Shabby private hire taxis

I live in London and my local minicab service cars are spotless and most are almost new. It was not like this 20 years ago, they have had to pull their socks up to get and keep the trade.

Being in London I agree with Riverwalk and have used Uber many times and never had any issues.

London Black Taxis are always in top condition and the days of tatty mini-cabs are long over - some of them used to be awful!

I used Uber for the first time on Xmas day - good experience all round.

P.S. There's no waiting outside your home either as they do a " call-back " service when they're outside your house, then after shopping, carry your bags to the door.

I've never found a shabby taxi yet here where I live. It's such an excellent service with mostly new cars which also smell new and fresh. Helpful and courteous drivers, what more do we want ? It's also a popular and heavily used service in the area.

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I'm not sure how you define a minicab as apposed to a taxi. Round here there is one main firm that has a fleet of about 20 cabs but also a few owner/drivers. They are all clean but sometimes show signs of ware such as saggy seats.

Taxis around here are always lovely and clean. When we went to New York a few years ago, one of the things I was looking forward to was getting into a yellow cab, perhaps with an Al Pacino type character driving Our first cab was from the airport and it was filthy. The driver had his dinner laid out on the front seat and there were wrappers and bottles of all descriptions in the cab. The driver couldn't find our hotel as he couldn't speak much English.

It must vary in different areas. We don't have taxis as such, just minicabs, which used to be mostly very scruffy but in recent years they've been mostly pretty decent.

Maybe it's different around the country but we've had occasion to use cabs for hospital apps in the last 6mths and they've all been clean and well kept inside and out. Maybe trying a different firm would make a difference.