Today was meant to see me driving around, having some fun for the first time on my own. Talk about falling at the first fence...
Whenever I've been with someone hiring a car, it's been a simple case of walking up to the desk and laying down some plastic, getting keys in return and heading off. Thinking ahead, I thought I'd be better calling up to book a car and telling them I would not have my licence with me, but that they could call the DVLA who would happily confirm I have a full licence.
That part was fine. It was when I somehow mentioned to the first company that I'd had my licence for less than a year that things took a turn for the worse. Having called 15, 20 ... 30 rental companies, I now know that I've got 11 months and about 24 days before I can hire anything in the UK. GAH!
Where does that leave me? Two options:
- do nothing for a year. Essentially, I can pretend I'm still licence-less, then start hiring in a year's time
- buy a car
My cigarette packet sums suggest I could pick up an old (~1990) Golf or Polo for about GBP 450 - GBP 550. Over the course of the year, I'll also have road tax of GBP 120 and maintenance to cover, plus potentially some parking cost (grrr). The real kicker is the insurance, which comes to almost the same amount again (GBP 620) thanks to my lack of driving. Even if I bought an old Mini with a 900cc engine, which would potentially cost more than the other types of car I've loooked at, the insurance would still come in at something like GBP 450. Holding off doing this seems to make little real sense either, as at some point, I will have to take the plunge and I'll get hit then!
So, watch this space, and we'll see what happens! Any recommendations on how to buy my first car, what to look for and anything else are gratefully received!
Comments
I'm sure some insurance person out there has done the sums that it makes more sense to keep people from driving for the first year compared to the number of accidents after the first year, but it is weird. Such is life...
For drivers aged 25 or above the terms of our insurance policy demand that
applicants must have had a full licence for a minimum of 12 months.
Back to the drawing board...
All drivers' licences must be for manual transmission cars and must issued to the drivers for one year or more. UK drivers: photo card license must be accompanied by the paper counterpart (we do not call the DVLA to confirm the status of a licence);
So, no dice with them either. Given some of the horror stories I've heard, this may not be a bad thing, though. ;-)
On a more positive note, Mr Hampton sent me an incredible email covering research he did on how best to buy a car. I'm still working through it, and I'll either post a further comment or else post a new entry on it.
Sites that I found very very useful when buying and insuring a car were:
Parkers.co.uk
what you *should* pay for a car and also a massive owners review section
autotrader.co.uk
once you've worked out what you want, this is the place to find out if any are for sale.
confused.com
online insurance brokers
submit your details and they will get quotes for you. the difference in the highest and lowest quotes for me was £750!
When did you start smoking?
![[Valid RSS]](http://martinlittle.com/gallery/2003/random/small/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
Powered by
thinkthin
It's silly isn't it - that you might not even set foot in a car for the whole of the next year, but then suddenly you'll be able to hire them.