warren t claim

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Back to the story.
Before it was explained to me that my talents are probably best used elsewhere I had a flick through the application forms of our new breed of taxi drivers and noticed a couple of common denominators with our aspiring Asians. Firstly, most had only passed their test a year ago, and secondly, they all seemed to have passed in an automatic. This sprayed WD40 on the seized cogs that lurk within my brain. 
Wirral isn't Wimbledon, Wandsworth or Walthamstow. The vast majority of PH cars out there to rent are manuals unlike London minicabs as there's no fucking way any sane fleet owner who runs Mondeos would ever entertain having to deal with between 20 and 350 Ford Powershit autoboxes whilst still maintaining a profit. Even the few that had Passats and Octavias running DSG transmissions were having to bodge them with different oil to keep them on the road. 
I therefore hatched a plan so cunning even Baldrick would spaff in his strides...

Gotta love the clickbait title change!
As not to totally derail our Mk1 Mondeo thread I'll lob a continuation to my foray as a local taxi fleet owner here. For the benefit of those who've not read my posts on that thread due to having no interest in Ford's family saloon from the early '90s here's a link.
A good question to ask yours truly is whether I'd ever consider building up a rental fleet again and the correct answer is that I nearly did. Here's the story.
Way back in 2003 when I started renting out taxis the vast majority of drivers owned their own cars and there were maybe a dozen lads who rented taxis out mainly to new drivers along with those who wanted fixed price weekly outgoings. Rental fleet sizes varied from 2 cars which is when a driver bought himself a new car and chose to rent his old car out to the large firm with about 25 cars on their fleet.
This all changed when cars became common rail diesel powered and came with dual mass flywheels, particulate filters and EGR valves along with things like getting a fail for a TPMS, Airbag or EML light. Plenty of lads who had been owner drivers were scared of getting big bills and chose to follow the rental option. This meant that the guy with the fleet of 25 cars managed to grow to having maybe 350 cars out on hire, 90% of which were/are diesel Mondeos.
About five years ago I was having a top level strategy drinking session with a friend who'd just sold his share in a specialised software company for a few million quid. He was pondering on whether starting a taxi firm would be a good idea and wanted my opinion. I told him not to waste his time and money but did suggest the following...
As someone who has been in the trade for a long time I'm keen to notice trends and one thing that I had learned by looking at the intake of new drivers passing through our training school is that the vast majority were of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin. About this time my firm made the mistake of thinking that WTC would be the ideal driver to talk to potential new drivers about taxi life and what to expect. Although the firm were pleased about how I deal with personal safety, they were less pleased with my mentoring when I explained the best way to torture a runner or the Warren T Claim guide to extracting a PIN number from someone who's puked in the back.
To be continued...

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Back to the story.
Before it was explained to me that my talents are probably best used elsewhere I had a flick through the application forms of our new breed of taxi drivers and noticed a couple of common denominators with our aspiring Asians. Firstly, most had only passed their test a year ago, and secondly, they all seemed to have passed in an automatic. This sprayed WD40 on the seized cogs that lurk within my brain. 
Wirral isn't Wimbledon, Wandsworth or Walthamstow. The vast majority of PH cars out there to rent are manuals unlike London minicabs as there's no fucking way any sane fleet owner who runs Mondeos would ever entertain having to deal with between 20 and 350 Ford Powershit autoboxes whilst still maintaining a profit. Even the few that had Passats and Octavias running DSG transmissions were having to bodge them with different oil to keep them on the road. 
I therefore hatched a plan so cunning even Baldrick would spaff in his strides...

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

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.

