Prius Taxi report, 1 year 140,000 km

It has been 1 year since I purchased two 2008 Prius to be used as taxi's. If Toyota only knew how much advertising I do for them when a minimum 20 people a day ask about the hybrid and what I think of it, they would be giving me a new one every few years.
There is not a lot to report as far as mechanical problems with the cars. I had the replace a wheel bearing on the gray taxi recently which surprised me. The way some of my drivers like to bounce the wheels of off the curbs in the winter it shouldn't come as a surprise.
Black car had a ripped CV Boot recently. I found it comical how Toyota rates it as a 3.9 hour job to replace and my mechanic did it in 1 hour and 15 min. (I guess the Toyota mechanics don't have power tools)
Last August the Black car had a problem where the carpet on the passenger side was getting soaked. Toyota's mechanics could not find a leak in the air conditioning system so they blew the lines out and that seemed to work until this week when the carpets got wet again. Booked it in for next week to check to see if it is the same problem. Anyone here have that problem?
After I ate up the Turanza tires that came with the car in about 40,000 km I switched the 16 in aluminum rims to 15 in steel rims (my drivers would destroy the aluminum rims) and went with the Michelin x radial tires. They held up great as far as tread wear is concerned and roll nicely. I put the Michelin X ice 2 tires on for the winter and once again am very impressed with the tread wear.
Made the mistake of putting the universal rims on and they didn't hold up well- Picked up 8 rims from Toyota last week and will switch when the current tires are replaced.
Unfortunately both cars were in accidents . In November my Gray Prius was hit hard by someone on a cell phone running a red light (My driver should have seen her but that is another story)
The car was hit on the driver side front corner panel pretty hard.
It took 1 month and a $13,500 repair bill to fix. I still don't know why they didn't write it off.
About 6 weeks after getting the car back I had to replace the spiral wire $400 plus labour. I can only assume it was damaged in the accident and took a while to short out and confuse the Hybrid mechanic at Toyota.
The Black car t-boned someone who ran a stop sign. Had to replace the bumper, the grill and a headlight. I had put the bumper back together with the plastic pull ties and a few screws so the the car was drivable for work until we could get it in the body shop.. One of my drivers was backing up and caught the corner of the bumper on a guide wire and ripped it open to the point that it damaged a tank that holds antifreeze so that you still have heat when the motor is not running (can't remember the name of the tank) All I know is the tank was $1700 to replace and they wouldn't just sell the plastic part that was damaged, you had to buy the whole thing. Driver has since been fired for that and many other headaches he gave me after that.
Mechanics can hardly believe how the brake pads at 140,000 taxi km are still nowhere ready to be replaced.
The fuel bill for a year for my old taxi's was $35,000 and I have cut that in half (or more now with the lower price for gas). Between the fuel a maintinence savings, i am saving around $25,000 a year. Probably more because it is hard to factor how much the car makes when it is rarely on the hoist and is out earning money when the old cabs were on the hoist a lot.
I have recently had a problem with the black car where a few times when I fire the car up in the morning there is nothing showing on the dash (spedometer, gas guage etc.) If I run the taxi meter it does not register the distance it only registers the timer which runs when you are sitting idle with the meter running. I had to disconnect the negative connection on the battery and reconnect to solve the problem. It only happens when someone leaves something on that draws as little power like the printer.
Two of the other Prius taxi's had to have something called a speed head(or something like that) when they had similar problems.Both around 100,000 km. Hoping I am not getting the same problem as it is around $1,000 to fix. Anyone has any insight on this problem I would appreciate it.
Overall I am extremely happy with the two taxi's and am looking forward to replacing them in a few years when they hit 500,000 km
with the 2012-13 model. A couple owners in Vancouver claim to have run there Prius taxi's over 700,000 km.
I enjoy coming up to the Corrola taxi's and calling them gas guzzlers.
A few owners are running Chrysler 300's??????? I see them being towed all the time and I am sure they wouldn't be getting much more than 20 mpg.
Getting better at the pulse and glide but have had little luck getting my drivers to pulse and glide. I pay all the gas so they have little concern about fuel consumption.
We have 11 Prius on the 70 car fleet and the numbers are growing as everyone wises up. The two other companies in the city do not have any hybrids??? We have advertising on the back of each Prius that says "Saving the planet 1 customer at a time"

 

Matt-- In my business it makes too much sense to drive a hybrid. The drivers like riding in a brand new vehicle. The savings makes what was allready a profitable business a very profitable business. The owner of the Canadian Tire gas bar has jokingly downgraded me from a 5 star customer to a 3 star customer.

Sage-- being a Taxi is hard on the cars and that is why the Prius is so impressive. Now all I have to do is get drivers to quit hitting my taxi's and I will be happy.

