Price of a Decent Vehicle

[Richard 1234]

How many days lost in those £1500 in repairs?

Vehicles are going to cost you money either way. Another option is to buy new and look after it properly until it dies.if serviced regularly (8k miles) it will last 200000 plus easily..

Just changed oil and oil filter on my truck at 6000.

Will get its 12000 in schedule.

The extra are well worth the £100 they cost.

[treefellapaul73]

I battled with my last truck, for far far far too long. The hassle of breaking down, or not even starting in the morning, getting it to a garage, and the days off work nearly crippled my business.

I bit the bullet and went to the bank for a low interest loan. I bought a three year old Transit crewcab tipper and took the back seats out for tool storage.

Its now a pleasure to drive to work each day, it looks smart on any clients driveway and does a fantastic job. And all for a tenner a day!

Do it. You wont regret it.

[Orchard]

Another suggestion, I noticed you said about not being able to make up your mind between a pick up or van? Give Northgate vehicle hire a call, you could take out a long term hire on basically any category of truck you like for as long or short as you like. You could ask for a tipper, 4x4 or van for 3 months at a time to see if you think there is a better solution to what you run now.

I got a quote for a double cab transit tipper and it was £550 plus vat per month. That includes maintenance, tax and tyres. All you need to do is insure and fuel it. No tie in contracts or penalties like a lease or contract hire company may give you if you need to walk away from it either.

Once you decide which truck really works best for you could go and buy a 18month old or pre registered one? It may not be of any help to you but it's handy to know that option is available.

[gensetsteve]

Another suggestion, I noticed you said about not being able to make up your mind between a pick up or van? Give Northgate vehicle hire a call, you could take out a long term hire on basically any category of truck you like for as long or short as you like. You could ask for a tipper, 4x4 or van for 3 months at a time to see if you think there is a better solution to what you run now.

I got a quote for a double cab transit tipper and it was £550 plus vat per month. That includes maintenance, tax and tyres. All you need to do is insure and fuel it. No tie in contracts or penalties like a lease or contract hire company may give you if you need to walk away from it either.

Once you decide which truck really works best for you could go and buy a 18month old or pre registered one? It may not be of any help to you but it's handy to know that option is available.

 

I had dealings with north gate years ago they were called something else then. Easy people to deal with. I had a 3 year old hilux with 140 k on the clock for £175 a month for 3 months while I waited for my navara to come in. The hilux was brilliant should have stuck with that and cancelled the navarra.

[flatyre]

I'm also at a cross roads vehicle wise, I would consider myself a landscaper who does a bit of light tree work. I run a mwb 2.4 transit and 10x5 trailer, which is perfect for landscaping but not so good for tree work. I'm tempted to swop the van for a crew cab tipper set up for chipping into, but then at this time of year most of my work is conifer topping and hedge cutting. Come spring a van would be much handier. I also have little ones which is a nod towards the crew cab tipper but realistically once the back seat gets buried under dirty petrol smelling oil leaking equipment, I wouldn't want my kids sitting on it. I think a landscaper needs to carry much more equipment than a tree surgeon, and unless you want to be loading and unloading equipment every day. I can be quite lazy when it comes to making sure I have the right gear on board so a van works well as I just carry everything with me, needed or not. It might mean the fuel economy suffers but at least when the customer pulls out another job, or wants something changed, I don't have to run home to tool up. If my business moves more towards pure tree work then i'll buy a tipper but for now my perfect setup would be the van, a bigger tipping trailer, with a mini chipper or small tracked chipper on board. (andy sell the family car and buy a crewcab pickup)