Hire or buy?

[dollywobbler]

As the house move approaches, and with a strong lead on flogging the Westie, we're considering whether renting a luton with tail-lift is a good idea, rather than hiring one.

 

When we moved here, we'd already managed to acquire so much detritus that it took a Transit luton hired for one day, and several trips in a VW T5 the next day, plus squeezing as much as we could in our cars - including the piano in an H van. Now, we could just get rid of all this crap, but that's not really how we roll (it'll be useful one day!). Hiring is all well and good, but if we bought a van, it'd give us greater flexibility and the chance to take it easy and move stuff over on consecutive weekends or something.

 

So, the theory is that we can buy a Luton something or other (maybe a shite LDV 400 or something) for c£3000, or what the Westie should bring in. We use it for a bit, look after it and then we should be able to flog this useful device for pretty much what we paid for it.

 

Is this one of those wonderful theories that will never happen or should I live the shite dream?

 

Here's an LDV Convoy that we hired to move my dad-in-law to France. It was shockingly bad with horrendous wheel wobble at motorway speeds! (nowhere near as nice to drive as my LDV 400 beavertail).

[Claypole]

I had two days to Brighton and back in a hired transit the other week moving my sister's stuff as she's skipped the country to Sardinia for a year, lucky bugger.

 

I entertained owning a van one day until I took this one back and got molested in the petrol station for £73's worth of diesel and it wasn't even empty.

[nigel bickle]

I bought an old Renault Master T25 big bus thingy.

 

£500 -years MOT & short tax. It did a brilliant job (albeit quite slowly) often excessively overladen with an Aframed car onthe backas well.

 

Evenntually ''retired'' -we considered keeping it (as a camper) -but it was just too big to leave sitting around..

 

I kept it 18 months- gave it a wash /polish and sold it for £800.

 

One of my ' best ever' purchases..

[dollywobbler]

Thanks. Still not sure yet - both big Cits have tow bars and buying a big box trailer might be a better option. That won't need insuring for a start, doesn't need an MoT and servicing requirements are pretty low as well!

 

The big benefit of a trailer is that they tend to be very low, so getting the piano and reed organ in should be easier...

[Richard]

Tony Hawks had the same idea but I don't think he made it out of his street. He tells the story at the start of A Piano in the Pyrenées

[nigel bickle]

Good option.

 

I couldnt thenquickly find a huge one at a sensible price-and was a bit worried about the need to move it,laden,unhitched.

 

But I'd def buy something, in preference.

You dont need to unload the last load -for weeks! Thats a big bonus at the end of a heavy move.

[Cavcraft]

Unsure of tachos and all that shit but you might score something like a Leyland Daf 45 7.5 tonner cheap enough and it'd pay for itself as you'd make less journeys.

[Timewaster]

Depending on what sort of house you are moving to - you may find having a shite van is invaluable.

In march we moved into to a 30's semi which needed pretty much everything doing to it cosmeticaly - Bathroom, kitchen, decorate everywhere, jungle garden etc etc. so I bought a really nasty Transit for £400 with 10 months mot.

As well as collecting building materials - it has carted SOOOOO much stuff to the tip I would have probably had to hire 20 skips without it.

 

When I am finally done with it (providing the mot tester doesnt run out of paper half way through the fail sheet) I should get my money back too - WIN!

[dollywobbler]

Thanks. We're coming to the conclusion that we have got a heck of a lot of crap. Fortunately, we're in the odd position of nearing completion on our new house, but not yet selling our existing place (offers welcome, lots of parking, double garage, lovely Fenland views, £179,995) so there's not the usual panic to clear the house in one go.

 

My licence covers me for 7.5 tonners, and we've got no access issues either end, so that's probably the way to go.

[155V6]

If it breaks down on the journey it's the hire companies problem rather than yours and domestic AA/RAC cover will not cover you if you're in a big van.

When I left the lights on & flattened the battery in my fully signwritten works Sprinter,the RAC turned up & started it no problem using my car policy

[The Moog]

I bought a Transit Hi Cube LWB to move with. Paid £1200 for it. Sold it for £1500

 

Moved myself and my mum and 3 friends in the 3 months I had it. Then sold it on for more than I paid. The bloke came all the way down from Derby to get it as they were desperate for transits and it is hard to find ones at reasonable money.Bought it with years MOT and 6 months tax. Ran it for 3 months then punted it on. Would definitely do it again.

 

All it cost us was insurance and fuel. We also cleared the garden of rubbish at my mums house. Only downside was that we had to pay to take the rubbish to the tip as it was considered commercial.

