warren t claim

Your point being? What have I missed?

Although my stint as a fleet owner did stray into the Mk3 era I was put off getting any due to the the higher cost of not just the car in Cat D/C state, but also the parts cost of pulling them straight was double that of a Mk2. I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a statement that I can't back up anywhere else. This is just my opinion based on experience. There was a definite dip in quality during the production run of the Mk2 Mondeo. It was easy to tell if the Mk2 you were buying came from the inferior era and that was by looking at the grille surround. If it was chrome it came from the time when they were screwed together properly but if it was body coloured then expect niggles. Mostly these issues were stuff like ABS and airbag sensors along with niggly trim rattles but I did have W and X plate cars that suffered with gearboxes that suffered the occasional crunch changing into third. Another would refuse to let the driver open the rear hatch maybe twice a week. External rear door handles would stick in the up position which is a pain in the arse in taxi use. One had a front passenger electric window that would only work if the door was open. That same car had an intermittent fault with the electric height adjustment on the driver's seat. Although these faults never took a car out of service, even the crunchy gearbox cars never got any worse, IMHO Mk2 quality did dip during production.

Things I've never done. Been to a circus. Seen The Wizard Of Oz. Owned, or at least worked a Mk3 Mondeo. Off the top of my head I can only think of two Mk3s I've driven although there must be more. Both were plated PH cars of 2.0 LX diesel spec. The first was one Mutha_Claim had for a week and the other was an example Fat Bob wanted to sell me. Both had issues. To put that into perspective, I've driven as many Ferraris and Honda NSXs as I have Mk3 Mondeos. There is a logical reason for this. Back in 2007 I was forced to walk away from the taxi trade due to my ex missus and her paranoia that I might carry a female passenger and I didn't return until 2014 meaning that I missed out on the Mk3 era.

Although we have this thread along with this... There's no thread on ASA dedicated to the Mk3 Mondeo. Even if we had I fear that I'd have very little to contribute to it as this may come as a surprise for you to learn but I've never owned or worked a Mk3. In fact, the number of them I've driven can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I can't believe that I've not talked about clutch changes yet. From the factory the standard Mk1/2 Mondeo clutch was a pretty long lasting unit. Yes they were a twat to replace but due to their popularity in the Merseyside taxi trade we had a pretty competitive market in replacements meaning as long as the car could move under its own power all was not lost. The internal clutch bellows/cylinder was another story though. I think I had three of those fucking things die on me.

You've left off scrapped due to the clutch change cost.

Other than the 2.0Si, the only Mondeo's that died in service on my fleet met their end due to accidents.

I think I was lucky because I've heard of them failing at a young age.

Sorry for hijacking this thread BTW.

After writing the above post a couple more points regarding that 2.0LX auto have shuffled their way back into my memory. When I discovered how comprehensively fucked the front hub bearing was I phoned the firm the lad drove for and asked when he was last at work. To my surprise it was only the previous day. How the hell his passengers didn't report him is a mystery as the noise and vibrations were terrible. Anyone following the WTC private hire rental story and has been taking notes will be wondering why I added a 2.0 automatic petrol to my rental fleet as that sort of car will hardly be the easiest to rent out to a driver unless he's keen on collecting Nectar Points. The reason is that Mutha_Claim who was also working as a PH driver at the time and was in one of my cars really wanted an automatic and was prepared to put up with the MPG penalty. This 2.0 auto wasn't gaining much interest on the now defunct Blue Cycle internet auction site despite only suffering minor NS damage so I pulled the trigger on it for about £500. Once transported back to my body repair specialist the news was both good and bad. The good was that it could be fixed by replacing one door and filling the other. The bad was that this Mk2 came from a time when Ford offered the buyer a choice of either a sunroof or aircon and the first owner of this Mondeo had chosen to tick the sunroof box. My acquisition of the 2.0 auto coincided with it being one of the hottest summers on record and Mutha_Claim insisted on having a car with aircon. This was my fault because as because S998***, her older 2.0LX manual had aircon I assumed the newer auto would be similarly equipped. As an aside, I couldn't believe that the aircon in S998*** still worked and held gas as it'd had a pretty hard front impact before I'd bought it as a Cat C. The aircon rad was bent as fuck and we were about to junk it until I was shifting it around the yard and hit the switch to discover that it still worked. Once patched up and plated I decided to work the auto until I could find someone to rent it off me to at least the autumn. As a rule, I generally preferred to work a 2.0 petrol Mondeo as I thought that they were pretty good on fuel all things considered so I was curious to see what fuel penalty the automatic transmission would have. Back then a Saturday night shift would cost me £25 in a 2.0 manual and in this auto it'd cost me £30 so not too bad really, especially taking into account the ease of use the auto had compared to the manual. Fast forward to me having to fix the repo'd auto. Once fixed I had a mate who I'd previously worked the doors with who was making the career change into driving a taxi. When he learnt that I had a Mondeo auto up for grabs he didn't just want to rent it from me, he was insisting on settle buying it from me on the weekly. The reason was that when it had to be retired or he fancied a change he could pass it to his missus who could only drive an automatic. Deal done! The strange thing is that this was the only Mondeo I ever had that lived well beyond its eight year retirement age. I used to see it knocking around the local area until about 2014.

