Starting off

Hi to all,

Im starting the steps of becoming an owner driver with a small van, ive signed up for a well known courier firm for work, the problem being is that i cant at moment mange to buy my own van so looking into them leasing the van to me. How much roughly a monthly due you think they will charge, is insurance included? Is there still potential to make a living by renting a van for the time being while I can muster up the money to buy a van.

Putting in the hours is not a problem for me as have no commitments really to tie me down.

Many thanks

Good luck in with the venture It's a hard game out there but all the best

... You forgot I love drivin!

Hi mate. My advise is buy a van asap. I rented a van for a while and barely managed to keep my head above water. When you have bought your own van (I'm guessing it won't be a new one) get ready for the repair bills. In my experience hire companies won't offer insurance because of the specialist nature of our type of insurance.
But good luck to you... ...we all need it...

If the company I'm thinking of is who you have signed up for I would highly recommend you buy your own van and find some other work as you will just be working to pay for your van and diesel so makes no sense really as you need to make some sort of living! Good luck in whatever road you take

Many thanks for your advice, yeah im not too keen on hiring the van myself and even the courier company said it would be better to get my own and more profitable. What make/model do you guys reccomend for a small van for me too start of with and that is generally reliable and wont cost a fortune in parts if things go wrong.

I agree you're best buying one as soon as you possibly can.

Transit transit transit :)

I considered a Connect when I started (partly because they have similar mechanicals to the Focus, which is one of my favourite cars to drive) but you can get a Transit for the same money or less, it'll do a similar mpg - 40ish rather than 45ish, and the insurance is basically the same.

Although many couriers, particularly the more established ones, often seem to be wary of older vehicles, in my opinion it all comes down to maintenance. It helps if you know how to check a vehicle over properly. I got my Transit cheaply (back in April 2012) because it didn't have any service history. Could have been a gamble, but I gave it a thorough going over, I look after it, and touch wood it hasn't let me down yet.

Parkers.co.uk has lots of comparative info on vans, but beware that some of the data on payloads seems to be iffy...

Mr Camvan you are right I have traditionally run older vehicles although they are modern these days. We have a good maintance program and never had problems I was running a 96 plate Sprinter flatabed up untill 2010 so I was at the time running a 14 year old sprinter with no problems and many happy customer I brought that truck in 97 when it was 12 months old!

I know people like Fords, but I strongly recommend buying a van with service history and try to look into the vans work history. You might pay a lttle more, but you will also have a good idea if it has been used and abused or looked after, eg stay away from a van with a multidrop history (something that was used for doing 100+ deliveries per day. They are generally not looked after by the drivers... I worked in the parcel industry for 20+ years). With regards to the size of your van, the bigger the load space the better. By getting a small van you are limiting the sort of work you can get. But, in the end that's down to choice. Happy hunting...

Good point about multidroppers.

I sometimes wonder why the big companies obsess about having new vehicles. I understand reliability is paramount, so why not have a policy that all the key components are replaced at 100k miles regardless (fuel pump, water pump, clutch, timing belt / chain etc). It'd be far cheaper that swallowing the depreciation of getting new vehicles. The image associated with running a new van isn't worth that valuable, surely.

When I'm Mr Yodel that's what I'll do ;)

They want new vehicles... But wouldn't pay something more proportionate to owner drivers for the service they provide.

Big company vans get the nuts thrashed off em from dare I say agency drivers etc 'cough' not like ya average O/D who clean em every weekend