Second hand Taxi

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smithy-tours

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I'm entering into the taxi business and was wondering if I could get your advice/opinions. I was looking at buying a 02/03 new model mercedes E-class or else I was going to get a 1 year old Toyota Avensis or something similar. What are the pros and cons of this? Would i be spending the same amount of money on Merc as I would with the newer Toyota? I'd also be looking for leather seats, much easier for cleaning purposes!! Cheers for your help, Smithy.
 
Gonna be hard to find a Toyota Avensis with leather, a lot of them would be rep cars (in diesel). The Merc most would be in leather and as with the Toyota will go for ever but as usual the Merc will be dearer, Do you know anyone in a finance compay if so find out if they are reposessing any mercs and try to get it before it goes to auction.
 
Brother runs an E220CDI auto. as a taxi - he loves it.

Funnily he had an Avensis 2.0D before that, and whilst it was reliable, it was quite slow, fairly tinny, rather uncomfortable, and wasn't very good to drive.
 
The E Class is a fabulous car and would make a great Taxi except for the Electrical Glitches which were only corrected {Supposedly} in the 2007 model.
 
B in L started with one of those big Volvo's years back had merc too, He swears by the VW Caravel for some years now has 2 and both are wheel chair accessible and he can carry 8 in each wouldn't conceder anything else. Any help!
 
Thanks bskinti, I hadn'y thought adout getting a wheel chair accessible 8 seater taxi until you siad it. I'm going looking at a few mercs today now I'm also going to arrange to arrange to look at VW Caravel. Thanks for your help.
 
heres a suggestion.
why dont you put a fake advert up in buy and sell
merc for sale
ex taxi
x miles etc
and see what response you get. alternatively, ring around a few dealers pretending to have one to trade in. ill bet you no dealer would touch one with a ten foot barge pole and no private buyer would buy it unless they got it for half nothing. if you want to treat this venture as a business, buy a 4-5 year old diesel with 50-70 on the clock for 8-10k and run it into the ground. you wont get any more business or higher fares for wasting your money on a merc
 
Don't touch the caravel...........total disaster,in fact don't go down the 8seater route at all if you're only starting out.Its easier to keep check on 4 assholes than 8.I work in the business and agree with xt40.Buy a car as a working vehicle and don't expect resale value.We use the trusty Avensis,not a pretty car but will never let you down some have 320,000 miles and are still flying it.The octavia are getting good reports too.Keep it simple and you can't go wrong.Get a bad merc and you're out of business in a year and believe me there are plenty of bad mercs around!!!!
 
Wasn't the Director (of Taxis?) going to bring in a new rule that taxis had to be less that 7 years old.

You could be left with a mercedes that you can't use and nobody wants.

Murt
 
Thanks for your help everyone. Your comments were very much appreciated. Hopefully things will work out for me. Thanks again.
 
The Taxi Regulator is proposing to bring in a new rule that all taxis, hackneys and vehicles used as small public service vehicles must be 9 years old max. For existing drivers this is to come into force in 2010. For new licence holders it will come into force in 2008. Its only a proposal at the moment.
So its something to bear in mind when buying a vehicle. I would definitely stay away from 8 seaters. I am in the business myself and as another poster said its hard enough to deal with 4 people in the car never mind 7 or 8.
I dont find those vehicles comfortable to drive either much prefer an ordinary saloon car.
 
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