Taxis Dumping LPG Ford's For VW PASSAT Diesels

[Brazen]

Originally Posted by Bobman

Ford sold quite a few AU2/3 taxi packs but when the BA came out they weren't selling as many, so they stopped painting them yellow from factory and then dropped the taxi pack altogether around 2003.

Most BA-BF Falcon cabs down in Vic are e-gas ex fleet cars. There's a few Territory taxis in Melbourne amongst other varieties as mentioned in previous posts.

Sometimes I think the taxi pack was dropped due to improving production line complexity rather than any actual lowering of sales. The taxi pack may have also been dropped due to Ford not wanting passengers associating Falcons with vinyl seat and rubber floored vehicles.

Remember Australia's population is increasing 400,000 a year, the taxi market out there will always be pretty sizeable.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Brazen

Sometimes I think the taxi pack was dropped due to improving production line complexity rather than any actual lowering of sales. The taxi pack may have also been dropped due to Ford not wanting passengers associating Falcons with vinyl seat and rubber floored vehicles.

Remember Australia's population is increasing 400,000 a year, the taxi market out there will always be pretty sizeable.

I have a work collegue whos father owned a Ford dealer ship in our city and then moved to Sydney and purchased one there. He often said to us that Ford wanted to move away from GLI and XT base models because the profits weren't as good.Their logic was to become efficient by building less cars but for more profit.

While you still get some XR6 and G6 specials for around $36,000, the more desirable manual or 6-speed auto versions are not part of those programs.
Now that the ZF is standard, it will be interesting to see what Ford does,
Holden's 6-speed auto/manual SV6 will surely feel a bit more competition ......

[The Snout]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

It was really, and still is, around 400 a month. Around 20 a day with most of them LPG.

Maybe Marin was trying to downplay how many they actually make so it didn't seem so bad dropping the wagon.

According to the latest Wheels magazine edition (which I don't have with me here so the numbers are from what I remember reading) ,

In 1995 there were 20000 Falcon wagons sold,
now there are only about 4000.

I don't think Marin had to downplay it very much.

[irlewy86]

Originally Posted by b0son

More likely, they'll say 'finally, a taxi that doesnt whine and clunk like some sort of farming equipment'

Yes but its diesel Passats they are buying, they do actually sound like tractors (from the outside at least).

[mickyyyy]

I dont think they know that euro parts cost 4 times the price of a falcon.

Only cars that should be taxi's are common cars on the road

[SteveJH]

Originally Posted by The Snout

According to the latest Wheels magazine edition (which I don't have with me here so the numbers are from what I remember reading) ,

In 1995 there were 20000 Falcon wagons sold,
now there are only about 4000.

I don't think Marin had to downplay it very much.

4000/12=333/month.

Closer to 400 then 200.

[Smoke Pursuit]

Originally Posted by b0son

More likely, they'll say 'finally, a taxi that doesnt whine and clunk like some sort of farming equipment'

We will see how good the VW hold up after 500,000 kms... Im sure they will whine and clunk too!

[Mr Hardware]

This isn't the first time they've said we're gonna switch to X car because of lower operating costs. In the late 90's it was the magna (which by 450,000klms were completely shot) and in the early 00's it was the camry or the avalon. I don't know what happened with the camry and avalon/aurion, but very few operators switched, and taxi operators are constantly looking to save a buck or three.

[Bobman]

Originally Posted by Brazen

Sometimes I think the taxi pack was dropped due to improving production line complexity rather than any actual lowering of sales. The taxi pack may have also been dropped due to Ford not wanting passengers associating Falcons with vinyl seat and rubber floored vehicles.

Check out the article below I saved from 2003. Ford dropped the yellow paint due to low demand & to enable them to paint more XR colours. They dropped the pack altogether due to falling sales as I mentioned in my previous post. Then of course, they wanted to shake off that "taxi image".

Originally Posted by Mr Hardware

early 00's it was the camry or the avalon. I don't know what happened with the camry and avalon/aurion, but very few operators switched, and taxi operators are constantly looking to save a buck or three.

There was very little switching over to Magnas in Melbourne, but they did try Hyundai and VS Commodore taxis were common. From 2001 onwards, Avalons were trialled and when the Mark III Avalon came out, there was a significant switch-over to the new model to replace outgoing AU1 cabs. There are still 2007 model BF2s going on the road now to replace BAs, but not as many FGs around as yet.

