If you need to hire a van before Christmas, then time is running out! Demand is sky high as due to extra seasonal demand parcel delivery firms and couriers.
Luckily, we’ve managed to negotiate an exclusive 10% discount on Sixt Van Hire, only available to vanrental.co.uk visitors.
** THIS OFFER HAS NOW EXPIRED **
SAVE up to 10% on Sixt Van Hire:
Valid for bookings made from: 8 December 2014
Expires: 14 December 2014
(You can also use this discount to book ahead for later hire periods)
New van registrations rose by 17.1% during November 2014, compared to the same period last year, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
Truck registrations plummeted, falling by 49.6% in the wake of the introduction of the new Type Approval regulations — a topic I discussed last month, when it created an artificial boost in pre-Type Approval sales (in short, operators were registering new trucks in October so they could be fitted with bodies post-registration, thus avoiding the need to comply with the new Type Approval rules which now govern conversions of unregistered vehicles).
Over the year to date, van registrations are up by 18% in 2014, while truck registrations (commercial vehicles over 3.5t) are down by 14%.
Van and truck registrations, rolling year changes from Jan 2010 – November 2014 (courtesy of SMMT)
Commenting on the figures, Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said that “buoyant consumer confidence and a rise in home deliveries” were behind the “surging demand for vans”.
The figures suggest he’s correct, with registrations of vans between 2.5t and 3.5t — the size commonly used for home delivery and courier work — rising by 17.1%, or 2,378 units, to 16,084 in November. This increase maintained the 18.8% growth seen in this category for the year to date.
The second biggest category, in volume terms, is vans from 2.0-2.5t. New registrations in this category rose by 31.6% in November, but as total sales registrations were only 4,708, this remains less significant, in terms of numbers, than the larger category.
As I’ve commented before, the UK van market appears to be in rude health, which I take to indicate improved confidence and recovery for businesses of all sizes, as well as being a natural consequence of the financial crisis, during which many companies postponed new vehicle purchases or bought used.
Demand for UK van hire is rising, according to business hire giant Northgate, which operates a fleet of 57,000 vans and minibuses in the UK, along with 40,000 in Spain.
In its half-yearly results, Northgate reported that utilisation of its UK fleet had risen from 88% to 89%, despite the number of vehicles on hire rising by 1,800 since 30 April 2014.
The company has opened five new sites since the end of April, and plans a further three before the end of April 2015. These new sites accounted for 1,100 of the 1,800 new vehicles on hire, suggesting that Northgate’s growth is largely being driven by expansion, rather than organic growth.
This conclusion is backed up by the firm’s admission today that all of its growth so far this year has been driven by its regional sites — i.e. those away from the London area. Growth at existing branches was a relatively modest 1.3%, and although the company believes this can be increased, I reckon this low number highlights the intense competition between van hire suppliers, especially in large urban areas around major cities.
Northgate reported a 33% rise in operating profit for the first half of the year, despite revenue only rising by 5.6%.
How do they do that, you might ask? Well, one area where the firm has made big improvements is in reducing the holding cost, or depreciation, of each vehicle — the difference between its purchase price and its eventual resale price. Northgate says that it has managed to improve residual values over the last five years, with an emphasis on several key areas:
As a result of these changes, 29% of Northgate’s ex-rental vans are now sold through the Van Monster network, up from 18% in the year ending April 2009.
Of course, this rate of profit growth is unlikely to last forever — as a general rule, profits can only grow faster than sales for a limited time, before the two come back into line. It’s also worth noting that if used van prices weaken, Northgate could be affected.
However, despite these risks, Northgate’s near-term outlook does appear to be pretty healthy.
Seasonal demand for van hire from couriers and delivery firms is rocketing following the Black Friday weekend.
If you need to hire a van before Christmas you really need to book soon to avoid the risk of disappointment (or extra costs)!
We know it’s a busy time of year, so to help you find the cheapest van hire possible without hunting over the web, we’ve got together with the good folks at Hertz UK to offer you an exclusive 10% discount code for Hertz Van Rental.
** THIS OFFER HAS NOW EXPIRED **
The code is valid for pick-ups from today until 28 December, so we’ve got the whole Christmas period covered. Here are the details:
Offer: Save 10% on Hertz Van Rental and collect Nectar points
Valid from: 1 December 2014
Expires: 7 December 2014
DISCOUNT CODE: 778647
Terms and conditions: Valid for pick ups from 1 December 2014 until 28 December 2014
Terms and conditions apply, see Hertz website for details.
Caroline Jones’ Sprinter conversion, the Zen Ten Spa
Working vans can often be a little rough around the edges — it’s the nature of the job. However, I’m pretty certain that therapist Caroline Jones’ new Sprinter conversion will retain its pristine new finish for rather longer than usual.
