Am I asking the impossible to be hired the biggest none-people carrier type car at age 20?
I only want one for a weekend.
Any ideas?
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Yes, enterprise did this for a 19yo I know but she had to pay £1500 on credit card and it got refunded when she returned the car.
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Ha ha ha. Fifteen hundred quid?!
I think I'll try and get insured on Dad's instead! How easy is naming myself on his insurance for the weekend or does it differ from company to company?
Thanks
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>>the biggest none-people carrier type car>>
Pardon my ignorance Adam, but what's a non-people carrier type car?
Do you mean a Transit or similar?
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Sorry - I meant to say the biggest car I could get before hitting MPV's.
E.g. - A Mondeo/Vectra Estate etc.
Although thinking about it, insuring myself on Dad's for the weekend seems more plausible. The boot is massive.
Any suggestions for either much appreciated.
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PS
The hire company provides the insurance cover, you have to have a valid driving licence as well as perhaps needing to be a certain age or above.
The £1,500 example mentioned will be the insurance cover's excess (perhaps based on the hirer's age).
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I just can't afford that. And even if I could, there's no way I'd pay it having read what damage hire companies try and say you did.
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Stretch limo complete with pole dancer.
I think the cost could be a lot more than hiring a taxi or two when you need it over the course of the weekend
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>>having read what damage hire companies try and say you did.>>
I've hired many a vehicle, many of them brand new (hire companies tend to change vehicles regularly, hence the nearly new offerings at auctions and in used car showrooms) and never had any suggestion that a returned hire car or van has been damaged in any way.
Try the smaller hire companies such as Thrifty which offer similar choices to the better known names but charge less.
There used to be a company called Practical which hired out vehicles that were a little older (perhaps a year or more) which also enabled hire charges to be kept down. But I don't know if it still exists. Will have a hunt.
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Practical still exists. See:
www.practical.co.uk/
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Enterprise also let my daughter (22) drive the hire car - Grand Scenic - I had using my insurance rather than theirs, as she was a named driver on my policy.
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Thanks for all the help.
Enterprise won't hire. I could try going in and trying my luck.
Just seen the Practical site Stuart and it looks like I'll need to ring up. No bad thing.
Just tried Thrifty. Was looking promising until;
21-22 year olds may rent small vehicles, only if the renter:
Has never been prosecuted for any endorsed traffic offence
Has a minimum of 24 months driving experience (please refer carefully to your driving licence)
Isn't a student. We cannot rent to full time students. This also applies to students even if they are in part time employment or undertaking a period of employment as part of their course.
Swines.
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Adam - talk to the student union. They should be able to point you in the right direction. It is possible, because we hire vans for club trips and I know I'm insured to drive them at age 20.
Failing that, I've been able to get a month of cover as a named driver in my dad's car for 30 quid. He's with Norwich Union. Took about 5 minutes on the phone with them.
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Adam, another avenue worth trying is to skip the big-brand rental companies and try the little local ones you can find in your Yellow Pages.
There are two small hire companies near me, who are all I ever touch if I need to hire.
One is a farmer who has four basic 3yo Puntos, which he hires out at about 60% of the price charged by the big brands. He stores them in his spare barn, and runs it all as a sideline in between tending his sheep. He's charming, and it's a pleasure to do business with him.
The other is a garage which keeps a fleet of about a dozen assorted cars and a similar number of vans, all at about half the price charged by Avis/Hertz/Budget etc. One of my favourites from their fleet is an M-reg Mondeo estate with an intergalactic mileage, which still drives very nicely. Perhaps because of the aged fleet, they are much less anal to deal with than the big companies.
Your Yellow Pages should offer similar choices in your area, and you can talk to a real person rather than an automaton with a script.
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What do you need it for anyway Adam? you trying to impress folks at the NW meet with you 'new' car?
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Adam i'm afraid in my company (i work for) too you simply are unable to hire a vehicle until you are 23 at least. Acriss code LDAR (Mercedes E,S, etc) you need to be 30.
You seem a very sensible young man but all under 23's simply cannot hire. I don't agree with it but these things are negociated with our insurance company at a much higher level than me.
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Adam, I think plan b looks best - talk nicely to dad. Again, NU, we paid £30 to put daughter on mondeo insurance for a month during uni holidays. After 2nd holiday was cheaper to put her on full time. Selling point to me was that she could share driviing on long trips. With discrepancy in insuring young men/women, I suspect it will cost more for you but less than hiring.
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Thanks for all your help but I may not need to do anything now.
I'll explain why I need it. It's a mate's 21st soon and the plan was to go over to Dublin for the weekend. Guess who has the...and I quote "most practical car" out of us? Yep.
Guess who has the biggest boot out of all of us? Yep. (I knew it would come in handy one day).
Anyway - a person who was going to come has dropped out making my car a viable option in itself but to be honest - the whole trip is looking shaky. 80 quid each to get there!!!
Anyway - thanks for everyone's help. If it does go ahead, I wont' need an estate any more so Dad's (or even mine) will do.
Thanks again - if it goes ahead, I'll post back with what I did.
Cheers,
Adam
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My dad's looking at getting a 320D SE this year, I keep telling him how well timed it is as I can afford to go on the policy now that I'm 21, say for example I want to borrow it to go on a long distance run or something...
So far I don't think he's buying into it, but I'm getting there slowly :-)
Blue
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I'll explain why I need it. It's a mate's 21st soon and the plan was to go over to Dublin for the weekend.
[snip]Anyway - a person who was going to come has dropped out making my car a viable option in itself but to be honest - the whole trip is looking shaky. 80 quid each to get there!!!
If you're going on the booze in Dublin, you won't want the car. And if you take a look at Dublin traffic, you won't want the car even if you are sober, nor will you want to be botheed with Dublin parking.
So do it the easy way: drive to Holyhead, park in the long-stay car park, and get a five-day foot passenger return on Irish ferries for £30 (or £38 on the fast ferry). It's a ten-minute bus-ride to the city centre from the ferryport, or cheap enough in a taxi.
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