[Cavcraft]

Regarding break down cover/policy you'll find that anything 3500kgs or less the RAC/AA/whoever will come out to you.

[FredTransit]

Look for a Mk5 transit luton of mid 90s vintage. Cheap as chips, bullet proof naturally aspirated DI and 5 speed box, deep chassis and if you are lucky cavernous 13ft luton body. They are class7 MOT, which is a little bit more stringent than the car test, but not torture like the plating test. If you have trader's insurance, you could stick it on that. Rust is, of course inevitable, for that reason look for one with a good amount of MOT. You can only take them to class7 qualified stations BTW.

I would not go the 7.5 tonner route. Even for your own goods you need a restricted O licence (though restricted is only an application, no CPC required) which means you need a suitable 'operating centre' - ie proper place to park it for one. Bear in mind, most residential estates don't allow you to park anything over 6 ton on the street.

[Mr Lobster]

Just hire one. Its loads easier unless you are really going to need a big van longer term.

 

FWIW, on 7.5t trucks, if you hire one and are using it privately (ie moving house) you don't need an O licence of any sort, just the correct driving licence entitlement. That said, if you bought one, convincing anyone that you were only using it privately would be near on impossible and I would expect insurance to be on the dear side of expensive as well. I seem to recall that vehicles with taillifts have to have a safety inspection every six months as well, I think this is a legal requirement now...

[MK5 Escort]

Our house has been on the market for close to a year now and we’ve not even had a single offer on it yet, despite dropping the price twice in that time...

 

Anyway, this is one occasion where I would personally recommend hiring rather than buying, unless you knew you needed it for several weeks before/after the house move where it would probably work out more economical to buy a cheap one.

 

When we last moved ten years ago, we cleared the house of any crap with the odd tip run in the car. When the time come, we hired a Transit Luton over two days. It was a mid nineties jobbie. It did the job perfectly. One full load and another half one later saw pretty much the whole contents of the house moved in a day. Anything smaller/more valuable we moved in the cars. Not much needed doing to the house and any rubbish needing tip runs went in the car.

 

No hassle of trying to find a space to safely park it, selling it on in the end and getting around the usual waste of time tyre kickers. Simply hand over the keys and walk away. Job done.

 

It may be an entirely different situation for you. You may have space and want a large van anyway... All I'll say is that the few Transit Lutons left around here of that vintage seem to still fetch good money if they're decent enough with tax and MOT. You should be able to pick up and LDV 400 for buttons in comparison - even later ones.

 

Don't even bother going down the 7.5t route. It really isn't worth the hassle. Firstly, all 'grandfather rights' have now been removed I believe (can anyone clarify?). Then you have the plating test and regular inspections. The company I worked for until recently was so fed up of the increasing complicated legislation and running costs that they were considering getting rid of the small fleet we had. For the small amount of use they had, they just weren't worth it.

 

If space is an issue, have you considered renting a container at a storage yard? My brother had one for a while and it was brilliant. Cheap too.

[dollywobbler]

Thanks folks. Currently, the 'hire a box trailer' route looks most promising. It's stupidly cheap (about £40 a day, £150 for an entire week) and I can't think of anything in our house we couldn't shift. BX is a decent towing tool.

 

Quick query though - the trailer is plated at 2600 max GVW. Does this mean I'm still ok pulling it with a car that can tow a max of 1100kg? Our stuff is bulky rather than outright heavy (well, ok, the piano isn't that light!).

 

Box trailers are good as they tend to sit very low, so no need for a tail-lift.

[Guest]

Why don't you hire a U-Haul truck? Admittedly, it would have to be in America, but I can't think of a more iconic way to move house.

[Lankytim]

 

Quick query though - the trailer is plated at 2600 max GVW. Does this mean I'm still ok pulling it with a car that can tow a max of 1100kg? Our stuff is bulky rather than outright heavy (well, ok, the piano isn't that light!).

 

I've been told that the police go on the max gross weight of a trailer when doing checks. If it exceeds the maximum towing weight of your car then you could be in trouble- Makes sense as it would be a simple 5 min check. I've also been informed that thats bollocks and they need to take you to a weighbridge. So, this is a bit of a pointless post, really.

 

Where are you moving to, BTW?

[dollywobbler]

Thanks Tim. So much towing stuff is horribly grey - like A frames, GVWs etc.

 

We're moving Wales, so it's quite a haul from our current location.

 

EDIT - google has just confused me even more. Found something on Parkers saying that the MAM of the trailer shouldn't exceed the unladen weight of the tow car. Well, hold on. The BX weighs about 900kgs I think, but has a max towing weight of 1100kgs. So does that mean I can't legally tow its max towing weight?