Caroline has recently taken her spa therapy business on the road, with a custom Sprinter conversion built around a luton body.
The Warwick-based former BBC producer recently purchased a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 313 CDI medium chassis cab with a purpose-built and climate-controlled box body, built for her by M6 Motor Bodies, of Birmingham.
“It’s been more than a year since I began evolving the concept of the Zen Ten Spa and having put so much work into the project I’m really excited finally to be up and running,” she said.
“My business is not a beauty parlour; it’s a spa, and aimed at a high-end, lifestyle-focused customer base. So given its premium brand values and the unrivalled quality of its products, Mercedes-Benz was the only manufacturer I wanted to work with.”
Fitted with a folding massage couch, a fruit bowl-style basin in pure mother-of-pearl, gossamer curtains and an abundance of gold-plated fixtures, the room has been painstakingly designed down to the finest detail, to be a relaxing and rejuvenating tranquil oasis.
Inside the Zen Ten Spa, which is climate controlled, plush luxury fittings make it hard to tell that you are in a van.
Caroline, who spent 22 years making network TV programmes for the BBC in Birmingham, has been a practicing aromatherapist since the early 1990s, and is also qualified to administer a range of other treatments. She offers a portfolio of ten holistic therapies including Swedish Massage, Reflexology, Reiki, Indian Head Massage, Hot Stone Therapy and Foot Rescue, as well as other, lighter alternatives.
Update 22/12/2014: The deadline for the removal of the paper counterpart has now been extended until 8 June 2015. See here for more details.
The current UK driving licence consists of a photocard, together with a paper counterpart — but this is set to change in January 2015, when the paper counterpart will be abolished.
Although this has been known about for some time, I haven’t seen a lot of publicity about it. For car and van rental customers, however, it is relevant.
Here’s why.
You will no longer need to provide the paper counterpart of your driving licence when you pick up a hired van or car. That’s the good news, and in the long run, this seems like a sensible move.
However, as you might expect, the replacment solution involves a new DVLA online service. As you might also expect, from a government-funded IT project, it may not be ready in time.
If the new service, known as Share My Driving Record (SMDR), isn’t ready in time, the hire company may need to use the DVLA’s existing driver data service to check for details of points on your licence, recent convictions, and entitlement categories. This is quite expensive — current costs are 51p/minute by telephone or £1.50 per enquiry via a dedicated electronic connection.
Given that there are 10 million rentals a year in the UK, according to the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Asssociation, this could add up to a sizeable cost for hire companies, until the DVLA gets it IT act together.
Let’s hope I’m wrong, and SMDR is ready in time. However, as it probably won’t be, then if you are planning to hire a van (or any other vehicle) early in 2015, I’d suggest three things:
Although abolishing the paper counterpart seems like a good idea in principle, this looks set to be yet another poorly-planned piece of government red tape cutting that could actually cause more hassle for customers and small businesses, rather than less. Let’s just hope I’m wrong.
If you need to hire a van between now and Christmas, we’d strongly suggest booking as soon as possible to avoid missing out — or having to pay a higher rate than usual.
What’s the problem?
In the run-up to Christmas, parcel delivery firms, couriers and much of the transport and retail industry needs more vans than usual, to meet the massive surge in demand associated with Christmas shopping patterns and home delivery.
Many of these extra vans come from daily van hire companies such as Europcar, Hertz and Thrifty, meaning that if you need to rent a van at short notice, you may find you cannot get what you need locally.
Here at vanrental.co.uk, we supply live prices from National, Europcar, Thrifty, Hertz, Sixt and Argus Car Rentals — and we’ve noticed a serious drop in quote availability over the last couple of weeks, along with a rise in certain rental rates.
Don’t leave it too late!
Van hire bookings are almost always made at the last minute: a large proportion of the bookings made through vanrental.co.uk are for hires that take place the same week, often the next day.
Normally this is fine, but as Christmas approaches leaving your booking to the last minute is a big gamble: our advice is to book as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
Remember, our unique van hire search engine allows you to see live quotes from most of the UK’s biggest van hire companies: we don’t add anything to these prices, and your booking is made directly with the company concerned.
As I wrote recently, van hire availability is falling as demand surges from couriers in the run-up to Christmas.
High demand often means rising prices — but we’ve got good news:
If you need to hire a van to pick-up between 24 November 2014 and 21 December 2014, you can SAVE 10% with our exclusive Hertz 10% discount code.
** THIS OFFER HAS NOW EXPIRED **
Offer: SAVE 10% on Hertz Van Rental and collect Nectar points
Start: 24th November 2014
Expires: 30th November 2014
Discount Code: 778646
Terms and conditions: Pick up Period 24th November 2014 to 21st December 2014
Remember: To ensure you benefit from the 10% discount + Nectar points, make sure you check the ‘Discount Code’ box and enter the discount code 778646.
