Irish and travel regularly to Ireland on business - cheap car hire?

di11on

Hi folks,

First off, I'm posting in here as I rekon there is a much better chance of there being someone in a similar situation here than elsewhere.

I'm Irish but live outside of the state. However I run a small company and travel to Ireland on average for about a week every month.

I'm wondering what the most efficient way to sort out car transport each time is.

To rent, a decent car is usually around €15 per day, airport surcharge is €28 so basic rental each trip (4 days) is around €88. Assuming 12 trips a year, that's €1056

The killer is the insurance which is usually between €10 and €15 a day, making a total of €720 for insurance for 48 days light driving a year. In fact, I usually forgo the insurance and take the risk on the the €1200 excess, which has worked out ok so far, but you're always worried someone will whack a car door into you.

Surely there is some sort of annual insurance policy that would cover me for this? Is anyone aware of one?

Can anyone think of a cheaper way of doing this? My situation isn't likely to change over the next few years so it could be an option to buy a car and leave it in Ireland. The depreciation in value per year would be around the same as the cost of renting a car I'd imagine but I'd save on insurance. Add to that the hassle of servicing, NCTs and whatnot, it's probably not worth it.
Anyone any thoughts?

RATM

There are a few companies online who can sell you excess insurance at a much cheaper rate than the car hire companies do- often up to a 50% saving.

Another thing is hiring from airports- there is always a premium for this. You could take a bus to the city center and hire from there to avoid that cost. Or alternatively you could take a taxi to Enterprise's Finglas branch which would cost you about €15 from the airport and then hire from there. There might be other hire places in Ballymun too which would eliminate the cost.

But you could also PM me, I own a car but drive a motorbike Mon-Fri. I've often thought that someone in your own position might be a solution to my problem which is having it sitting around insured and taxed but not really using it except for long journeys on the weekends. It is nothing flash but if such an arrangement is legal then I would give it due consideration and could name you as a driver on my own insurance policy and hire it out when needed.

sandin

Nothing wrong with car share.

Annual Excess insurance is about €60 a year - once you hire a car twice, its paid for.

Check corporate deals such as AA or any other club you are a member of or alternatively email a coupd of providers with the average number of trips you will have, the type of car you want and ask for a corporate rate.

di11on

@RATM: Interesting suggestion and I'm very interested. Where is your car based and what is it?

I'm thinking as long as it's not a Micra it's ok :-) Reminds me one time I had booked a class A car, the cheapest. The cow at the [insert rental car agency here] desk said: "are you sure that's going to be big enough for you sir. For €10 more a day you can get a Focus (or whatever)". Totally pissed off at her tone, I said, no, it's fine. Then she proceeded to make 100% sure that I would get a Micra, just to piss me off, because I wouldn't take the insurance or upgrade. Honestly.

I must look into the online excess insurance. The only is that you take the €1200 hit with the car rental agency and then have to claim that from the insurance company... I'm sure there's an element of risk here that it won't all be as described on the tin and you're left out of pocket.

@Sandin, do you have a link to this €60 quote?

Edit: I've actually rented a van from Enterprise in Finglas and they're all really nice there. However, you have to take the €15 hit each way, so they have the €28 surcharge calculated very nicely... the return taxi price from the nearest city location and back!

leecurlywurly

What about becoming a corporate with a car rental company? I think Europcar can tailor a package to the person's needs but I'm not sure how it works.

Alternatively a bus to town is cheaper than paying the airport fees.
Hope you find something suitable.

BailMeOut

di11on

I used to rent a cars a lot coming to Ireland and generally found that Nova were the best and cheapest. They are a broker company so your car can end up being with any number of car hire companies.

I also used to also keep my own excess insurance which you can but for a whole year from these folks for STG50. I never had to file a claim so no idea how efficient they are if you need to use them.

RATM

di11on wrote: »

@RATM: Interesting suggestion and I'm very interested. Where is your car based and what is it?

I'm thinking as long as it's not a Micra it's ok :-) Reminds me one time I had booked a class A car, the cheapest. The cow at the [insert rental car agency here] desk said: "are you sure that's going to be big enough for you sir. For €10 more a day you can get a Focus (or whatever)". Totally pissed off at her tone, I said, no, it's fine. Then she proceeded to make 100% sure that I would get a Micra, just to piss me off, because I wouldn't take the insurance or upgrade. Honestly.

I must look into the online excess insurance. The only is that you take the €1200 hit with the car rental agency and then have to claim that from the insurance company... I'm sure there's an element of risk here that it won't all be as described on the tin and you're left out of pocket.

@Sandin, do you have a link to this €60 quote?

Edit: I've actually rented a van from Enterprise in Finglas and they're all really nice there. However, you have to take the €15 hit each way, so they have the €28 surcharge calculated very nicely... the return taxi price from the nearest city location and back!

Yeah they're a sound bunch in Enterprise Finglas- I live a 10 minute walk away from there and often send my B&B guests there when they want to hire cars. Have had no complaints about them to date, touch wood.

My car is a 04 MG 3 door hatchback , nothing flash but a good run around and it is reliable. By all means send me a private message and I'll give you my mobile if you want to talk. It would still cost you €15 to get to where it is parked from the airport. It might work out but we'd need to chat- I would have to ask my insurance company if they accept a named driver who isn't a family member, not sure what their exact policy is. But it is fully comp insurance in any case and if you wrote the thing off I wouldn't be losing any sleep as it is just a runaround for long journeys instead of driving the motorbike for those trips.

The excess insurance companies are only something I've heard of recently. I do intend to use one the next time I hire abroad as they are a lot cheaper than getting it from the car hire place itself. But I also intend to read their T&C's carefully as there could likely be a sting in the tail contained within.

sandin

just google car hire excess - some advertise at 51.99/year. You'd need to check what's covered. Don't forget to exclude countries you'll never visit

JD Dublin

This might be an idea for someone who is interested in doing this as a business - AirBnB but for people that want to 'rent' their cars on days they know they are not going to use them.

I always thought that this would be a great idea, but this was before the advent of the interweb that you are reading this on.

The idea would be to match people who don't have a car but need one, with someone that has a car but is not using it ( say some days of the week ).

Apart from the insurance questions, there's the fuel question i.e. does the car need to be full on each handover, but there doesn't appear to be many blocks to this working, maybe not as a business but certainly as a Co-operative of some sort.

Any takers out there?

BailMeOut

Op

would GoCar work for you? http://www.gocar.ie/

ifah

I always buy annual car hire excess insurance from Axa - https://www.axacarhireexcess.ie/quote/default.aspx.

Even if just going on holidays for a couple of weeks it works out cheaper than using a rental cars policy.