"This sleek white MG 6 car is a perfect combination of style and performance. With a manual transmission, this car is perfect for those who love the thrill of a powerful drive. It comfortably seats five people and has five doors for easy access. The interior of the car is adorned in black, giving it a sporty and elegant look. It runs on petrol and is manufactured by the renowned brand MG. Whether you're a car enthusiast or simply looking for a reliable vehicle for your daily commute, this MG 6 car is sure to impress." Even I wouldn't go as far as including that description to sell a spares or repair MG6 and that's coming from someone who offers a shag with a hooker as a sales incentive on a Hyundai.

On the MG6 the hazard lights flash at a different speed to the indicators. Also you can pause the hazards by indicating.

Late paying drivers were something of a double edged sword. It was handy if they had a breakdown needing my help as then I could weasel out of getting out of bed to recover them. I'd tell them to phone me back in the morning unless they could clear their bill but once in a while things would get too far meaning that I'd have to do a repo on their car and here's a case in point. I had a V plate 2.0LX auto in metallic green out on hire and despite many promises payment hadn't been forthcoming in quite a while which meant WTC had run out of patience and was forced to snatchback the Mondeo. As I'm not a complete fucking retard I always kept the spare keys to all my cars just in case such an event happens to arise so I rock up and hop in. Most local firms had a deal with me where they'd bounce a driver off the air if I rang the boss explaining that the driver owed me money. This deal was in exchange for me retuning the expensive data system fitted to the car in the event of me having to take the car back. The driver in this tale worked for a firm that weren't interested in having such an arrangement with me but hey ho, that's their decision. They still worked on a radio voice system using £50 two way radios anyway so were more interested in keeping their driver working. I drive away in my Mondeo and within 50 yards it's pretty obvious that it has a couple of big issues. Firstly the NSF hub bearing isn't just worn, it is totally collapsed! The poor Mondeo barely steers and is making one hell of a fucking noise from the front end! Secondly, both front pads are shot to shit. This didn't surprise me at all as they'd last been changed a few months ago and there's no way an auto Mondeo can make a set of front pads last three months in taxi use. I limp it back and assess the repair bill. To my surprise the front hub could be replaced quite cheaply using scrappy parts and the pads were the expected price. I replaced the pads and let the discs sort themselves out. It was pretty obvious that the driver had decided to let the green Mondy go to ruin because getting it repaired would have meant settling his bill. Come to think of it, the last time I saw the car was to replace the exhaust maybe six weeks earlier and IIRC the Mondeo auto had an automatic specific exhaust that cost me three times what I was expecting to replace.

The entire reputation for anyone who rents out cars as taxis is based on the ability of keeping the driver on the road. Taxi insurance was, and indeed still is, pretty much stuck in the 1980s. This means that there's no fucking way I could keep one car on my fleet purely to use as an emergency breakdown courtesy car. Even if I could have kept a car insured for any driver local council rules would mean me sending the details to whatever firm the driver worked for and car details can only be changed during office hours. That's not to say that some strokes weren't pulled. I had a driver with a Panther Black Mk2 1.8LX that snapped its key in the ignition barrel one Friday night meaning that both the reg and taxi plates "may" have found their way onto a Panther Black 1.8LX diesel that had just been handed back to me as a way of keeping him on the road that weekend.