 

Off the record, the most I've towed with it is 1500kgs but not very far...

[Lankytim]

You can exceed the gross weight of the tow car... but only if you don't exceed 40mph. Its all bollocks really.

 

Where in Wales DW? Im not a stalker or anything, just interested!

[dieselnutjob]

Found something on Parkers saying that the MAM of the trailer shouldn't exceed the unladen weight of the tow car.

 

"shouldn't" isn't the same as "illegal". The reason that they don't recommend it is that although it might be legal it isn't necessarily safe.

 

The problem with a trailer that's heavier than the tow vehicle is that it is so easy to get into tail wagging the dog. If this happens at motorway speeds on a downhill slope you are really, really in trouble and risk having your possessions spread all over the motorway, a written off car and the police involved.

 

People who tow caravans are advised to put the heaviest things (fridge, awning etc) over the axle, the next heaviest things in front of the axle and the least heaviest (or nothing) behind the axle, all of this low down on the floor. With a box trailer this might be quite hard to acheive, and stacking weight high up will make things worse too.

 

Another problem that you have is that ideally the nose weight of a trailer should be something like 10% or greater of the total but with many cars the noseweight is only 75kg which is limiting. Noseweight has a stabilising effect for some reason that I don't understand. I suppose it makes the trailer more likely to plough on straight rather than flap about.

 

Personally I wouldn't be very confortable exceeding 100% and I would be very careful about weight distribution, and I am an experienced tow-er and I know what an unstable rig feels like before it gets up to a dangerous speed.

 

I did actually loose and crash a four wheel car trailer many, many years ago and it was a truly horrible experience. If it happened again I think I wouldn't even attempt to control it, I would have just steered straight through the hedge and into a field if possible as that might actually have stopped it. I also suspect that stamping really really hard on the brakes and locking everything up might have been a better bet.

 

A BX might seem ideal due to the clever suspension but what you really want is a heavy tow car with a shortish overhang at the back. My 806 appears to be a fantastically stable tow car.

[dollywobbler]

Thanks. I've done a fair bit of towing myself and have only had one 'wag' with a Volvo 240 towing a Dyane on a trailer. It was a bad idea to 'test' how stable it was. Accelerated out of that one...

 

The only worry I have about the BX is that it's so tail-light. All the weight is right over the front wheels, so I'd ensure there was some weight in the back of the car, not just in the trailer. It's a good point about getting the weight right in the trailer though - that would be tricky to achieve with the piano. Maybe a compromise would be an idea - hire a 3.5 tonner with tail-lift to get the big, bulky items over (and anything else that fits) then a trailer/estates for the remainder of the stuff.

 

Haven't got a completion date yet, so still got some time to mull this over!

[dieselnutjob]

I suppose that with a big estate or MPV you can put loads of heavy stuff in the car which will have a stabilising effect on the trailer

I reckon I would tow just about anything with an old 505 estate. I bet stuff like old E class estates are good too.

[dieselnutjob]

hey

you know what would make a great car for towing a box trailer

"1986 Citroen CX 25 Familiale (FOR SALE £850) "

 

 

look at the shape, long wheel base, short rear overhang, big heavy estate. It's towing nirvana I should think

[dollywobbler]

That has occurred to me - not tested the electrics yet and was a little wary of towing too much with an auto (not that I worried when dragging a Metro to Staffs with my Volvo 740 auto). Would be a bloomin' long outfit mind...

[dieselnutjob]

just find a way to monitor the transmission oil temperature, keep the revs high and the torque low and stop if it gets too hot

[dollywobbler]

That's why I decided it'd be easier to use the BX! Not sure how I'd monitor the transmission fluid and it's a 'box that really likes to get to top as quickly as possible and keep the revs low. BX is built for towing really - loads of torque, manual 'box and it feels planted when towing.

[dieselnutjob]

doesn't it have a way to lock it in 2nd? I forgot what you call that on an auto. the lever usually goes P-R-N-D-2-1 or something. 2 is then for towing

[dollywobbler]

It does, but it'd be pretty tedious having it rev all the way through Wales on the hills when the BX would just slog its way up. Not to mention thirsty!

[dieselnutjob]

I'd rather have the CX going down the hills though with a heavy trailer on the back

You can use top gear on the motorway provided you're not using too much accelerator pedal to keep it rolling

If you get to a slight slope and find you need more pedal then it's time for 2nd

if you drive it like that it won't destroy the transmission