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Hired a van


section swept
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I have considered buying a van for sometime now but when you do the maths it doesn’t really add up. As I needed to collect a bike I elected to hire a van from an ‘enterprising’ company. There are companies offering small vans for £23 a day but by the time you add on all the extras it starts to become expensive, plus they are quite away from my location. Anyway I hired  a van locally for £31 accident waiver fee was £32 and fuel used was £27. So thats a true cost of £63 the fuel would be used no matter what method of transport chosen. I arranged to hire a Vivaro but come the day of hire I was upgraded to a Transit at no extra and was offered free pick up and drop of and additionally told that I could keep the van overnight and return it at 09.00 in the morning. When all is considered this must be a cheaper bet than owning a van, tax, insurance, running costs and mots together with parking space (if not also a business tool).   I learned that this hire company will lower the hire fee if they have vehicles on site otherwise the rate will change if they have to get vehicles from other sites brought in. A quick phone call to ask what vans they have available on site and how much for a weekend hire shoukd see you get a reasonable deal. If you have for example a £ 2500 van sitting about to be used only occasionally then that £2500 buys you quite a bit of van hire. 

I’m not on commission and I’m sure some of you that read this will have already tried the hire route. I like my driveway clear so its the hire route for me. You’re very lucky if you have a firms van and permission to use it for private use.

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9 hours ago, jimmyl said:

What do you use every day though - the math only makes sense if you have the van sat on the drive all week but if its your daily runaround its no more expensive other than maybe less mpg

I do like my cars in preference to vanning it, although by the time my partners finished loading all the everyday must haves in, a van would probably be more suitable...I’d quite happily run a van but she who must be obeyed would object to that.

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I have been renting vans for a while as I did the same math's as section swept and couldn't make it add up (a van purchase). I used to pick up a van on

a Saturday morning and drop it off on a Sunday evening, however that company doubled its prices so I went elsewhere and the other hire companies require you to drop the van off  on a Monday morning which is a pain for me as I work away during the week and I'm normally away well before the hire shop opens.   I've noticed a few people using citreon berlingos at trials (The cars not the van) so I've gone halfers on one of them with my old man as you can use them like a car when you dont need to transport a bike. You can take them to a tip as well (which you cant with a van where I live) . I reckon in a couple of years I'll have spent the same as hiring so I bit the bullet and bought one.

As a BTW a way to decrease the cost of van hire is to buy your own excess insurance costs a lot less than the hire company.

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I got my van for £900, spent about £600 on maintenance, and it's paid for itself easily - mostly because it's increadibly useful for other things besides carting trials bikes around.

Things I've used it for: Dropping motorbikes off for MOT and not needing to wait.  Emergency recovery of road bikes.  Emergency recovery of friends' cars (it's a really good tow vehicle).  Moving house.  Moving my sister in law's sofa.  Camping in the back in inclement weather.  Temporary storage of motorbikes when I couldn't leave them at work.  Doing the boring parts of long road trips, then leaving it and continuing through the interesting places by road bike (or taking the trail bikes to the start of a green lane so as to avoid pointless wear on the knobblies).  Driving to work when it's too icy to ride.

The only downside is I have to register in order to take it to the local tip, which is a pain in the posterior.

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10 hours ago, barnesy said:

I have been renting vans for a while as I did the same math's as section swept and couldn't make it add up (a van purchase). I used to pick up a van on

a Saturday morning and drop it off on a Sunday evening, however that company doubled its prices so I went elsewhere and the other hire companies require you to drop the van off  on a Monday morning which is a pain for me as I work away during the week and I'm normally away well before the hire shop opens.   I've noticed a few people using citreon berlingos at trials (The cars not the van) so I've gone halfers on one of them with my old man as you can use them like a car when you dont need to transport a bike. You can take them to a tip as well (which you cant with a van where I live) . I reckon in a couple of years I'll have spent the same as hiring so I bit the bullet and bought one.

As a BTW a way to decrease the cost of van hire is to buy your own excess insurance costs a lot less than the hire company.

I have a Blingo too. It might be a decrepit old rattle box but it was cheap and it does the job. I use it for other things too where I wouldn’t want to use my “best” car.

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We're just in the process of getting the "new" berlingo at work, it's the bog standard version but still has just as good a spec, if not better than the wifes Chelsea tractor for less than half the cost, plus it does 65mpg on average. I'd be tempted to get the car version if I didn't get the use of works for less than the weekly Asda shop per month

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