After that little historical interlude let's get back to Mondeo taxi tales from the perspective of a fleet owner. Despite being hammered, sometimes day and night, the Mk1/2 Mondeo had levels of reliability you wouldn't believe.The only one I had die on me was a 2.0Si that I'd bought super cheap from a salvage auction. I hadn't even bothered plating it It suffered HGF and I cannibalised it for parts, especially the seats. Diesels would suffer from stretched, and occasionally snapped, throttle cables. Any snappage always happened pump end and once I managed to bodge it with Meccano. Resistors in the fan were a weak point. I think most of mine had at least one fan position that didn't work. Heated front screens would usually start failing element by element. Always the driver's side first. Remote fuel flap releases would stick. Bonnet alarm sensors would become hypersensitive. Bodged by putting a bottle top on the plunger. Remote central locking keys never seemed to work after the first battery change. Air con pumps shat their bearings/clutch mechanisms. All in all they were reliable enough to enable me to have a life and dare to venture out of the area for a day off. I only had to replace one starter and alternator. Most breakdowns were due to battery issues caused by taxi radios and were easily fixed. They were pretty predictable in what they'd need in regard to maintenance up to the point where I could tell which area a driver worked in and whether he or she worked days or nights. I could tell a car that had worked days at the local hospital due to rapid wear of the suspension bushes caused by the speed bumps on the nearby council estate which was a pulling zone for hospital drivers. Lads who had their own airport transfer firm would almost never require brake pads but would wear out rear suspension. Night drivers would kill batteries and burn the outer edge of the front tyres doing u turns outside pubs.

When I first started we had a driver with a 2.0 twin cam Sierra Ghia that worked faultlessly with one exception. It would cut out for 15 minutes after a continuous 80 mile drive. Ford Master Technicians tried and failed to get to the bottom of the problem. This meant that the driver could only take on a Manchester Airport run from certain parts of our catchment area. Another Sierra twin cam owner was a retired Merseyside Police traffic officer with an immaculate Ghia estate in metallic burgundy. One night a few of us were sat in the office grilling him about high speed chases. After a couple of tales about chasing Mk2 RS2000s he started talking about chasing bikers. He said that the 24v Senator would keep up with most bikes on the M53 to the great surprise of the rider. He told the tale of one lad on a GSXR750 who when discovering that he didn't have the straight line speed to outrun the 24v Vauxhall pulled over onto the hard shoulder and then fucked off using full bore acceleration. He said that even today "I'd strangle that cheeky bugger if I ever got my hands on him". I didn't have the heart to tell him "that cheeky bugger" was me.

I wish! Back when I started the Sierra was on its last six month plate as a taxi although we did have a couple of LATE PLATE MADNESS L reg Sierra's plated. When I began my "career" we had maybe three Sierra's and maybe five BX's working this area. As strange as it sounds, despite the 1.8 diesel Mondeo finding many friends in the taxi world, the 1.8td Sierra was pretty much disliked and considered a pale imitation of its 2.3 diesel predecessor.