[Brazen]

Originally Posted by Bobman

Check out the article below I saved from 2003. Ford dropped the yellow paint due to low demand & to enable them to paint more XR colours. They dropped the pack altogether due to falling sales as I mentioned in my previous post. Then of course, they wanted to shake off that "taxi image".



There was very little switching over to Magnas in Melbourne, but they did try Hyundai and VS Commodore taxis were common. From 2001 onwards, Avalons were trialled and when the Mark III Avalon came out, there was a significant switch-over to the new model to replace outgoing AU1 cabs. There are still 2007 model BF2s going on the road now to replace BAs, but not as many FGs around as yet.

Yeah only Victoria mandates yellow cabs, all other states have white as the most common colour.

With the mega cheap Avalon MarkIII yellow taxi-pac released in 2003, Ford were only selling 350 brand new Falcons as taxis a year in Victoria, those Avalons took a huge amount of the taxi market in Vic for a while. But with the Avalon taxi gone, Falcon taxi sales in Vic have probably recovered.

I am suprised that people dont think there are many new Falcons bought as taxis. Under legislation, city cabs cant be older than 6 years. If you buy a 1 or 2 year old Falcon as a cab you effectively have a 15-30% shorter life than a brand new cab. Whilst a lot are bought second hand, many are bought brand new as can be seen in the article where they are buying 70 brand new Passat wagons.

[Bobman]

Yep and isn't orange the colour required in Queensland?

A few depots here in Melbourne only keep their cabs for about 4 years, then sell them onto other depots who keep them until they are 6 and a half years (age limit). By that stage they've done nearly a million kilometres.

The depot where I worked only bought new AU2/3 and Avalon cabs, but no BA or BFs were new. Most were ex lease cars and a couple already had over 100,000kms prior to becoming cabs when they were only 1-2 years old.

[Stoney!]

Originally Posted by bfiipursuit

We will see how good the VW hold up after 500,000 kms... Im sure they will whine and clunk too!

I can't wait till that comment is proven wrong...

Stoney!

[Brazen]

Originally Posted by Bobman

Yep and isn't orange the colour required in Queensland?

A few depots here in Melbourne only keep their cabs for about 4 years, then sell them onto other depots who keep them until they are 6 and a half years (age limit). By that stage they've done nearly a million kilometres.

The depot where I worked only bought new AU2/3 and Avalon cabs, but no BA or BFs were new. Most were ex lease cars and a couple already had over 100,000kms prior to becoming cabs when they were only 1-2 years old.

I guess with 100,000km on the clock at the auctions its cheap enough that you dont care about turning over them as often.

How many km has been the highest that you have seen at the end of the life? 1million is staggering.

From your point of view do you think things like the VW will be a good cab?

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Brazen

I guess with 100,000km on the clock at the auctions its cheap enough that you dont care about turning over them as often.

How many km has been the highest that you have seen at the end of the life? 1million is staggering.

From your point of view do you think things like the VW will be a good cab?

Cars at most government auctions are around 40,000 km, a lot of white Falcons become cabs.

I saw a Fairlane cab a few years ago with over 550,000 km on the original BTR 4-speed.
Regular services and it was still going well.

[mcnews]

Originally Posted by Stoney!

I can't wait till that comment is proven wrong...

Stoney!

LOL, that is funny. Ford reliability came up recently on my motorcycle forum from a VW Golf owner. "If you think you've got problems with a Ford...Buy a new Golf already."

There are good reasons why you can find things like high end Touareg's that with all the options that made them 130k new going for 40k secondhand three years later. Even VW dealers rarely want to touch secondhand VWs... :-)

[Stoney!]

Yeah they get electronic problems, I'm not disputing that.... I OWN ONE! But they are always niggly and never leave you stranded. Mechanical parts are very robust though, the weakest part of the passat will be it's turbo, they have been known to fail on some of the turbo diesels.

Stoney!

[b0son]

Originally Posted by bfiipursuit

We will see how good the VW hold up after 500,000 kms... Im sure they will whine and clunk too!

After 500,000km, no doubt they will... the Falcons were doing it from the factory!

[Mr Hardware]

Originally Posted by Bobman

Yep and isn't orange the colour required in Queensland?