That lost production ain’t never coming back: UK commercial vehicle manufacturing, rolling year total 2008 – 2014 (courtesy of SMMT)
UK commercial vehicle production fell by 31% in September, and by 23% during the first six months of 2014.In that context, October’s 8.9% decline looks pretty encouraging — especially as it masks a 14.6% increase in production for the UK market, compared to the same period last year.
The reason total production declined is that export demand, primarily to the EU, remains weak, and fell by 30.6% last month, taking the year-to-date decline in export production to 27.9%.
The enfeebled state of the eurozone economy is no surprise: it is reassuring, however, to see that UK demand for home-produced vehicles may be picking up. The SMMT figures don’t provide a breakdown, but I’m fairly sure that a significant part of last months’ climb — if not all of it — was due to the introduction of the new Vauxhall Vivaro, which is built at GM’s Luton plant.
This would also explain why the increase wasn’t mirrored in export figures: the Renault Trafic, for example (the same vehicle, badge engineered) is built in one of Renault’s plants in France, and will be the default choice for many French and Iberian buyers.
Here’s how last months’ figures look:
| CV manufacturing | Oct-13 | Oct-14 | % Change | YTD-13 | YTD-14 | % Change |
| Total | 7,939 | 7,235 | -8.9% | 75,826 | 57,981 | -23.5% |
| Home | 3,816 | 4,372 | 14.6% | 35,416 | 28,846 | -18.6% |
| Export | 4,123 | 2,863 | -30.6% | 40,410 | 29,135 | -27.9% |
| % export | 51.9% | 39.6% | 53.3% | 50.2% |
Data courtesy of SMMT (www.smmt.co.uk)
Commenting on the figures, Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said that EU demand remained uncertain, but that UK demand was now expected to stabilise:
“The heavy fall seen in UK commercial vehicle manufacturing over the past year is now levelling off as the effects of last year’s restructuring only apply to year-to-date figures. With new models now being produced in UK plants, production for the home market grew for the first time since June 2013. It remains to be seen if the recent growth in EU demand will continue, but the indications are of greater stability in the months to come.”
There’s a lot of media focus on how UK car production has risen to record levels in recent years, and that’s certainly good news. However, what seems to be less well understood is the catastrophic decline in UK CV production since 2008. Output has fallen from a peak of about 230,000 per year to around 75,000 per year — a 67% decline! In fact, SMMT has stopped including rolling 12-month figures in its monthly updates (e.g. the table above), presumably because they are so depressing.
If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the graph at the top of this article.
One of Cresta Cars’ new Mercedes-Benz Vito 8-seater taxis
If you’re thinking about hiring a minibus but are worried about having to drive one, then the comments of Manchester taxi firm boss Julian Barnes, who runs 350-vehicle firm Cresta Taxis, suggest you needn’t be.
Mr Barnes recently added five new 8-seater Mercedes-Benz Vito minibuses to Cresta’s fleet, and says that they drive “more like a luxury car than a van”, with good handling and manoeuvrability.
Mr Barnes also commented that fuel economy was impressive for a large vehicle — Cresta’s Vitos are bigger than usual, as the firm chose the extra-long body option in order to allow for plenty of luggage room as well as flexible seating space.
Merc’s legendary brand image is also having an effect: according to Mr Barnes, the new Vitos have already generated new business and are “so smart they’re effectively acting as mobile advertisements for themselves”. I’ve commented on the power of the Mercedes brand before: the Stuttgart firm’s commercial vehicles inspire incredible loyalty in some operators.
Of course, an 8-seater is a relatively small minibus, as a minibus is defined as a vehicle with between 8 and 16 passenger seats. At the larger end of the scale, 12, 15 and 17-seater minibuses (including the driver in this seat count) are definitely more van-like, but are still far easier to drive than many hire customers expect.
This is because over the last few years, van and minibus manufacturers have gone to a lot of effort to make their vehicles more like cars: all current models have modern, dash-mounted gear sticks, smaller steering wheels with power steering, excellent mirrors and comfortable driving positions.
When driving, you’ll also notice that modern minibus brakes are very effective, while the current generation of diesel engines are very powerful and easy to drive, with plenty of power for any situation and reasonable fuel economy.
The only thing that hasn’t changed is the size — these are still fairly large vehicles, but to help you adjust to this we’ve produced a simple guide to driving a van for the first time that’s also completely relevant for minibuses.
Finally, if you do need to hire a minibus before Christmas, I’d recommend booking soon: the hectic Christmas and New Year party season can mean that availability becomes limited once we hit December. To get started, click here to compare self-drive minibus hire prices in your area.