Several of my Mondeo fleet sticks in my memory. Here's just one example. I was working a day shift for a change as I needed some cash as I'd promised to take some MILF that I'd picked up the previous night out for a drink/curry/shag. I'd just dropped off a pensioner along with her shopping and Zimmer frame at her sheltered housing (#days) and was then given a message on my datahead to phone another driver that I didn't know. I phone the driver and he asks me if I'd be interested in buying his P reg Mk2 Mondeo as he'd heard that I buy plated taxis. I'm a little reluctant as I'm short of money and had earmarked what petty cash I had to getting into the pants of the aforementioned MILF but when he said that it had four months plate left and he only wanted a grand for it (super cheap for any Mk2 Mondeo then) I agreed to have a look. When I turn up at his palatial local authority abode I'm greeted to the sight of what must have been the scruffiest Mk2 Mondy working the streets of Wirral. Both bumpers were cracked with bits missing and the white paintwork looked like it'd been resprayed in Tippex. The interior of this 1.8LX diesel hatch was even worse. The seats weren't just dirty, but dirty and sticky. The steering wheel was worn smooth which at least tallied up with the quarter of a million miles displayed on the odo. Even at a grand it looked overpriced but he said it drove well and insisted that I took a test drive. Mindful that I'd not had a tetanus injection since I was eight I got behind the wheel to take it for a spind around the block. This is when I was shocked to discover that it pulled like a fucking train! Upon my return I pop the bonnet and I'm greeted to the sight of not just a new injection pump, but also a new turbo! Along with the smell of piss and kebabs I can also smell profit in this car. At the time I had another LX that had been written off in a non fault accident that had already been viewed by the insurance assessor which I was awaiting a payout for and as luck might have it, sported a perfect interior. I offer him £800 expecting him to barter upwards but to my surprise he agrees to my lowball offer immediately! Bonus! Not does this mean that I can have the Mondeo, but that'll leave me with enough cash to wine, dine and shag the lady later! The following day after entertaining MILF (Strange lady. Great tits with huge sensitive nipples and the evening spoilt only by her 19 year old son being home as he was on a tag but hey ho, this is Merseyside) I set about trying to tart up the £800 Mondy. The bumpers were a lost cause so I remover the bumpers from the written off LX and send them off to the sprayers to be transformed from Pepper Red to Diamond White. The interior scrubs up a little better than I thought it would with only the rear seat base needing changing. I bodge the driver's seat with a cover. The exterior was another story. T Cut failed to deliver the goods so I consulted a bodywork specialist who tells me to use G3 Rubbing Compound (I think) and an electric mop. Although the end result certainly wouldn't win any awards it certainly brought it up to a high enough merchantable quality for my rental fleet. In the end I managed to get ten months reliable service out of it before it reached mandatory retirement age with the usual maintenance plus a replacement battery. In the end I threw it through the local auction with close to 300K on the clock and got pretty much what I paid for it back.

