Car reliability: a conversation with a taxi driver

[woolybanana]

Went to get my car back on Monday, in a taxi, insurance paying, dogs and all. It was a faulty injector, replaced under guarantee, by the way.

Anyway, chatting with the taxi driver, it transpired that he transports large numbers of people whose cars have broken down (up to 12 a day, he said).

So, which were the most breakdown prone these days? In order of frequency, VW, Audi, (new) Volvo, BMW. He has had very few Kias or Skodas and NO Dacias. French makes come somewhere in the middle.

Just a thought for those perhaps thinking of buying a car.

[NickP]

Sounds to me like typical French wishful thinking and propoganda. No Skodas? the Skodia is just a rebadged VW. as for the Dacia your 'aving a giraffe 

[woolybanana]

He did make the point that the problems were mainly with electronics and that new cars were rushed to market without these being tested adequately. Skoda does not use such advanced systems.

Dacia uses Renault parts from a couple of years ago, so they have probably got the bugs out of them too.

I doubt he was beng terribly pro-French though.

Tons of Dusters in the PdeC and I have yet to see one broken down.

[nomoss]

Maybe people with down-market cars can't afford assistance insurance or taxis[6]

[Gardengirl]

My niece has had a Dacia for about 5 years, no bills for repairs yet.

The Toyota Prius Hybrid is popular with drivers generally in our part of the Gard, several French friends amongst them, and many taxi drivers have them in our area in UK. We've just changed from a Prius, which was very economical as well as comfortable, for a Toyota Yaris hybrid.

[Théière]

Hi Garden girl, out of interest what kind of economical on a run say motorway with a bit of luggage in please?

[AnOther]

[quote user="woolybanana"]He did make the point that the problems were mainly with electronics and that new cars were rushed to market without these being tested adequately. Skoda does not use such advanced systems[/quote]As a taxi drive he of course has all the requisite qualifications to make such observations [blink].

[mint]

[quote user="Gardengirl "]My niece has had a Dacia for about 5 years, no bills for repairs yet.

The Toyota Prius Hybrid is popular with drivers generally in our part of the Gard, several French friends amongst them, and many taxi drivers have them in our area in UK. We've just changed from a Prius, which was very economical as well as comfortable, for a Toyota Yaris hybrid.[/quote]

GG, I'd go a bit further and say that any of the "oriental" cars seem super reliable.

We have had Toyotas, Hyundais and Mazdas.............don't even know what it's like to put a key in the ignition and for the car not to start first off.

Some of the cars had original batteries in excess of 10 years before needing changing.

I had a Toyota Carina that I ran almost to the ground, then I sold it to a teacher who, after driving it past the 200k MILES mark, sold it on to someone else and 3 years later, he still noticed the car going around happily on the roads.

That's not exceptional, we still have my car, a Hyundai, that I drove out here to France in 2007 when it was a mere 7-year old and it's now the "dog's" car for taking her out twice a day in.  We also have a 13-year old Mazda, bought from someone here from the Forum and that is also going OK though the ABS system is perhaps faulty because the dash lights up saying there is a problem with the ABS but it passes the CT and we may not bother to have it fixed because I think OH is going to stop driving quite soon.

[woolybanana]

AnOther, he was going by the types of car that he had to depanne (ie pick up the drivers and passengers and take them somewhere) and what he was told when they were being driven to garages to pick the cars up after repair.

Given that there are no real statistics as to vehicle reliability and that the manufacturers certainly woudn't say, I report merely an interesting conversation of no scientific validity, except that of observation.

I for example have noticed that the vehicles broken down on the motorway frequently seem to be Peugeots, which is merely an observation, but it might influence my judgement if I were looking for a car.

(Actually the guy was from the region and told me loadsa stuff about various buildings, villages, forests etc as we drove along, so it was a decent little drive. As he had been a computer engineer until seven years ago, he was not a fool either!)

[andyh4]

Even without the possibility of bias, the statement of which cars broke down the most as your taxi driver has presented them are totally meaningless.

To try and explain why, I take a work example where a customer complained that on transforming our product he got nearly 50% more rejects than using our competitors material. That of course sounded pretty bad for our product - until it was pointed out that we supplied 80% of his needs and the competitor only 20% - so rather than being worse we were actually much better.

Without knowing the distribution of makes - and to be fair the ages of the cars as well - in your area, you cannot draw any sensible conclusion.

Again as an example, if people buy new Dacias because they are cheap, second hand (one careful owner)Renault/Pergeot and Citroen because that brings their price down to about the cost of a Dacia new; and rather/very old German cars because that is all they can afford, you might well expect the result as stated even if there were an overall even distribution of sales of all of these makes.

[PaulT]

I dare say that taxi driver is now saying to all his passengers:

'You'll never guess who I had in the back of my taxi the other day, none other than WB' :)

[woolybanana]

We Bananas have never been known to take a back seat, thank you very much. Front is much better for interaction.

[Gardengirl]

[quote user="Théière"]Hi Garden girl, out of interest what kind of economical on a run say motorway with a bit of luggage in please?[/quote]

Total average in the Prius over 6 years was 65mpg; lower in winter, higher in summer, covering long motorway journeys with the car full of luggage for our apartment and short around town runs.

[Harnser]

That reported 65 average mpg for a Prius is exceptional.

The actual reported by owners mpg for Prius's are:-

2003 -2009 = 54.1 avg

2009-2016 = 58.7 avg

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/toyota/prius-2003

How do you explain your unusually economical consumption?