Buying a car to use on holiday.

irishinvenice

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been covered before I was not able to find anything related. I am an Irishman who has an Italian driving licence. I return home to Ireland twice a year and do some traveling around. I have considered renting a car but the idea of scratching it or loosing my deposit freaks me out.

I have seen cars for sale in Ireland for about 300-500 Euros which would serve me needs perfectly. But I don't know how much the insurance would be I would drive maybe 1000 km per year with the car. Another idea would be to buy a classic car so I could avail of classic insurance (but perhaps that is a mess).

Any advice would be great.

Thanks a lot,
Mark

blindside88

It's a great idea in theory and much cheaper than renting in the long run, insurance may be an issue as a large number of companies require you to be permanently resident in the republic, some also charge large deposits to avoid people setting up a policy for 2 weeks and cancelling. Classic car insurance is not feasible as you need to have another car insured first. You're best bet is probably to insure the car for the full year and register it to a family members house

JohnBoy26

Unless you have a proper place to store the car( e.g a shed) I wouldn't bother.

Thoie

Alternatively you could take out an annual car hire excess insurance policy for about €50?

Just google car hire excess insurance and you'll find a number of companies do it. A relative and I both took it out. Thankfully I've never had to use it, but she came back to find a huge scrape all along a rental after she'd parked in a car park. The insurance company paid up promptly. You're generally limited to each rental being no more than 30 days at a time.