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Bloody Stupid Collection - Cancelled as Too Shite


Saabnut

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And yes, AS is to blame.

As a result of a thread on here, I may* have bought another car. So far, I know no details except it has covered somewhere between 200k and 300k miles. I have not even seen a picture of the car in question. I have spoken to the seller (seems a nice bloke) and the car is approximately 600 miles away.

Tomorrow, I am despatching my brother on a train to go and look, and almost certainly buy it for me, where I will tax it and insure it so he can drive it home. He then gets the pleasure* of driving it up to me. What could possibly go wrong?

This surely counts as social distancing with a gap of 600 miles, so sure no rules are being broken!

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37 minutes ago, sutty2006 said:

So glad you took the FX4s feelings into consideration when you considered your next purchase. Hope they get on well. 

Even better if they breed! 

 

Good luck Saabnut, hope it turns out well.  600 miles in a TX2 is surely going to win your brother some sort of 'badge of honour'. Possibly from the asylum, if not certainly from AS.

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In true Saabnut fashion, having basically agreed to buy one and organised my brother to do the deed, I have just looked at his advert again and they are not actually TX2s. They are in fact TX4s which pleases me mightily as it will go better with the FX4. Sad, I know.

When I spoke to my brother earlier, before I gave him the details, I started with the question "What was the worst delivery run you have ever done for me?". His instant response was "The Taxi" which made me grin and him worry. I think he is regretting telling me he was bored......

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Well, this is the weirdest collection I have ever done! Spoke to my brother just before he left home and he has spoken to the seller who has a choice of 8. Rob should be on a train/or tube across that there larndarn and he will give me a call on facetime or whatever it is called once he has had a look around and narrowed it down a bit!

Collection from my sofa, I could get used to this, time for a brew! 

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  • Saabnut changed the title to Bloody Stupid Collection - Cancelled as Too Shite

Sadly it is not to be. Brother inspected the 8, one had no keys!!, of the remaining the older ones had rust or damage and the newer ones had engine problems.  He did not rate the chances of any with a decent body making it to his, never mind to mine!

Information gleaned is that the big clear out is not to do with ULEZ but Covid! These have all been hired out to drivers, but as no one is going to work, no one is taking a taxi, so the self employed drivers have cancelled the lease and returned the cabs. My seller agreed to let my brother know if another batch comes in with one in better condition, but I am not holding my breath.

Shame really, I was looking forward to having a cab again, so I guess I will have to pull my finger out and get on with recommissioning my FX4.

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6 hours ago, big_al_granvia said:

basically they have been thrashed into the ground and are goosed

...and are probably on their way to Belfast shortly, the final stop for terminally fucked ex-London taxis held together only by their advertising wraps... (no upper age limits, or specific emissions requirements, plus some highly questionable licencing practices - plenty of unbelievably rotten TX1s on R and S plates still doing the rounds).

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39 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

...and are probably on their way to Belfast shortly, the final stop for terminally fucked ex-London taxis held together only by their advertising wraps... (no upper age limits, or specific emissions requirements, plus some highly questionable licencing practices - plenty of unbelievably rotten TX1s on R and S plates still doing the rounds).

When I first turned up in NI in 1998 I was amazed at just how knackered black cabs here were. So much so, I went in one just to quiz the driver about the history. Obviously I didn't state this was my intention. For the uninitiated, they start their life in London followed by either somewhere like Manchester or Glasgow only finally rocking up in Belfast. By this point they are quite literally are falling to bits. Are they actually legal?

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1 hour ago, The_Equalizer said:

Are they actually legal?

Erm... on paper, yes.

In reality... well, the story goes that one of them is legal. But it never carries any passengers, since it spends all day driving up and down to the PSV test centre on the Boucher Rd, wearing the plates from the other taxis. Ring-a-ding-ding.

According to a colleague who formerly worked in the taxi licensing section, the hackney trade in Belfast is rather over-represented by gentlemen who - how shall we put it - are able to add a certain lively first-hand knowledge when conducting tours of 'Troubles Sites' for tourists. The West Belfast Taxi Association, the body which operates black cabs and their drivers in the city, also enjoys remarkable latitude in terms of self-regulation, such as securing an agreement for no upper age limit on cabs, which I'm sure is in no way linked to their knowledge of where licensing officials live, and where their kids go to school...

Every now and then the police do carry out a sweep to weed out the most flagrantly unroadworthy cabs. According to one (possibly apocryphal) tale, PSNI officers stopped three taxis at the bottom of Donegall Pass one Saturday night - and the drivers just ran off, abandoning their cabs and bemused passengers. Cursory checks revealed the licencing plates didn't match the number plates, and the number plates didn't match the chassis numbers... while the names and addresses of the registered keepers didn't exist...

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5 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Erm... on paper, yes.

In reality... well, the story goes that one of them is legal. But it never carries any passengers, since it spends all day driving up and down to the PSV test centre on the Boucher Rd, wearing the plates from the other taxis. Ring-a-ding-ding.

According to a colleague who formerly worked in the taxi licensing section, the hackney trade in Belfast is rather over-represented by gentlemen who - how shall we put it - are able to add a certain lively first-hand knowledge when conducting tours of 'Troubles Sites' for tourists. The West Belfast Taxi Association, the body which operates black cabs and their drivers in the city, also enjoys remarkable latitude in terms of self-regulation, such as securing an agreement for no upper age limit on cabs, which I'm sure is in no way linked to their knowledge of where licensing officials live, and where their kids go to school...

Every now and then the police do carry out a sweep to weed out the most flagrantly unroadworthy cabs. According to one (possibly apocryphal) tale, PSNI officers stopped three taxis at the bottom of Donegall Pass one Saturday night - and the drivers just ran off, abandoning their cabs and bemused passengers. Cursory checks revealed the licencing plates didn't match the number plates, and the number plates didn't match the chassis numbers... while the names and addresses of the registered keepers didn't exist...

Cheers for the extra info. To say I am completely surprised would be a fib, but that's blatant. The quickest of Googling filled in the gaps. They were/are proper sheds. Haven't looked too closely these days as there is no call to go to that part of town. 

Did like the story of abandoned cabs.

Again back in 1998 when I was studying there was a lovely chap from Bray. His appearance, being tall, stocky and rough looking was at total odds with the man himself who was gentle and very intelligent. Anyway, his Mum had come to visit him so he thought he would take her on a black cab tour of Belfast. The driver must have either had a very good evening or, more likely, a very good morning and obviously wasn't in the mood to work. The most memorable bit of the tour was going past St. George's Market where the drive said, "This is St. George's Market. They sell fish, meat, peas, carrots, turnips, onions, runner beans, apples, pears ..." Supposedly he got a good five minutes out of this and repeated large chunks several times.

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