taxi

I've been driving a taxi again for a month. In Jefferson and Orleans parish's. I get a pretty junky car being the new guy. I am stuck with a big diesel pickup out front, making payments and full insurance. A 1999 F250 powerstroke. Been trying to sell it for a year, never lowering the price fast enough. So, now I am thinking of trading it in for something to use as a taxi. First I was thinking of a Grand Marquis/Crown Vic, the most widely used taxi. Strong and reliable. Enterprise car sales has one year old rentals for $14K or so. There is the Caravan/Town & Country as well, which hauls more people but gets worse fuel economy. The big Ford/Mercury gets amazingly good mileage for such a large car. They've been perfecting it for 30 years.

I just started thinking of getting a Ford Escape Hybrid instead of a large car/van. Enterprise has one available. There are a couple newspaper articles about using an Escape hybrid as a taxi in San Francisco and New York. One San Fran driver is quoted as being happy with the fuel cost savings and saying he had 120,000 miles on it with no trouble. Ok, how about at 300,000 miles? The Crown Vic Police Interceptor does that with no problem. I cannot find anything written by an actual driver of an Escape hybrid.