High mileage snotters.

[somewhatfoolish]

Is that not a bit vital given it's your moneymaker? Or have you stockpiled a backup Korean just in case?

1 hour ago, worldofceri said:

Last week my Kia Sorento nommed it’s gearbox. I’ve done 130,000 miles in a smidge over two years.

Odometer stopped at 188,000 but actual mileage now is 222,000.

Engine is fine so I’ll see about replacing the ’box when funds allow.

 

[sierraman]

Low mileage is overrated anyway, put some pads on a 56 plate Focus today it’d only done 80k and it felt fucked. Had been neglected though, the pads were down to the backing. 

[sutty2006]

9 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Low mileage is overrated anyway, put some pads on a 56 plate Focus today it’d only done 80k and it felt fucked. Had been neglected though, the pads were down to the backing. 

It’s a thing. I looked at two Mondeo STs in 2010, an 05 plate with 50k and a 55 with 98k. The higher mile 55plate drive so much better than the 05. 

[sierraman]

I’d usually disregard the mileage and buy on condition at the bottom end of the market. Years ago I drove an XJ6 4.0, it was on 260k, it drove like a 50k example, it had just sat on the motorway all day doing an off peak Leeds to Sheffield commute daily. 

[Flashband]

I occasionally used to drive the company mk1 zafira 1.6 petrol. It tripped over to 200000 miles while I was driving it.

Used oil like it was going out of fashion so was regularly ran out of oil/off the dip stick cos no one else thought to top up, whereupon it would rattle like a bastard.

Nothing seemed to kill this thing, huge amounts of abuse and minimal maintenance it just shrugged off. Original engine as well

[rantingYoof]

8 hours ago, Pete-M said:

Highest mileage car I've driven was an Octavia 2.0 TDi L&K. A cab in Shropshire from new it had 740k at 10 years old on the original engine and box. It had the cams replaced at 400k miles. 

Turned out the driver used to shuttle airline pilots around the UK, normally doing Telford, Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester, Telford most days of the week. 

Good lord. Fuck that.

[sierraman]

That job sounds like purgatory. 

[Isaac Hunt]

On 6/22/2020 at 8:56 PM, Pete-M said:

This week I've been shuffling cars around for a local garage. 

Mainly 12 year old Mondeos.

They don't drive as badly as you'd imagine.

 

Grand mileages are those, just goes to show what these things are capable of

[worldofceri]

9 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Is that not a bit vital given it's your moneymaker? Or have you stockpiled a backup Korean just in case?

 

Not exactly stockpiled, but I’ve just bought another one. 76k miles on this.

[Jamie]

Saw this n thought of this thread... And AS obviously 

 

 

 

[paulplom]

32 minutes ago, worldofceri said:

Not exactly stockpiled, but I’ve just bought another one. 76k miles on this.

 

Auto?

Are you keeping the other for spares?

[worldofceri]

Yes and yes !

[Mr Laurence]

4 hours ago, jamiechod said:

Saw this n thought of this thread... And AS obviously 

 

 

 

Been stuck on 272,393 since 2009 according to the mot history. Wonder what it’s real mileage is?

[1duck]

13 minutes ago, Mr Laurence said:

Been stuck on 272,393 since 2009 according to the mot history. Wonder what it’s real mileage is?

even considering that it was stuck from 2009, that's not particularly high...to consider that it was a J reg so that's what? 1991-92?  how did a taxi only do 16k a year that's not much more than average mileage. Isn't average mileage about 10-12k a year

[sierraman]

Most councils have a maximum age policy, it’s mainly there to stop people cabbing 52 plate Vectras they’ve picked up for £300. Can’t imagine he’s making a deal though, those old Volvos are very thirsty especially round town, I know it’s reliable but it can’t be pulling more than 20mpg round the houses.

[worldofceri]

It’s paid for though innit? So if work is slack or he fancies a holiday he can park it up without worrying how he’s going to keep up the finance payments.

[sierraman]

21 minutes ago, worldofceri said:

It’s paid for though innit? So if work is slack or he fancies a holiday he can park it up without worrying how he’s going to keep up the finance payments.

It all depends how much money you want to make, in a lot of rural areas you see older cabs, perhaps the driver works part time. By contrast a taxi in Leeds for example is probably run round the clock by a multitude of drivers. I’m sure he looks after it like but I can see why the council put age restrictions in place as some people would take the piss running all sorts of bags of shit. 

[Vince70]

Car throttle bought a £200 diesel A4 and to be honest you wouldn’t of known the mileage was over half a million  on it.

