Hi
I’m off to do the 24 solo champs at Fort William in October and for various reasons am looking to hire a van to get me, missus, two bikes and all our kit to fort William as our ageing galaxy that has been brilliant for this sort of thing is looking and sounding petty ropey and won’t be replaced any time soon.
Haven’t hired or driven a tranny van since student minibus days of many years ago, so any recommendations on what’s good and where to hire from gratefully received, or just as importantly what and who to avoid. Midlands area, Stafford. For a week, two drivers. Probably looking at a short wheel base Transit or VW transporter.
Any other general tips on van hire also appreciated
TIA

Check van for damage inside and out also start mileage, and wether diesel or petrol,deposit required, mileage wether unlimited or limited,insurance, types of id required,is your licence curent with no bans or convictions.
Avoid the big groups try a local independant, with newish vans,not ginks.
also check what fuel is required on return, full to full, empty to empty or whatever the leaviong gauge said as they will charge you extra to top up.

look for a ply liner? Or is that to optimistic. They can be quite boomey otherwise

I drove a Vivaro to move a friend and thought it was great

also check the spare is under the van and still there on retuirn and all the tyres are in good condition.

We hired a T5 from Northgate when moving house last year. Was almost brand new in matallic poo and was fully ply lined. Think it was £31 a day which was pretty good and they took lots of digital photos of the van and tyres etc so a lot more professional than Enterprise.

I would suggest taking out one of those 3rd party damage things though for what you will be doing with it just in case.

If you’re in Stafford then I’ve used the Arnold Clarks branch there (I use it as a staging post on trips to london and swap vehicles there from time to time – do the miles from scotland in a berlingo, do the work in london in a luton and swap back on the way home) their van fleet are typically pretty new and in good nick – never had anything from them with more than 30k on the clock and often less than 3k. All their vans have proper bulkheads and the load spaces are ply lined and should be nice and clean inside, front and back. For a long hire you should be able to negotiate a decent rate – usually 7 days for the price of 4 or 5.

Over those distances you’ll possibly notice fuel consumption a bit in a tranny relative to a car, so if you’ll normally manage with a galaxy size down to something like a Scudo, to be honest I don’t see why a berlingo wouldn’t fit the bill and you ought to be able to get one of them for around £15 – £20 a day over that duration. Typically with hire co’s you book a class / size of van not a make and model so don’t expect to be able to ask for a transporter and get it – you’d get something about the same size and shape as a transporter.

AC are a scottish based company so although they don’t have many outlets for hire in your neck of the woods theres plenty in scotland if you encounter a problem

With other hire co’s look out for surcharges for excess milage (AC have an allowance of 250 miles / day but some will have a milage limit per hire and charge per mile beyond that), dumb tricks with fuel etc or just shockingly poorly maintained vans. Often hire co’s will ask you extra over what they’ve quoted for a damage waiver when you collect so make sure you’re getting a price for the full cost of the hire so that you know you are comparing like with like.

In reality – no matter what a hire company says on their website about what vehicle you’re getting – its only “an indication”.

So go ahead and book a vivaro or what ever. That doesn’m mean you’ll get one. On the otherhand our local Enterprise seems to have bought the entire worldwide output of new Transits.

So basically – ime- pick a size of van and choose on price incl excess etc. Unless you can ring your local branch and ask of course!

I would suggest taking out one of those 3rd party damage things though for what you will be doing with it just in case.

If it was a car you could get an annual damage waiver policy for about the price of two or three days waiver cost from the hire co, but there aren’t similar policies for vans so you’d need to stick with whatever daily waiver rate that charge