Orange (yellow cabs) is the most common, white (black & white cabs) are the inferior less common ones. Canaries & Magpies they're called.

[Bobman]

Originally Posted by Brazen

How many km has been the highest that you have seen at the end of the life? 1million is staggering.

From your point of view do you think things like the VW will be a good cab?

Most I've seen were over 800,000kms and a few had clocked over.

If the VWs will be used by half decent drivers, then they should last well as expected. They do use Mercedes taxis overseas, but I'm more curious how they will go here considering VW part prices. A breather hose for a Golf costs $150.

[Mr Hardware]

I've seen dozens upon dozens of cabs hit 600k
Perhaps a dozen hit 700k
A handful hit 800k
One hit 900k
And i've apparently seen one that had done the million but the cluster had been changed

But in QLD you can only keep them until midnight when they turn 6, so there's less opportunity to rack up the big kays. And back in the day when i was looking after them, often midweek winter nights we'd have 20-30% of the fleet sitting because we just simply couldn't find drivers, even though we were one of the better bases in brisbane. So we used to try and spread this over all the cars so you didn't end up with flogged ones and yard pets.

It's only really after about 700k when they start getting a little crappy

[tick6vct]

i was behind a volks passat today and when the light turned green i coped the full brunt of black diesel fumes..it didnt look more then five years old...

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by bfiipursuit

We will see how good the VW hold up after 500,000 kms... Im sure they will whine and clunk too!

The way the drivers treat Taxi's it will be interesting to see how they go.

Originally Posted by Mr Hardware

I've seen dozens upon dozens of cabs hit 600k
Perhaps a dozen hit 700k
A handful hit 800k
One hit 900k
And i've apparently seen one that had done the million but the cluster had been changed

But in QLD you can only keep them until midnight when they turn 6, so there's less opportunity to rack up the big kays. And back in the day when i was looking after them, often midweek winter nights we'd have 20-30% of the fleet sitting because we just simply couldn't find drivers, even though we were one of the better bases in brisbane. So we used to try and spread this over all the cars so you didn't end up with flogged ones and yard pets.

It's only really after about 700k when they start getting a little crappy

I remember doing some work for Ford on the Gold coast and was speaking to a Taxi mechanic. I asked him about the B-Series E-gas engine and how it faired. According to him they did 1,000,000k's quite easily. His biggest gripe was the operators breaking the T-bar on the auto as they keep thinking they're F1 drivers.

[Stoney!]

Originally Posted by tick6vct

i was behind a volks passat today and when the light turned green i coped the full brunt of black diesel fumes..it didnt look more then five years old...

Yeah thats the PD diesel engine, most were smokey from the factory when given a lil bit. These days they run Common Rail injected diesel's which aren't smokey...

Stoney!

[mcnews]

Originally Posted by Bobman

A breather hose for a Golf costs $150.

That is why everybody runs from secondhand VW, spares prices are supercar ridiculous.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Stoney!

Yeah thats the PD diesel engine, most were smokey from the factory when given a lil bit. These days they run Common Rail injected diesel's which aren't smokey...

Stoney!

Are you a VW salesman or something?

Don't understand why you come on a Ford forum and talk about VW's in every thread.

[Dr Smith]

Originally Posted by Stoney!

Yeah thats the PD diesel engine, most were smokey from the factory when given a lil bit. These days they run Common Rail injected diesel's which aren't smokey...

Stoney!

Unless it's a PD engine with particulate filter, then it shouldn't smoke either.

[GS608]

Originally Posted by Mr Hardware

Orange (yellow cabs) is the most common, white (black & white cabs) are the inferior less common ones. Canaries & Magpies they're called.

Maybe in Brissy, the most common down here are Gold Coast Cabs (or Regent Taxis) all white, pretty rare to see a Yellow Cab Co taxi down here but they do exist..never seen a black and white cab though.

[pommyjames]

those VW passats are unreal on fuel, just keep going and going.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by pommyjames

those VW passats are unreal on fuel, just keep going and going.

And that's why Ford should be pushing the new diesel Mondeo every minute of the day.

[pommyjames]

Im sure the modeo will be pushed even more soon, with the price of fuel going up diesels will become more and more popular. Theres a European company called revo tuning and some of those TD's can make some fairly big power especially torque levels.