One-way car hire from Ireland to Europe?

sublime1

Hi,
I'm planning on moving to Spain this year and I was considering hiring a car and taking the scenic route over. Does anyone have any suggestions for companies who rent cars one-way? Any of the major rental companies websites I've looked at don't seem to allow one-way rentals from Ireland to Europe. I did manage to get a quote from the UK for over €2000!

Any advice? Or should I just fly and get an excess baggage company to take my stuff for me. I quite like the idea of driving but not if it's crazy money.

thanks

macshadow

Maybe buy a cheap estate car for your trip and then sell it to someone moving from spain to Ireland:D you'd get a fine car for less than 2k.


give me a shout if you have room for me!

sublime1

Thanks Macshadow. You know you're right - it'd be cheaper to buy an old car than pay those kinds of rentals!

I'll let you know if there's any room - I'm suddenly going to be very popular with friends and family after I move over.:D

Churchy

Really what did you expect?

What is a company going to do with an Irish reg'd car in spain?

L1011

Churchy wrote: »

Really what did you expect?

What is a company going to do with an Irish reg'd car in spain?

US hire firms often re, erm, state-riate... cars from one side of the US to the other, if the "common market" was as open as is claimed this would be a reasonable thing to assume come be done.

rebel.ranter

What about sourcing a 2nd hand left hand drive car over here?
2 years ago a friend of mine bought (in Cork) a Swiss registered 1990 525iA with a/c so that he could drive down to his holiday home in Portugal & leave the car there for when he was down there. Pity his brother in law wrecked it the following summer as it weas a nice car! The LHD cars here don't fetch as much as their right hand drive equivalents.

littlejukka

you could always get a ferry to france then pick up a rental. if you're doing a one-way international (france-spain) rental there will be a 300 euro loading on top of the rental rate of 200ish per week. i was quoted 500 euro to pick a car up in cherbourg and drop it in berlin after 8 days, this was with autoeurope.com.

Anan1

There's a LHD 525iA touring on carzone at the moment, €4,750 as I recall.

Biro

littlejukka wrote: »

you could always get a ferry to france then pick up a rental. if you're doing a one-way international (france-spain) rental there will be a 300 euro loading on top of the rental rate of 200ish per week. i was quoted 500 euro to pick a car up in cherbourg and drop it in berlin after 8 days, this was with autoeurope.com.

Yep, this is what I was going to suggest.
They won't want a RHD car in Spain, but if you rent from France you're grand!

sublime1

rebel.ranter wrote: »

What about sourcing a 2nd hand left hand drive car over here?
2 years ago a friend of mine bought (in Cork) a Swiss registered 1990 525iA with a/c so that he could drive down to his holiday home in Portugal & leave the car there for when he was down there. Pity his brother in law wrecked it the following summer as it weas a nice car! The LHD cars here don't fetch as much as their right hand drive equivalents.

That's a brilliant idea!! I particularly like the fact that LHD cars are probably cheaper to buy here, so I should get a good price. I just spent a while looking at www.carsireland.ie - unfortunately it's quite hard to find left hand drive cars on the car sites. But I did see a few.

Not having ever owned a car though, would anyone have a rough idea what kind of expenses are involved in buying here and selling in Spain? Would I have to tax and fully insure it here, even if I'm leaving the country with it immediately? Would the insurance cover me for driving across Europe? What about import duty or VRT in Spain? Also a Spanish friend told me cars are actually quite cheap in Spain relative to Ireland, so I may not be guaranteed a profit (but probably wouldn't make a loss either though).

Does anyone know of car sites where you can search for Left Hand drives?

thanks to everyone for the replies. The rent from France idea is good too and is certainly more reasonable price-wise than renting from the UK. I'd still have the problem of getting all my stuff to France though...

zing

What about picking up a secondhand lhd in france ? Briefly pop back here to get your stuff if needs be - then drive to Spain. Should be a lot easier to sell on in spain than a rhd. I'd suggest registering, insuring, etc.. via your address in spain rather than your irish address though. You'd obviously need to double check the formalities for exporting a car from france/importing a car into spain first.

Del2005

zing wrote: »

What about picking up a secondhand lhd in france ? Briefly pop back here to get your stuff if needs be - then drive to Spain. Should be a lot easier to sell on in spain than a rhd. I'd suggest registering, insuring, etc.. via your address in spain rather than your irish address though. You'd obviously need to double check the formalities for exporting a car from france/importing a car into spain first.

I think cars in France are mad money for 2nd hands.

Why not fly down to Spain, buy a car and drive back up. Then you'd have a Spainish car with their tax and insurance.