Around 2005 I decided to move into the taxi rental business as a way of making a few more quid. At the time the most popular car used was the Peugeot 406 which was a problem as they're not a cheap fix back then bodywork damage wise. This was a problem for me as I had no intention of attending the regular diesel car sale at BCA Brighouse and putting my hand up to obtain stock, nope I was sourcing Cat C/D cars off the now defunct Blue Cycle internet salvage auction site. I had a tame bodywork guy who could hammer straight a front and back damaged car for between a grand and fifteen hundred quid as long as the parts were cheap. For this reason I became a fleet owner of Mk2 Mondeos. I could get pattern parts cheap and buy a Cat C front and back five year old petrol hatch for about £350 plus delivery. For about two grand I'd have a decent looking car all checked and plated for work. Other than suspension bushes and the occasional clutch change (a cunt of a job) the Mk2 Mondeo was a superb tool for taxi work as long as the Zetec petrol cars were treated to the correct oil. The diesel examples seemed to thrive on taxi work, even though in civilian life they could fuck their engines at 100k in taxi usage with half decent servicing they were mostly totally reliable except for one problem, if the injection pump fucked up obtaining a decent used example was both tricky and expensive die to FoMoCo fitting three different types with no rhyme or reason to what car got what. Also for some reason, Ford decided to treat the puny powered dizzler to discs on the back even though the 2.0 Zetec petrols were decent stoppers with drums on the arse end. The happy news is I never suffered an engine failure on either petrol or diesel examples. That's not to say they weren't without their niggles, flashing airbag lights were common (and not an MOT fail then) even though none of my cars had deployed them in their previous accidents despite what looked like some pretty serious damage when I bought them and they had another Ford issue at the time. Namely the Ford Motor Company cost cutting one piece exhaust system which made a holed back box either expensive or a challenge in fabrication. Usually the latter to be honest. Anyway, due to the Warren T Claim unique selling point of renting them out including insurance for £130 a week for a petrol or £140 a week for a diesel usually to newly qualified drivers, they found happy hirers quickly. I'd like to say that my drivers were a fine bunch of lads but sadly some were better than others and all had their issues. Late payments and the associated excuses were the norm, sadly the knock on effect of this was my drivers not telling me about easily and cheaply fixed problems until it's too late and expensive because they were avoiding me. Think front pads that have been allowed to wear down to the metal and you've got the idea. 3am phone calls to my mobile were a weekly feature of my life, usually for a headlamp bulb replacement or because they couldn't find the locking wheel nut key but one whopper phoned me for the radio code in the wee small hours. It took a few bleary seconds for it to sink in to me and ask WHY THE FUCK HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEED TO DISCONNECT THE BATTERY AT 4AM???? Another driver called Vegetable Ken had domestic issues meaning he was thrown out by his missus and lived in the car dividing his time between working and sleeping, not that much sleeping apparently as he was clocking up an incredible 1600 miles a week! To put that into perspective I had a petrol Mondeo out on double shift with two brothers taking turns day and night that was only covering about 1300 miles a week. The crowning glory was a lad called Alan The Student. He had a W plate diesel off me and although he was totally clueless he was a nice enough fella and only worked part time and only did about 400 miles a week. At the time Kwik Fit had decent offers on oil changes for Ford Zetec engines, about £25 including filter, so I had a Kwik Fit card to make life easier. I knew his car, W809*** was due to need tyres in a week or so and as that particular Mondeo was pride of the fleet and due a plate soon I left him the Kwik Fit card and told him to sort them himself as I was recently single and away in Manchester that weekend banging some Scottish bird called Joanne. Anyway, I returned on the Monday (fucking hell she was dirty! Not much in the way of tits but a slender body to die for and went like a rabbit on amphetamine) to be greeted by an £800 bill! The cunts at Kwik Fit had seen the card and given Alan the whole manslaughter speech meaning he'd agreed to have not just two tyres but pads and discs front and rear! Obviously I was well pissed off but by that time there was fuck all I could do. A lesson learned.

The 406 was the only car more popular as a taxi in my area than the mid sized Ford. Despite this, when the 407 was introduced it found very few fans and everyone migrated to the Mk3 Mondeo.

I'm flattered! I can't say I've seen said driver around for at least ten years. The 406 is/was a very good looking car. The Pug diesel XUD was a better and more economical unit than the Ford diesel. The 406 does have better seats, as I said a little earlier you have to go up as high as GLX spec in the Mk2 Mondeo to get soft seat fabric. The bits that you touch in the 406 seem nicer than in the Mondeo, it feels like a much more substantial car.

