OT- hire a van? or...

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Find out how much it costs to get somebody to do it for you. If this is a house/flat move, the reduction in hassle for somebody doing all the packing and driving could well be worth it.

(That said, I've always done my own housemoving - but now I've got too much shit so if I ever move again I'll probably point and pay).

cheers, clive

I think the answer is almost certainly going to be 'quite a bit more', and I'm not exactly flush with cash at the moment. I don't have that much stuff, mostly stuff I'll have to pack into boxes myself, a couple of tables that dismantle to flat, a microwave, a bit tv and a couple of PCs, that's just about it. So I don't mind doing it myself.

This is probably the last time for me, at the rate I'm accumulating junk.

Give somebody a ring - I've always been surprised at how little friends have paid to move house. at least then you know it was too much :-)

How much would somebody like peterastravanman charge? (day trip, london durham)

cheers, clive

Someone exactly like me would do it for around £400-450, depending on exactly where in London it is, how much potential traffic trouble there might be, how long it'd take to load/unload etc etc. If stuff was all ready straight to load onto the van, and loading/unloading didn't take more than, say, an hour altogether, then I'd do it for £400 all in.

So probably better to DIY :-)

Yeah. So should I buy a Transit and then sell it down there, or is that just stupid? Seems like you can get P-reg ones or so for 1500 quid.

Just check out the insurance first. Get it insured for private use only (which is completely true), but bear in mind you'll probably not have a second set of NCB to use, so even then it could be pricey. And check out cancellation charges. It's always worth dropping cover to Fire+Theft only, getting most of your money back, then cancelling and losing a high percentage of a much much smaller figure. They'll say it's got to be in a locked garage - just tell them it will be - won't matter a jot if you're not claiming. Saves a lot of £££ compared to just cancelling straight away - might be worth leaving it a few days between dropping cover to F+T only and cancelling completely :-)

Also, look on ebay for a van, get something half-decent (around £1000-1500), and bid at a quiet time of week (weekday, early-mid morning i.e. outside of lunch breaks, is your best bet). That way you'll know it'll be fairly easy to sell on, as it was bid up to what you paid for it when you bought it, and when selling it, aim the auction to finish on a Sunday night, and there's a fair chance you'll easily get your money back, possibly even a bit more if you're lucky.

Up here, £89 gets me a 2002-2004 (depending on the draw) LWB Transit TD90-130 for two days.

Richard

Unlimited mileage? The one-way element of the hire is worth about 100 quid to me (30 quid for the diesel, 70 for the train fare back once I've returned the van).

I'd buy a van. You might even profit from it what with London Weighting and all that, or flog it in leafy St Albans or whatever. In terms of insurance, ask your insurer to add a second vehicle to your policy temporarily. Explain what you're going to do. If they say no, get a bit arsey and push them to check with the underwriters. If they let it happen, shouldn't cost much more than =A320. When I was with Privilege, they only charged =A37.50 for up to three days' cover on an additional vehicle. Bear in mind you'll need it covered while you're selling it and it might take a while to sell!!

Shouldn't take too long to sell. What he should do is get something at around the £1500 mark off ebay, that's had a reasonable number of bids, and the day he picks it up, take pictures of it and put it straight on ebay. He could tell a little white lie and say "bought this for a one-off use, which it performed no problems, without hiccups", just so people know it's reliable, and amend it later should it prove to not be the case :-). Then, the chances are if it attracted plenty of bids the first time, then it should do the second time. And he'll only have to hang onto it for a week or so.

Hire a transit and see if you can do a better time around the Nurburgring than that German chick.

Fraser

....having already removed the speedo cable so that the hire company don't try and sting you for excess mileage charges :-)

Unlimited mileage.

It's cheaper than insuring a van for non commerical use for a week.

Richard

My local company don't charge. *shrugs* I've never been hit with excess mileage, even when renting a 7.5 tonner from Ryder.

Richard

Thanks for the replies so far everyone. I think the main hassle with the idea is probably going to be insurance because I'm not a policy holder at the moment, just a named driver on my gf's car, so would have to get the van put into her name and get them to add it as a second vehicle which I can drive as a named driver. Sounds like that'll be a bit complicated for the insurance company to cope with. Might give it a go though. I've found someone (Discount Car Hire?) who'll do a one-way hire for 159 quid, including dropping it off to my house at the start and collecting it at the other end, with unlimited mileage, breakdown cover, fully comp insurance etc etc so that sounds like a fairly easy option. More than I wanted to pay but when you think that it'd cost me near enough 100 quid to return the van back to the starting point it doesnt seem so bad.