Hire car in UK for trip to France

mentalistic

Apologies if this has been asked previously...

I've been looking into hiring a car from Gatwick for 9 days.

I will be taking the ferry to France returning back to Gatwick airport.

Most of the hire companies charge an additional fee for taking the car to the continent, but this fee varies between car hire companies.

Do any hire companies include European travel as standard ?

Europcar charge approx £65 and Sixt was £100 + 50% of the vehicle hire price!

jamesbrownontheroad

No, I'm not aware of any, although I've only made these enquiries with regard to travel from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland.

I believe Streetcar (the car sharing club) let you take their cars to Europe. If you have a check of their membership and hourly / daily / weekly prices (which include petrol) you might be best off joining them and booking one of their cars, although you'd need to take a train into London or Brighton because there are none at Gatwick.

mentalistic

Interesting - thanks for the info about streetcar. Will have to investigate further, but the inclusion of petrol may well make it cheaper than the normal car hire route.

JoelyG

Does anyone have any update info on this topic? I am looking for an estate car for a 2 day UK return trip to France and so far the conventional hire car companies are exorbatant.

spiro

JoelyG wrote: »

Does anyone have any update info on this topic? I am looking for an estate car for a 2 day UK return trip to France and so far the conventional hire car companies are exorbatant.

That is because of the additional costs especially if you breakdown/have an accident when out of the country.

For such a short trip have you though about hire 2 cars, one either side of the channel?

benjus

jamesbrownontheroad wrote: »

No, I'm not aware of any, although I've only made these enquiries with regard to travel from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland.

I believe Streetcar (the car sharing club) let you take their cars to Europe. If you have a check of their membership and hourly / daily / weekly prices (which include petrol) you might be best off joining them and booking one of their cars, although you'd need to take a train into London or Brighton because there are none at Gatwick.

I've always found Streetcar much more expensive than traditional car hire, unless you're just hiring for a few hours to drive around the local area.

knightstyle

We have done the opposite and hired a car in France to drive to the UK and back, no extra charges and same for going to most of the EU.

NFH

spiro wrote: »

That is because of the additional costs especially if you breakdown/have an accident when out of the country.

How is it then that in the rest of the EU, you can hire a car and are allowed to cross borders in it without being charged any extra fees? This is just profiteering by the hire car companies in the UK by charging a large fee to issue a VE103 in lieu of the normal V5C which you have to carry by law when outside the country where the vehicle is registered. They are exploiting the UK's insular mentality.

knightstyle

One thing to be aware of in France you need to have the car documents with you in the car at all times, fine if you don't and the "flicks" ask for them. Plus the usual stuff and make sure your reflective waistcoat is within reach of the driver, used to be a warning but now a fine if it isn't.

NFH

knightstyle wrote: »

One thing to be aware of in France you need to have the car documents with you in the car at all times

Yes, this is exactly the point I've already made above. The owner of a car naturally has the car's registration document (V5C), but a hire car company will of course not lend this to the hirer of a car. Therefore the hirer has to carry a VE103 instead, for which the UK hire car companies charge a hefty and unjustified fee. The equivalent is issued free of charge in other EU countries.

spiro

Try doing the same with a van or small (7.5ton) lorry, when a friend was considering doing this to move from UK to EU every firm they spoke to they wanted several thousand pounds deposit.