In my part of the world at least (Central Canada), rarely have I seen either taxi cabs or police vehicles with hubcabs on. Any particular reason for this?
Most NYC cabs I’ve seen also lack hubcaps. The cabbies probably see them as unnecessary and thus don’t pay for them. And they’d have to clean them when they got dirty–extra labor for no real gain.
One reason could be theft. I guess some guys get a rush steeling wheel covers off squad cars. Rather than end up having a squad with an odd number of caps, they may just forego putting them on in the first place.
WE don’t have wheel covers on our squad cars because they always fly off at high speeds when taking a curve or rounding a corner. And you can’t stop and pick them up because the whole reason your speeding is because you’re on an emergency run. Back in the early 90’s (92ish I believe) Chevy had a squad package and the caps flew off all the time, regardless of speed. It’s embarrassing as hell to whip around a corner and hear BLING!BLING,BLING,BLING BLING!! as the cap flys’ off and bounces down the street. To tell you the truth, I’ve never had a cap come off on the Ford Crown Vics, only the Chevy squads.
I have no idea if these are the same reasons taxis don’t have hubcaps.
Pk, my first thought was theft. Which could be understandable when it comes to taxi cabs. But if I were a thief, I’d probably think twice before I stole the hubcaps of a squad car.
Iwakura, you bring up good points. And, to be honest, if I were a cab driver in New York City, I’d certainly think about it twice too…(especially the possibility of having them stolen)
I had always assumed it was so that the car looked like a police car. Or to lower the price of the vehicle, since the automakers do they ridiculously big “500 cars for this price” quotes on squad vehicles.
Heh…with the potholes in NYC, hubcaps are just a car part begging to come off. On the street where my daughter once lived, the locals would fill up the potholes with, guess what…stray hubcaps.
Which is evidence that you’re not a thief! 'Cause you wouldn’t believe what some people are willing to steal, even from the cops. We’ve had entire light bars stolen off squad cars. We even had an unmarked car stolen. About 4 years ago I was called into the station to take a theft report from a guy who had his car broken into. When he was leaving the station, HE TRIED WALKING OFF WITH MY FLASHLIGHT:eek::mad:, which had been sitting on the duty officer desk!
People are nucking futs in this world!
There might be something to the pothole hypothesis, but we’ve got potholes here and the cabs and cop cars usually have their hubcaps. The cop cars are almost all Crown Vics, if that’s any help. And a lot of the cabbies have custom alloy wheels on their chariots.
I owned and operated a cab for a few years, and never lost a hubcap. It had been a police car, and came with the standard, for the time, dog-dish hubcaps. It’s hard for me to imagine someone bothering to steal dog-dish hubcaps (unless, perhaps, they had an uncontrollable frisbee habit).
Fleet automobiles sometimes do experience a rougher life than a personal ride might, including, besides potholes, many more removals and reattachments of their wheels. The hubcaps may be considered a hindrance by fleet mechanics, or might just be considered extraneous, as they are not necessary for the automobile to function.
One thing I haven’t considered, which I suppose might be a factor, is that your weather is different.
Most police cars in my area have small caps in the middle of the hub which will not come off at high speeds. More pratical than the full hubcab and it looks better than no hubcap. Let me second what was said before. Full hubcaps are not on cop cars because they come off when taking corners hard. I have had several hubcaps become spinning discs of deathtm when I went fast around a corner.
Is it perhaps in anticipation of high-speed pursuit? - if the hubcaps were to come off at speed (which seems to happen a fair bit), they could injure a bystander (=lawsuit!).
I have a solution to the hubcaps-flying-off-at-high-speed issue.
Some bling-bling rimzzz, yo.
I always thought those were to protect the lug nuts so if you needed to change the tire at some point, they wouldn’t be as rusted as they might otherwise be.
WE have (almost) a winner here. If you look at a late model Crown Vic the wheels will come one of two ways, either as a black painted steel wheel with a crome center hub cap (in all respects of the word, it just covers the hub) like this or with alloy wheels and a center hub cap like this car
In both cases, cost is a factor. Full wheel covers cost money and give no benefit. Aluminum wheels do give a handling advantage (lower unsprung weight) but at a slight cost. So if a dept wants the cheapest patrol car, steel wheels, if they want the best performing one, alloy wheels.
I think we’ve settled the police car issue, but the taxi cab one remains something of a minor mystery to me. I always thought that hubcaps ‘came with the car’, not that they were to be considered as optional equipment (hence, not an additional expenditure)…
About one third of the cabs in NYC were formerly police cars.
Think about that, the cops beat the crap out of them, sell them to the cab company that repaints and refits them (hacks them) then you pay big money to ride around in them. Not only that but the driver is some crazy foreigner that learned to drive someplace that had no rules of the road.
So at least a third of the cabs are put into service with no hubcaps and the thieves and the potholes take a bunch of them. The rest, the cabbie that rented the car sold the remaining hubcaps to a parts place or traded them for gasoline.
Viola! No hubcaps!
As a former NYC cop, I can tell you that the dept. is going to smaller wheel covers on all it’s cars. The Impala has really small bowties in the center of the rim, which never come off. I have watched my wheel covers pass me when I took a turn and I’ve also cracked a few rims on Harlem streets.
As for cabs, you’ve gotta realize that they are usually all Ford Crown Vics, and when junk yards need more covers, they put the “order” in. Not from Ford, but to the neighborhood kids who steal them when drivers are using the bathroom or getting eats. Now that driver comes out and sees his wheel covers missing and goes to the junkyard and get replacements that could very well be his. A vicious cycle I tell 'ya.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a viola or any other member of the string section with hubcaps. No woodwinds with hubcaps, either. Kinda redundant in the brass section, dontcha think? :dubious:
Do old Crown Vics have the same covers as old Mercury Sables? Just wondering, since some moron stole two of them off my car in the parking lot at work (Family Court), which, coincidentally or not, is frequented by many grungy cabs (and cabbies).
Hubcap thieves and taxi drivers tend to be a rather cultured group. Haven’t you heard those stories about Stradivarious being found in a taxi? What makes you think a paying customer left it?
If you are the principal driver of your car, instead of buying two new caps, put the remaining two caps on the drivers side. You’ll never get in on the passenger side, so, out of sight, out of mind.