I had a few that colour. One 2.0 Ghia X springs to mind. The one I've written about in the last two paragraphs of this post. I used to offer what we in the trade call a "Settle Buys". A deal done between two drivers or a driver and a fleet owner where the buyer puts down a deposit and pays weekly rental payments until the vehicle is paid for. I did offer to rent the cab but he'd rather sell it for cash or on the weekly. I refer the settle buy option because if I was only renting it there's nothing stopping him selling the cab to someone else with a weeks notice and leaving me without a job again. As well as renting out private hire cars back in the mid 2000s, I also used to offer settle buys. A driver could either rent a Mk2 Mondeo from me at £80 a week or buy one from me at £100 a week. The ones I sold were usually the better examples of Mk2 Mondeos, meaning the rentals were bought in as a Cat C and the settle buys were Cat D. I generally tried to sell cars for less than £4000 so they'd be paid for in much less than a year as I didn't want an argument if it failed its next plate MOT. Warranties were usually only for a month as a driver could hand the car back at any time, even after a month. What I, and a few other fleet owners offered, was the option for the driver buying the car to bring it to the garage I used to have any major malfunctions fixed with no immidiate cost, I'd just put the cost of the replacement clutch, gearbox, injector pump as extra weekly payments of £100 at the end of the finance agreement. This usually worked out that the driver ended up paying maybe £4800, or 48 payments of £100 for his Mondeo. The profit on charging full retail on the parts and labour I'd split with my mechanic. Unlike the rental cars on my fleet, things like tyres and servicing were not included in the weekly payment although I'd happily put a £70 service on the end of the bill for £100. Every car I sold on the weekly would be sent out with a new cambelt, decent tyres and freshly serviced. If a car was returned within a month, something that only happened once, I'd advertise it out again as a settle buy. Any car handed back to be after that went straight onto my rental fleet. I generally stuck to Mk2 Mondeos for several good reasons. Firstly they were a cheap fix both mechanically and to get them hammered straight in the first place. Secondly, I always had a crashed or dead example to rip apart for parts. I always made a habit of buying Mondeos no older than five and a bit years old so I had the time to get them pulled straight and plated before their sixth birthday meaning that they'd be young enough to get a 12 month plate on because my council insists on retesting a PH car twice a year when it reaches 6 years old. At the same time I was selling Mondeo Mk2s on the weekly another, larger, operation was doing something similar but selling the super desireable at the time Peugeot 406. Although admittedly his 406s were a couple of years newer than my Mondeos, he had no shortage of punters chomping at the bit to grab themselves a piece of repaired Cat C 406 action for the eye watering price of £10k. FFS! That's well over two years repayments after repairs. Come to think of it, that's £10 grand for a Cat C 406 with DHSS spec, clock instead of a rev counter in that shitty solid green colour. Any Mondeo Aspen I bought went straight to rental and the driver would always want first refusal on the next LX or GLX I had available. One interesting point to ponder is that it didn't matter if the Mondeo I was selling was a hatch or a saloon, they both sold and rented out just as easily. Another fact that's only just occured to me twenty years down the line is that out of the dozens of Mk1/2 Mondeos that passed through my hands I honestly don't think any of them were estates. I can't think why this is. I had one driver who totally refused to buy a car on the weekly from me and insisting on renting despite me telling him it was dead money. He'd been with me nearly two years and as my longest serving driver he'd managed to work his way up to the top of the food chain on my rental fleet finding himself driving a Mk2 Ghia X manual hatch with full leather in metallic grey. He'd recently swapped to this Ghia X from a GLX 1.8 diesel hatch because he had his own operators licence and did airport transfers like a Poundland NorfolkNWeigh and was happy to have a 2.0 petrol over the diesel fitted in his GLX as the Ghia X had cruise contorl fitted, a feature unavailable on any Mk1/2 Mondeo. It came as no surprise that he didn't really have to pay any fuel penalty as the 1.8 Endura D diesel lump wasn't the most economical oil burner at motorway speeds. The problem started when this lad took one Manchester Airport job too many and fell asleep on the M56 whilst driving to pick up one of his clients. He woke up after the Mondeo hit the central reservation causing him to spin accross all three lanes before coming to a halt sideways covering lanes 1 and 2. He was only insured third party, as almost all drivers were back then, which happily paid out for several yards of Armco but left me with a pretty big bill for a Mondeo that was way beyond repair. When I chased him for the money he started to whinge stating that he'd given me something like £6000 over the last year or so which more than covers what I paid for the car. Now that's sort of true but he'd not had the Ghia X more than a couple of months. If he'd have bought the first car I rented to him off me on the weekly, a Mk2 1.8 petrol LX in Panther Black IIRC. He would now not be looking at a huge bill to replace the Mondeo that at the time was the pride of my rental fleet. Eager to avoid a bare knuckle fist fight with a 20 stone 5'5" bloke who looks like he'll drop dead of a stroke at any moment now, I agreed to rent him a metallic dark green 2.0 LX automatic Mk2 Mondeo for £185 a week. £80 rental, £55 insurance and £50 to pay me on the weekly for the crashed Ghia X. After a few months I awoke to discover the Mondeo Mk2 parked outside my flat with the keys in my letterbox. I was expecting that to be honest but what really hurt was seeing him later that week driving a settle buy 406 from the other firm I mentioned earlier. I really couldn't be arsed chasing him for anymore money.

I suppose there's a difference between a car being small by size and small by name. That Fiesta is probably bigger inside than the many Pug 306s I worked as a taxi.

I'll buy you one as long as you promise to sign for it at customs and agree to take it home via a location of my choice.