We operate a car and van hire business as a separate, stand alone business from our site.

Initially we were a Practical franchise, however the costs escalated beyond belief, and it became 'unpractical'.

With the help of our insurance broker, we are now independent. While the vehicles are on site they are covered by our traders policy, and when they go out they are covered by a separate policy.

This has saved us at least £12k per year over what we were paying practical.

Recently we have joined the united rental group, which is like a 'soft franchise'. We use them mainly for sourcing vehicles at a discounted rate.

All our vehicles are owned by us, keeping a modern fleet is hard, expensive work. We try to keep everything less than three years old, but luton vans slightly older.

To be honest the hire side doesn't interest me at all, we have a great manager who does all the day to day running. The customers can be a nightmare, most don't bring their ID even when told to, and expect to take a £20k vehicle without leaving a deposit.

We insist on £100 deposit on credit card, it gives you at least a little traceability, but we have still lost 2 cars in 15 years, though we did eventually get them back, one from spain.

We have small, medium and large cars, vans and people carriers. We used to do minibuses, but they were a real headache when they broke down, which only happened in the middle of the night hundreds of miles away. The RAC would only recover the bus, not the people on it....

If you need any more help or advice, or would like to hear more of my problems, get in touch, hope this helps.......Nigel
our hire website
United rental