 

Shawn-- Not sure but it happened last August and just recently. The air is used a lot of course in the cold winter and not much this time of year before the hot weather hits in June. I do have a couple drivers that have the air running and the window down quite often. (drives me nuts when I see that) I will search from some posts on the problem.

 

Thanks Shawn-- I will mention that to the mechanic when he looks at it next week. Be nice to figure it out so that it doesn't happen as often.
We are very humid being on Lake Ontario and dozens of lakes in the area. Have had to defog the windows early in the morning lately but only for 10 min or so.

 

Matt -- We do have some customers that request the Hybrid taxi's.
Several times people have walked by several cabs to get to mine because it is a hybrid.

Tideland-- it is hard to get drivers to respect your cars and I have a pretty good bunch of drivers. You should see the way some of the cars are driven.
I will check into the ratings for the Nokians. We get a fair bit of snow being at the east end of Lake Ontario. Putting 150,000 km a year on the cars and all the extra turning we do compared to the way someones personal car is driven tends to eat the tires up quicker so it is easy to go through a couple sets of tires a year.
I don't know if any all season tire can match up with a good winter tire and i am concerned about my drivers safety. Also with these cars sitting so low i figured I would need a good winter tire.

 

Matt- I will recoup my investment in the two Prius in 2 years or less because of the fuel and maintinence savings. The customers are surprised at how the leg room is much better than some so called bigger cars. People that call for a taxi and have 5 passengers are learning to request a large car and they are send a transmission eating money eating Impala or similar car.
I don't own the company so i can't speak for the other 50 cars other than knowing that we have less than 3 years before we are exempt from our idling bylaw so they will have little choice except to go hybrid
or freeze to death at -30. Cab companies usually have a few owners that have 10 or more cars and a few like me that have 1,2 or 3 cars etc.
As far a maintinence goes these cars are a real winner. The owner of the company keeps real close numbers and owns 7 Prius.
He said his cost per month for maintinence is $300 which is mostly oil changes, tires etc.
His cost per month for the Impalas he used to run (which I tried to talk him out of) was brutal, over $1500 per month which is not normal for most North american cabs. You could not keep transmissions in the Impalas.
Obviously he is very happy that he saw the light and went with the toyotas.
My cost per month for my Honda Civic and my Accord which were getting up around 300,000 km was around $800 a month so I am very happy with the savings. The true test will to see what happens when these prius get up around 350,000 km to see what the monthly cost. From what I heard from some Vancouver cabs is they are still extremely cheap for maintinence at that time.

 

Msantos-- i will have to read up on car chip units. When I am driving in the hot summer days I usually end up around 4.5 to 4.8 L/100 km for the shift. I have been as low as 4.1 on a sunday with very little traffic on the road and that was over 280 km.
In the winter I was running around 5.3 to 5.7/100 km. Lately with the warming up a bit i am getting down to 4.9 to 5.2/100 km

I have 1 driver that takes the challenge and matches my numbers but he is only 3 days a week. The other drivers don't even try to listen when I describe the pulse and glide. They are positive I want the to crawl around town at the speed limit.

I once took a shift where I drove the car real hard just to see what kind of number I would get. At the end of the shift I had used 6.5 L/100 km. I now check the drivers periodically to see what their consumption is knowing that if they are around 6 they are driving to hard. I caught one driver at 7.1 in July. I cleared the 7.1 and made him ride in the passenger side while I drove the shit out of the car for 15 min and showed him the 6.4--I then asked him how in the hell he managed to get 7.1. Didn't get much of an answer.

In this business you along with managing the zones smartly for extra income (a good driver will bring me in an extra $7,000 a year on just one shift compared to the guy that sits around and doesn't think) you also to make good time getting to the call so that you get booked in on the next zone sooner rather than later. Because of this I never expect the guys to be driving too easy. I have tried to communicate that they can pulse and glide at 20 km over the speed limit and save some money on gas.


As far as the body damages go I have 7 drivers between full and part time. I sometimes don't see a car and it is rare for a driver to admit to damaging a car.

as far as drivers paying for gas it has been tried by owners and there is a lot problems with it. One driver accuses another of not completely filling the tank etc.

I have told my drivers that if they get with the program and reduce their fuel consumption that I will give them a bigger xmas bonus.
That doesn't work either.

With the taxi's doing 150,000 km a year I have crunched the numbers and realize how much money would be saved if the cars are driven properly. Somehow I need to get the drivers to give a hoot and that is difficult when they have no vested interest in reducing the fuel cost. (Maybe I will promise them that they will make my wall of fame if they do get with the program! lol.)