Hi, I'm a Hk taxi owner/Driver previous driven for Comfort in
Singapore 4 years ago (returned to live in HK). In Hk, almost all
taxis are Toyota Crown Comfort LPG 85hp with a few Nissan Cedric
(Used to be 60% toyota, 40% nissan) but now is like 98% toyota.
This is because the dealer of Toyota HK have good service and cheap
parts for toyota taxi to keep the toyota taxi on the road, as most
of the toyota crown LPG have average life span of 6 years (the
eariler version are being trade in and replaced with new once) and
nissan have like 3 years (this is because the NA20P engine have
problems, expensive parts, and poor service of Nissan dealer that
cost drivers to turn away from toyota) I was once a Nissan Cedric
LPG owner (2000) but since traded in the cab for a Toyota (@ 2004)
the nissan was scrapped...I agree that Nissan have better body
strength then Toyota, but as a cabbie and owner, I look at running
cost, and the maintainence cost of Crown LPG is 35% lower then
nissan.
BTW: there are still 10 Diesel Toyota on the road, most Diesel
Crown Comfort have been scrapped (with some less then 1 year) by
2003. because Government gave $60,000 (about $ 12,000 SP) for
replacing Diesel to LPG cabs.
Also, some people said the cab engine sound of HK cab is different
because they used LPG, also, 99% of them are AUTO, something I
think Singapore cabbie company should look into for Crown and
Cedric. And the seating is different too, we uses bench seats for
front seats, therefore all taxis are column shift rather then floor
shift, that's why the cab in hk can carry 5 passengers. And if you
see a Cedric cab in HK, take a pic la, as Nissan stop selling them
last year and soon they will be gone (the newer onces are a more
luxtry version compare to the singapore version, as have colour
coded bumper and seden version dash, and alloy wheels)
