Taxi Driver Online

I have just started out as a taxi driver, I have been doing it for just over two months. It is going ok but i am currently renting my car for £100 per week. This covers any non fault repairs and all other costs such as plating and tax. It still seems very expensive and is cutting in to my profits. I am working about 60 hours a week and i am taking on average about £500 p/w. with all my expenses i am not coming out with much profit. I am wondering whether it would be cheaper to buy my own car. I have been looking at a vauxhaul insignia or a ford mondeo for around £7000. They are about 3-4 years old and are relatively low mileage. I am currently paying £60 p/w for 3rd party insurance. I think it is so high because i am 27 with no taxi experience and no no claims discount and i had an accident 3 years ago. Would you recommend getting my own car? What are the average weekly running costs of a car excluding petrol and insurance? Would it still work out cheaper if i was paying £4000 for fully comp insurance? I am not neccessarily going to be a taxi driver long term. Maybe a year or two

i think you need to really go through your figures again

Go through my figures how

taking £500a week minus all your expenses cant possibly be worth it

can it.

Fully comp insurance is typically about £1500 a year. You're paying double that. I lease a brand new Skoda for less than £100 a week, so again you are paying too much. New I often cheaper, they're covered by warranty if things go wrong.

everyone who come into this business only see what come in, they rarely reckon on what goes out. You can work an awful lot of hours and drive a lot of mile for nothing. There's enough other threads on here about it.

mine was 1900 that was best quote i got and believe me i searched i do have 6 pts

oh and that was 3rd party

If you are not going to be at it for more than two years I suggest you carry on doing what you are doing i.e. renting.

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IDFIMH

well when i first started out i was looking at buying a car and the best fully comp quote i had was £4000. What insurance company do you use

do you know of any companies that i can lease a car from or that will allow me to pay it off. I was thinking of buying from a regular garage and getting finance

The good thing about renting a car is that you can drive relatively care-free - Every time I hear any sort of noise coming from my car I start to worry about potential £££ that I'll need to be spending on repairs. You can just take yours in to be fixed and someone else can worry about the bill.

Sadly whichever way you look at it, the outgoings in this trade are huge @ £300 per week on average before making a bean for yourself. I have found that it's swings and roundabouts - you can pay a hefty sum to rent a new car, and not worry about outgoings. If you are buying a 4 year old vehicle then it WILL require repairs at some stage as you will be driving a lot of miles, it's when these repairs are factored in that the average outgoings start to equal out.

I am an owner driver, however I obtained my vehicle cheaply so regardless of repair costs it's still cheaper for me than leasing. However, I'm not sure I will continue in the trade when the time comes that i have to look at changing cars.

i understand that it is good to rent a car as it covers repairs but i just can't see that owning my own car would cost me anything close to £100 p/w?

Unless u have a few k lying around then finance or loan to buy a car will be a anything from 50+ dependent on terms etc. Then repairs, maintenance and plates etc i always budget 30 per week for.

Like I said, I lease a new Skoda Octavia from Amber Vehicle Solutions for under £350 a month, £87.50 a week.

OK, I've jut run some figures through my calculation spreadsheet based on what you've told us. I can only assume your mileage per year, say 35,000. The cost of running the rented car will be around £18,000 per year, that is including rental, licences, insurance cleaning badge etc. and fuel, assuming around 30mpg. That is £346 a week before you earn a penny for yourself. At an average of 18mph, you will drive for 37 hours a week, and I mean DRIVE, not sitting round waiting for a fare. If you're in town and the average speed is down to 12mph, you will have to DRIVE for 56 hours a week just to pay the same rental costs.

If your car does 50mpg, that will reduce the annual fuel bill by about £2500, or £48 a week.

So, if you want to earn minimum wage, at 37 hours a week, you'll have to earn an additional £260 a week to do that at the 18mph speed, total to take is £606 a week. At the average 12mph speed, you'll have to earn an additional £392 a week, total £738 a week. I haven't included the "waiting around for the next fare" time a "working" either!

Luckily I operate in a fairly rural location where the average speed is 23mph, so have to drive less hours to earn the same as a city driver averaging 12mph! You have to weigh up whether it's worth spending £346 a week to earn £260 a week?

To answer the original question, on the basic overheads of renting from the base to leasing a new car, the cost would be around £80 a week less to lease a car, saving nearly £5k a year, and for that you'd have a shiny new reliable(?) car. Or 12 hours a week less you have to work to pay the boss to use his car.