Back to the story.
Before it was explained to me that my talents are probably best used elsewhere I had a flick through the application forms of our new breed of taxi drivers and noticed a couple of common denominators with our aspiring Asians. Firstly, most had only passed their test a year ago, and secondly, they all seemed to have passed in an automatic. This sprayed WD40 on the seized cogs that lurk within my brain. 
Wirral isn't Wimbledon, Wandsworth or Walthamstow. The vast majority of PH cars out there to rent are manuals unlike London minicabs as there's no fucking way any sane fleet owner who runs Mondeos would ever entertain having to deal with between 20 and 350 Ford Powershit autoboxes whilst still maintaining a profit. Even the few that had Passats and Octavias running DSG transmissions were having to bodge them with different oil to keep them on the road. 
I therefore hatched a plan so cunning even Baldrick would spaff in his strides...

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Back to the story.
Before it was explained to me that my talents are probably best used elsewhere I had a flick through the application forms of our new breed of taxi drivers and noticed a couple of common denominators with our aspiring Asians. Firstly, most had only passed their test a year ago, and secondly, they all seemed to have passed in an automatic. This sprayed WD40 on the seized cogs that lurk within my brain. 
Wirral isn't Wimbledon, Wandsworth or Walthamstow. The vast majority of PH cars out there to rent are manuals unlike London minicabs as there's no fucking way any sane fleet owner who runs Mondeos would ever entertain having to deal with between 20 and 350 Ford Powershit autoboxes whilst still maintaining a profit. Even the few that had Passats and Octavias running DSG transmissions were having to bodge them with different oil to keep them on the road. 
I therefore hatched a plan so cunning even Baldrick would spaff in his strides...

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Although current GF can't drive before I met her I had a fling with a lady who owned a Fiat Stilo.
Maintaining a workable erection knowing that she'd just paid £2500 for the Fiat was somewhat of a challenge.

Back to the story.
Before it was explained to me that my talents are probably best used elsewhere I had a flick through the application forms of our new breed of taxi drivers and noticed a couple of common denominators with our aspiring Asians. Firstly, most had only passed their test a year ago, and secondly, they all seemed to have passed in an automatic. This sprayed WD40 on the seized cogs that lurk within my brain. 
Wirral isn't Wimbledon, Wandsworth or Walthamstow. The vast majority of PH cars out there to rent are manuals unlike London minicabs as there's no fucking way any sane fleet owner who runs Mondeos would ever entertain having to deal with between 20 and 350 Ford Powershit autoboxes whilst still maintaining a profit. Even the few that had Passats and Octavias running DSG transmissions were having to bodge them with different oil to keep them on the road. 
I therefore hatched a plan so cunning even Baldrick would spaff in his strides...

After my Mito was condemned due to rust, I decided to go old skool for its replacement - 50 mile drive home - goes spot on. Forgot the pez shot sorry 😎

Gotta love the clickbait title change!
As not to totally derail our Mk1 Mondeo thread I'll lob a continuation to my foray as a local taxi fleet owner here. For the benefit of those who've not read my posts on that thread due to having no interest in Ford's family saloon from the early '90s here's a link.
A good question to ask yours truly is whether I'd ever consider building up a rental fleet again and the correct answer is that I nearly did. Here's the story.
Way back in 2003 when I started renting out taxis the vast majority of drivers owned their own cars and there were maybe a dozen lads who rented taxis out mainly to new drivers along with those who wanted fixed price weekly outgoings. Rental fleet sizes varied from 2 cars which is when a driver bought himself a new car and chose to rent his old car out to the large firm with about 25 cars on their fleet.
This all changed when cars became common rail diesel powered and came with dual mass flywheels, particulate filters and EGR valves along with things like getting a fail for a TPMS, Airbag or EML light. Plenty of lads who had been owner drivers were scared of getting big bills and chose to follow the rental option. This meant that the guy with the fleet of 25 cars managed to grow to having maybe 350 cars out on hire, 90% of which were/are diesel Mondeos.
About five years ago I was having a top level strategy drinking session with a friend who'd just sold his share in a specialised software company for a few million quid. He was pondering on whether starting a taxi firm would be a good idea and wanted my opinion. I told him not to waste his time and money but did suggest the following...
As someone who has been in the trade for a long time I'm keen to notice trends and one thing that I had learned by looking at the intake of new drivers passing through our training school is that the vast majority were of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin. About this time my firm made the mistake of thinking that WTC would be the ideal driver to talk to potential new drivers about taxi life and what to expect. Although the firm were pleased about how I deal with personal safety, they were less pleased with my mentoring when I explained the best way to torture a runner or the Warren T Claim guide to extracting a PIN number from someone who's puked in the back.
To be continued...