 

[rickvw72]

Ex AA 12tonne Renault Midlum...

1.1 million Km, in a Renault!

[danthecapriman]

There used to be a D reg Volvo 240 saloon being used as a taxi in the Salisbury area until fairly recently. I did a spell of commuting through Salisbury for work and used to see it almost every time I went through. It had the old fashioned ‘taxi’ sign on the roof too. The car was in really good nik but the mileage on it must have been incredible. They’re well up to that though those old red block engines, it’s the fuel costs that are horrendous. My 740 2.3 will struggle to get out of the low 20’s mpg!

My mate used to work on cabs in the 80’s, most of the cars were Cortina’s, Sierra’s, Caveliers then lately lots of Peugeot 405’s and 505 diesels. The mileages on them were insane, but he said they had a hot seat, where one driver went off shift the other hopped in and kept going. He reckoned the only time the engines were turned off was for putting fuel in or servicing/repairs. The oldest car there was an Austin Cambridge Farina, rotten as a pear but it had well over 300k on the clock by the time it went for scrap! Good going by the standards of the time.

[Mr Laurence]

34 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

The oldest car there was an Austin Cambridge Farina, rotten as a pear but it had well over 300k on the clock by the time it went for scrap! Good going by the standards of the time.

About a year ago I met a guy with an Ex-Taxi Farina. I think he’d had it since the 90’s and by his reckoning that had also done at least 300k and still had the original engine. Stupidly, I never took a photo, but that one was still in very good shape (though I think it may have been restored at some stage)

[Pete-M]

In the early 90s a pal of mine bought an E reg 1.8 Sierra Sapphire to use as a cab. 

He bought it for about 4k off a friend who'd used it as a company car from new.  100k on the clock, about four years old. 

My pal then put 650000 miles on that Sapphire over the next eight or nine years. 

Only when it finally got to the point where it couldn't be bodged through a taxi inspection did it finally get weighed in.  

My pal was chuffed it had done 750k miles. 

Even happier when his pal who had sold it to him finally admitted he had clocked it twice a year when it was his company car. It was probably closer to 800k miles. 

It was rough as fuck. 

[Pete-M]

22 hours ago, sierraman said:

Low mileage is overrated anyway, put some pads on a 56 plate Focus today it’d only done 80k and it felt fucked. Had been neglected though, the pads were down to the backing. 

True, that. 

I looked at a couple of C32 AMGs before I bought mine. The two I looked at had done under 100k miles and were OK, but they were rather expensive. 

When I rang the vendor of mine he said "I've had loads of phone calls, everyone shits themselves when they hear it has done 194k. I'm an AMG specialist, I've kept this as my own car for seven years and I maintained it for four years before that, I've driven loads of C32s and this one makes some of the low mileage ones feel properly slow.  Also, the engine has never been opened up. Never needed it."

I drove to Bristol to collect it a week later. 2.5 years in, I still love the thing. 

[SiC]

On 6/23/2020 at 5:31 PM, Lwk22 said:

Yeah work in Bristol as a TC running National Express coaches, our 12-plates are on that sort of mileage too (showing around 1.2 million kms). They’re all tired but are all like Trigger’s broom to keep them going.

South Gloucestershire Bus Company?? Or do they have the Megabus contract now. Lost track who does what now.

SGBC run some right old stuff though! Especially for the local runs. They did try running those long distance coaches as local journey busses, but the pneumatics on the doors were not rated for continuous opening and closing hundreds of times a day. The Caetano Levante survived even less on the local runs. Those coaches always felt so much more flimsy as a passenger than the others. 

[Lwk22]

6 hours ago, SiC said:

South Gloucestershire Bus Company?? Or do they have the Megabus contract now. Lost track who does what now.

SGBC run some right old stuff though! Especially for the local runs. They did try running those long distance coaches as local journey busses, but the pneumatics on the doors were not rated for continuous opening and closing hundreds of times a day. The Caetano Levante survived even less on the local runs. Those coaches always felt so much more flimsy as a passenger than the others. 

I’m at Edwards, we took over the Nat Ex contract in 2017 when it came to an end for SGB and they then went on to do their Megabus stuff.

The Levante’s are pretty crap to be honest, drivers will always argue whether Volvo/Scania are best as we have a mix of both but ultimately the Caetano body and fixings will always let them down. Rumours are the contract with Caetano comes to an end next year for National Express so deep down everyone hopes they will choose a better coach builder.