Ford hunts new gears after supplier failure

[Rob]

I take heart in the fact that my uncles' 800,000KM EL ex taxi still drives fairly well.. it's a shining endorsement of the strength and reliability of the Falcon.

I was in a BA Fairlane taxi recently, had 560k on the clock, was still quite tight and tidy.

[naddis01]

Originally Posted by Mr Hardware

What naddis01 said. It goes a little something like this:
A taxi can be kept in QLD until it is 6. You'll get a few thousand for a respectable ex cab, ie something with 'only' 600k on the clock that can be painted back to it's original colour.

If you buy a taxi pack, there's no original colour to go back to, it's already yellow. Why spend $30k for something that will net you $3k in 6 years time when you can buy 2xsecondhand cars over that 6 years (3 years each) for only $14k each and still sell them for $3k each?
Ie total outlay for a dedicated is $30k - $3k residual =$27k for a terrible car at the end
Alternate is 2x$14k - 2x$3k residual = $22k and you've got two half decent cars at the end

Taxi operators also know that taxis do about 170k's a year, and falcons are pretty worn out past about 700k-odd. Much nicer to have two secondhand falcons than one worn out dedicated taxi. And cheaper too.

LTDTerri is right too, if it weren't for the taxis there's no way i would have bought my falcons.

So they still want dedicated taxis, just not new ones.

[EgoFalcon]

Hi everyone, The ION 6 speed would of never gone into the falcon because it was too small, my dad was one of the engineers who designed it and it had too little torque capacity aswell and ION was bought out by a chinese company called CHERY and don't get your hopes up about having either 5 or 6 spd gas, very very unlikely. The 5 spd auto is made by Ford in France.

[vztrt]

DSI (as well as others) my export components for Chinese cars.

http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mell...2575F600261E84