The only girlfriend I have ever had never learned to drive.  Hugely ironic considering her mother was a driving instructor!

awaits next installment with interest...

Back to the story.
Before it was explained to me that my talents are probably best used elsewhere I had a flick through the application forms of our new breed of taxi drivers and noticed a couple of common denominators with our aspiring Asians. Firstly, most had only passed their test a year ago, and secondly, they all seemed to have passed in an automatic. This sprayed WD40 on the seized cogs that lurk within my brain. 
Wirral isn't Wimbledon, Wandsworth or Walthamstow. The vast majority of PH cars out there to rent are manuals unlike London minicabs as there's no fucking way any sane fleet owner who runs Mondeos would ever entertain having to deal with between 20 and 350 Ford Powershit autoboxes whilst still maintaining a profit. Even the few that had Passats and Octavias running DSG transmissions were having to bodge them with different oil to keep them on the road. 
I therefore hatched a plan so cunning even Baldrick would spaff in his strides...

Back to the story.
Before it was explained to me that my talents are probably best used elsewhere I had a flick through the application forms of our new breed of taxi drivers and noticed a couple of common denominators with our aspiring Asians. Firstly, most had only passed their test a year ago, and secondly, they all seemed to have passed in an automatic. This sprayed WD40 on the seized cogs that lurk within my brain. 
Wirral isn't Wimbledon, Wandsworth or Walthamstow. The vast majority of PH cars out there to rent are manuals unlike London minicabs as there's no fucking way any sane fleet owner who runs Mondeos would ever entertain having to deal with between 20 and 350 Ford Powershit autoboxes whilst still maintaining a profit. Even the few that had Passats and Octavias running DSG transmissions were having to bodge them with different oil to keep them on the road. 
I therefore hatched a plan so cunning even Baldrick would spaff in his strides...

Gotta love the clickbait title change!
As not to totally derail our Mk1 Mondeo thread I'll lob a continuation to my foray as a local taxi fleet owner here. For the benefit of those who've not read my posts on that thread due to having no interest in Ford's family saloon from the early '90s here's a link.
A good question to ask yours truly is whether I'd ever consider building up a rental fleet again and the correct answer is that I nearly did. Here's the story.
Way back in 2003 when I started renting out taxis the vast majority of drivers owned their own cars and there were maybe a dozen lads who rented taxis out mainly to new drivers along with those who wanted fixed price weekly outgoings. Rental fleet sizes varied from 2 cars which is when a driver bought himself a new car and chose to rent his old car out to the large firm with about 25 cars on their fleet.
This all changed when cars became common rail diesel powered and came with dual mass flywheels, particulate filters and EGR valves along with things like getting a fail for a TPMS, Airbag or EML light. Plenty of lads who had been owner drivers were scared of getting big bills and chose to follow the rental option. This meant that the guy with the fleet of 25 cars managed to grow to having maybe 350 cars out on hire, 90% of which were/are diesel Mondeos.
About five years ago I was having a top level strategy drinking session with a friend who'd just sold his share in a specialised software company for a few million quid. He was pondering on whether starting a taxi firm would be a good idea and wanted my opinion. I told him not to waste his time and money but did suggest the following...
As someone who has been in the trade for a long time I'm keen to notice trends and one thing that I had learned by looking at the intake of new drivers passing through our training school is that the vast majority were of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin. About this time my firm made the mistake of thinking that WTC would be the ideal driver to talk to potential new drivers about taxi life and what to expect. Although the firm were pleased about how I deal with personal safety, they were less pleased with my mentoring when I explained the best way to torture a runner or the Warren T Claim guide to extracting a PIN number from someone who's puked in the back.
To be continued...