UK car hire/lease?

[Kelpie]

For those of you who come back to the UK for a few months each year, what do you find is the best way of accessing a vehicle? I'm thinking that it makes little sense to keep a car in storage whilst cruising, due to depreciation, and the hassle of organising/cancelling insurance and tax, or getting it through an MoT if that falls when we aren't in the country.
Obviously normal car hire would be too expensive for the sort of length of time we are talking about (thinking maybe Carribbean hurricane season, so about five months).
Is there something inbetween- a sort of longer term hire or lease agreement, that makes more sense than continuing to own a car?

 

[colind3782]

Buy a cheapie, get good breakdown cover, then sell it when you leave.

 

[duncan99210]

Do a search on long term car hire and you’ll get a range of options. Europcar for example http://longterm.europcar.co.uk/ascot/europcar-long-term-car-rental-in-ascot/

 

[Kelpie]

Buy a cheapie, get good breakdown cover, then sell it when you leave.

That's my first thought, but you have the hassle of finding the car, organising pickup, tax, insurance, crossing your fingers that it's not a lemon, and then you need to get rid of it at the end

The attraction of leasing/hiring is that you could pickup from wherever you have flown in to, and drop it off there again at the end, without wasting any time. When you live somewhat out in the sticks like I do that's a big bonus.

 

[Kelpie]

Do a search on long term car hire and you’ll get a range of options. Europcar for example http://longterm.europcar.co.uk/ascot/europcar-long-term-car-rental-in-ascot/

Thanks for the link. Seems like for shorter stays of maybe three months this might be a good option, but for longer periods it really starts to add up. I'll have a look for cheaper options along the same vein.

 

[Bobc]

You could buy a classic car that doesn't need tax or an MOT, will cost you £100/yr for limited mileage insurance, and will appreciate in value while you're away.

Old Merc or BMW maybe? XJ6? Jensen Interceptor? Lots of interesting options.

 

[Kelpie]

You could buy a classic car that doesn't need tax or an MOT, will cost you £100/yr for limited mileage insurance, and will appreciate in value while you're away.

Old Merc or BMW maybe? XJ6? Jensen Interceptor? Lots of interesting options.

Quite an interesting idea. Does need storage though.
I suppose the ideal arrangement might be to get the use of a friend or family member's car- short term hire is looking quite pricey.

 

[Tranona]

short term hire is looking quite pricey.

Not surprising when the depreciation on even a modest newish car is more than £1k in 6 months plus the return on capital, tax, insurance, breakdown cover etc.

Probably best to find a simple modest car in middle age so it has 5-10 years life left in it, and store it under cover on blocks with a trickle charger on the battery and handbrake off. Alternatively if starting from now and thinking ahead buy a 2 year old car that has taken it first 40%+ whack of depreciation and look after it so you will get a minimum of 10 year's life. In the last 22 years I have had only 3 cars, all bought new and run up to 90K miles each. My current car is 14 years old, 91k miles and this week passed its MOT with no work. Totally reliable and probably OK for another 3 or 4 years.

 

[BobnLesley]

...buy a classic car that doesn't need tax or an MOT, will cost you £100/yr for limited mileage insurance....

That sounded a good idea until Lesley reminded me that we have a motorbike sat at home which we rarely dig out during the 4-6 weeks we're back: Aside from the paperwork side of it, there's the task of getting the thing up and running again (fading battery/sticking brake-pads, cables, wheel bearings and the like) which costs a couple of days; even worse was at the end of teach visit in the cleaning/servicing/laying-up which took even longer. Additionally, our home base isn't well placed for international airports, so there's thecost of getting from/back to the airport.

In recent years we've used Rentalcars.com - usually less than £10/day, in conjunction with an annual hire car excess insurance - about £50-60 last year. We've found that Rentalcars are good/easy to deal with, substantially cheaper than anyone else and have invariably given us a bigger/fancier car than that which we've booked/paid for. Of the two down-sides to using them the biggest pain is that their airport service desks aren't 24 hour - we once got caught out by a delayed flight - and they have a mileage restriction (90 miles/day IIRC?) and a heavy extra miles charge, so not good for short trips back, but over a month or so the days we don't go far/anywhere balance it out OK; I think just once we were something like twenty miles over the limit.

 

[Sea Devil]

During my cruising years I loaned my car FOC to my nephew. I paid road tax and insurance with him as a named driver.

He got a better car to use than his own and whenever I came back for a while I had a car that was used on a regular basis and looked after. Worked well for us both.

 

[temptress]

That's my first thought, but you have the hassle of finding the car, organising pickup, tax, insurance, crossing your fingers that it's not a lemon, and then you need to get rid of it at the end

The attraction of leasing/hiring is that you could pickup from wherever you have flown in to, and drop it off there again at the end, without wasting any time. When you live somewhat out in the sticks like I do that's a big bonus.

Convenience comes at a cost.

 

[PhilipH]

We have faced the same issue over the last nine years. At first we loaned our daughter the family car while we were away and commandeered it on return, but after a couple of times doing this we decided it was a bit mean and just gave her the car. Since then we have used buses, trains, taxis and occasionally hired a car for a few days or a week or so. One of us has free bus pass and we buy the annual rail card for discounts. We have thought about the cheap car buy option but it is just more stuff to have to deal with. In terms of cost we believe our regime has been much more cost effective than owning a car. Since we are time-rich but comparatively money-poor, public transport works well and there are no encounters with road rage sufferers.
Enterprise run a car club where you pay an annual fee and for actual usage. In some places the cars are located conveniently (one just round the corner from our flat) and you get access codes when you book it. We have not done the sums but it looks like a good option and has the environmental impact benefit of car sharing (which incidentally has to be the way ahead).

 

[Polinon]

Yes, in fact, you can find out everything on the Internet how you will do it right. I am sure that they will help you to solve your problem.

 

[Mistroma]

I wonder if later posts from person posting #13 might possibly include links to adverts for something or other as it was an odd first post.

Going back to the OP's query, I had similar thoughts a couple of years ago. I also decided that short lease or long term hire would be a rather expensive solution. I stuck with my old diesel car which still has negligible mileage as it spends 6-7 months blocked up every year. Public transport isn't viable as local trips would take up most of the day.

 

[Polinon]

I wonder if later posts from person posting #13 might possibly include links to adverts for something or other as it was an odd first post.

Going back to the OP's query, I had similar thoughts a couple of years ago. I also decided that short lease or long term hire would be a rather expensive solution. I stuck with my old diesel car which still has negligible mileage as it spends 6-7 months blocked up every year. Public transport isn't viable as local trips would take up most of the day.

Yep. For sure I wanna post there links)

 

[Graham376]

Our 12 year old diesel Focus isn't going to depreciate any more so, I just lock it up in the garage with battery disconnected and it starts first turn after 6 months or more. Tax (SORN when away) plus annual insurance and MOT cost around £300, I do my own servicing so, far cheaper than hiring.