonic flight and that this scared the horses.

The work to create the Atomic bomb, building on the known, prewar, physics was accomplished by the Manhattan project. Last time I looked that was an American effort, although scientists from most of the allied nations were involved. To be strictly accurate, they gave it to us......

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 11:48
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - Armitage Shanks {p}

By any standards the Manhattan project had an enormous amount of money and manpower thrown at it but it went from the drawing board to two different types of atomic bombs being dropped on Japan in 4 years. Makes our present military procurement look very slow! The Eurofighter consortium was created in 1982 and the RAF took delivery of their first two aircraft in October 2008!

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 12:19
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - dacouch

Interestingly the UK has 22500 civil servants that work in the MOD procurement, office, Israel which has a similar defence budget gets by with 450 civil servants in the same dept.

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 13:06
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - Bromptonaut

Interestingly the UK has 22500 civil servants that work in the MOD procurement, office, Israel which has a similar defence budget gets by with 450 civil servants in the same dept.

Up to point but UK/Israel a bananes/elephants comparison. They have national service and a far greater proportion of population under arms. Stuff dome by civvys here is dome by soldiers there.

They're also on a constant war footing but with a focus solely on their Arab/Iranian neighbours. Also I suspect the greater part of their domestic arms industry is nationalised or o/wise govt run - no need to procure, just order. .

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 13:41
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - davecooper

Interestingly the UK has 22500 civil servants that work in the MOD procurement, office, Israel which has a similar defence budget gets by with 450 civil servants in the same dept.

Don't worry, UK Defence Procurement will be privatised within 2 years. If they can manage with 450 people, they will.

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 20:50
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - 659FBE

Just to nudge this thread (more or less) back on topic, I'll leave you with this gem.

When I worked for a UK diesel fuel systems company, I was asked to look at a possible engine governor failure in a taxi which might have caused an accident - fairly routine stuff and often inconclusive. Part of my work involved looking at the then (1970s) London taxi cab construction and use regs.

So I applied to the "carriage office" and got them - eventually. The vehicle specifications were a joke, but stuck in my mind was the requirement for the boot of a London taxi to take a bale of hay.

Now you know why the back end looks as it does. I suppose it goes well with Parliament being guarded by pensioners in silk stockings...

659.

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Wed 24 Oct 2012 20:56
Manganese Bronze - Taxi manufacturer into administartion - Armitage Shanks {p}

And a requirement for a rear seat passenger to wear a top-hat wit out hitting it on the interior/roof ISTR

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