Claim's Cabbies Corner. Repo Revenge.

[Warren t claim]

Toyota Avensis Mk3.
+Fucking loads of oddment space, huge centre console and glove box. Big inside. Flat floor in the rear. Plenty of toys. Reversing camera.
-Sat nav needs Stephen Hawking to work it out. Seat belt buzzer can't be turned off, even in the rear. Prone to EGR problems. Central locking near impossible to turn off auto locking when in motion. Electric parking brake a cunt.

VW Passat. 2007.
+Nice to drive. Very supportive seats. Nice driving position. Concave interior door cards mean plenty of right arm room. Hard wearing trim.
-HGF issues. Electric parking brake problems. Gearbox fails. Stupid ignition "key" fob fails. PAS can shit itself need a new steering column. Base models VERY sparsely kitted out.

[mercrocker]

Interesting to note your comments re Focus Mk2 bonnet catch. A more cock-fumbly, uselessly fragile, unintuitive and needlessly fraught operation I can scarcely imagine. Haven't broken mine yet but the day will come.

[Warren t claim]

Vauxhall Insignia. 2009-2016.
+Non sporty models have front seats with a hidden pocket ideal for stashing drugs, open razor or money in. They drive better than you'd think. Nice gearchange. Big boot. Classy dash.
-Gearbox woes. Shit spec with keep fit rear windows in the back. Headlamp ballast failures. Not very good economy, expect 37mpg at best. Interior doesn't wear use very well. No bluetooth.

[Warren t claim]

Vectra C.
+1.9 SRi 130 capable of 50mpg. SRi sports seats hold you in well. Capable of a decent turn of speed. Simple and easy to use cruise control.
-EGR issues. Keep fit windows in the back. Scary handling at three figure speeds. Can't squeeze a taxi radio between the front driver's seat and centre console. Headlights prone to fogging.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Montego Estate, preferably Tdi plenty of room, great mpgs( for the time) and ran forever without any servicing, I had a few that I rented out and e I’ve still got aerosols of Hurricane Grey and random Whites in my shed from patching them up for test every 4 months. Estates meant drivers got better work and I was still cheaper than other peoples Cavaliers, Sierras .
The other good thing is the sometimes comedic way they injured punters.
Door handles coming off, you often saw Montegos with odd coloured door handles as they were made of monkey metal and just snapped. One night a drunk grabbed the handle on my nice BRG Countryman , pulled so hard it came off and hit him on the bridge of the nose, I honestly couldn’t drive for a few minutes , I was laughing so much. Next day I swapped all the handles off a red MG I had as a spares carat the time- classy.

Another time a lad threatened me with a broken Grolsch bottle , I swiped him with my left hand, trouble was it’s difficult to control sideways left handed punches and I hit him harder than I intended...
He hit his temple on the seatbelt adjuster thing on the pillar and was spark out. I looked in the mirror ready for his mates to pile in, but they were all asleep! I dropped them off, got paid ( and a tip) , I didn’t mention the unconscious would be slasher and they though he was just pissed. Dragged him out and sat him on the kerb, reckon he survived because I never saw anything in the paper or anything.
Third one was after going to another driver’s aid, or Four Zero shout, as we called it. Old Asian bloke in a minibus was getting grief I bowled up giving it the biggun, relying on shock and awe, Told him to go and was just getting in my car ( that same Countryman) when a couple of the s ally’s came back and got brave, I just reversed hitting one lad in the head with the corner of the open drivers door, again don’t know exactl6 what happened but there was a lot of skin, hair and blood stuck in the door!

[Warren t claim]

Although Montego door handles were a weak point sometimes they were stronger than you'd think.

I was scampering to Birkenhead town centre to pick up a punter going to Chester, a decent £20 fare at the time. I was caught at the traffic lights a couple of hundred yards before the pick up point and had my doors locked as I wanted the big money fare but some daft tart tried to get in at the lights. I thought nothing of it until I pulled up outside the nightclub only to hear a scream from my passenger, there was a fingernail caught in my rear door handle!

[Warren t claim]

Anyway, back to the car reviews.

Vauxhall Omega.
+Space and comfort. Top notch xenon headlamps. Everyone got out of your way thinking you were an unmarked police car. Punters requesting your car.
-Passengers pulling off the fake wood door trim thinking it was a door handle. Fragile oily bits. Expensive tyres back in the day. Slapper fake tan stains leather seats.

[Warren t claim]

Peugeot 406.

+Decent boot. Nice trim. All seem to have a good spec of aircon and electric rear windows. Comfy seats.
-Front centre arm rest rubs on your elbow when changing gear. Usual shit PSA gearbox. Parts expensive, especially on the 2.1 diesel. Body panels pricy if you prang it.

[mercrocker]

Good stuff, Warren (and NnW). This could be the new Good, Bad & Ugly......

[mercrocker]

One thing that has often puzzled me....You used to see a lot of W201 190Es on ranks in the European mainland and indeed they were available with taxi-spec dash or, more correctly, what became known as that. However, unless you have a contract with the local amputee clinic I can't for the life of me see how you got folk in the back - I was forever steering with my knees when carrying rear passengers.