Van rental from Ireland to UK

TinCool

I'm sure I'm not the first person to be in this situation. I've relocated to England last summer and am now in a position to bring over my remaining furniture and other odds and ends.

Basically, my question is, from what companies can you hire a van (transit size) from Dublin, drive it to the UK and drop it off some place in the UK ? Anyone recommend any ? I've tried Hertz and Avis and they don't seem to offer what I'm looking for.

Cheers,
TC

cormie

To the best of my knowledge, no companies do this.

Just to give an idea of the cost of renting a van without this option:

It will cost you approximately €100 per day to rent + insurance cover. I'm guessing you're currently insured on a private policy? You will need a commercial policy for a van, they are two separate policies, I'm not even able to drive a car since I have a commercial policy myself. I used to be able to drive any car when I was insured privately on my ford fiesta So this I think will be about €30 a day too.

With the Ferry times the way they are, you will need to hire the van the day before you want to leave to get the cheapest ferry crossing as you need to be at the port at about 7am and van rental companies wont open this early. So you'll be looking at the day before the trip, 1 day to get to London, 1 day of rest (you'll need it!), 1 day to return. That's about €500 including insurance, then they sting you about 15c every mile you do over 100 miles per day (you'll have 400 mile allowance over 4 days, London return will be about 600 miles). Then there is fuel on top of that at about €150, and then the ferry charge at about €400-600 depending on the times you choose. So hiring a van will cost you a minimum of about €1,000 and of course the time too.

I've had a few inquiries about another trip to England so if you have no luck, let me know and I might be able to give a good price if I can get a load for the way back

Our man in Havana

I assume that the rental company will provide you with suitable insurance.

TinCool

cormie wrote: »

To the best of my knowledge, no companies do this.

Just to give an idea of the cost of renting a van without this option:

It will cost you approximately €100 per day to rent + insurance cover. I'm guessing you're currently insured on a private policy? You will need a commercial policy for a van, they are two separate policies, I'm not even able to drive a car since I have a commercial policy myself. I used to be able to drive any car when I was insured privately on my ford fiesta So this I think will be about €30 a day too.

With the Ferry times the way they are, you will need to hire the van the day before you want to leave to get the cheapest ferry crossing as you need to be at the port at about 7am and van rental companies wont open this early. So you'll be looking at the day before the trip, 1 day to get to London, 1 day of rest (you'll need it!), 1 day to return. That's about €500 including insurance, then they sting you about 15c every mile you do over 100 miles per day (you'll have 400 mile allowance over 4 days, London return will be about 600 miles). Then there is fuel on top of that at about €150, and then the ferry charge at about €400-600 depending on the times you choose. So hiring a van will cost you a minimum of about €1,000 and of course the time too.

I've had a few inquiries about another trip to England so if you have no luck, let me know and I might be able to give a good price if I can get a load for the way back

Cheers for the info. I thought that I'd be looking at that kind of a price. I only need to get to Worcester (near Birmginham) from Hollyhead so that'd cut down on the mile allowance charges).

cormie

Yeah, it's 100 miles shorter each way so you could do it in your daily allowance and fuel would only be about €120 altogether so that's about €940 minimum :pac:

The insurances prices are within Ireland I'm speaking of, I'm not sure if it's more expensive if you need to take the van to the UK. I know one crowd charge an extra whack for the privilege so I'm sure a few others do too.

Our man in Havana

100 miles a day is ridiculous. Have they not heard of unlimited mileage?

I need to take a van to Germany to collect a load of stuff in September. I am afraid to ask how much that will cost.

crosstownk

You're looking for a 'one way rental'. This is not common in Europe, but is quite common (and cheap) in the US. With the likes of Hertz, AVIS, etc, they are only franchises in Europe. The cars are owned by separate companies. In Ireland, Johnson & Perrott (Cork) have the franchise for AVIS. If you take one of their vans to the UK and don't return it to Ireland, then they will have to send someone from Ireland to collect it. They'll obviously charge you for this.

At a guess, you best bet is to rent a van here, go to the UK and bring it back to Ireland on the ferry and get a cheap flight/foot passenger on the ferry back to the UK. If you use off peak times you might get a deal.

Run_to_da_hills

I have a high roof Lwb Transit and would do the trip if it was worth while

TinCool

I ended up renting a MWB van from a local crowd here in the UK where I live in Worcester. They only charged an extra £30 on top of the rental (£50 a day) for bringing it out of the country to Ireland and also I had to arrange my own breakdown cover. Went with AA and only charged £20 for the couple of days so was quite good value at the end of it all. I managed to get the rest of my stuff over which is great. There was no room left in the van.

I wouldn't recommend doing it over a two day period though. 4+ hour drive to Hollyhead, 3 hour ferry. On the way back the following day it took more like 6+ hours to drive back from Hollyhead since I was driving a lot slower due to the weight in the back and not wanting things to bounce about too much. To say I was tired when I got home was an understatement. Red Bull came in handy :pac:

Cheers for the advice anyway.
TC.

cormie

It can be a tough drive alright, especially with the early (cheaper) ferry times. How much did it cost you altogether including the ferry so TinCool?

mike golf

Looking for a van / mini bus to carry 7 guys for a weekend in may, any experiences of hiring a mini bus? Not to sure of what sort of prices to expect.
Trip will be Dublin / Hollyhead

cudsy1

Hi all,

I'm looking to rent a van to move some stuff from the UK back to Ireland.

Any recent trans-Irish Sea experiences with rental vans and moving?

cormie

Not much has changed since the info posted above on this from what I know.

biko

Feel free to start a new thread about UK to Ireland transport. This one is very old and may be outdated.