City Car Club

There was a time when our family supported two cars as well as four kids, two tortoises and a visiting fox! We could justify the children, the animals were pretty low maintenance, but running two cars proved a real drain on the funds.

While there were times when we really did need two cars – one of us might be away on business with one vehicle and the other needed to visit the family or do the weekly supermarket shop – it wasn’t like an everyday necessity.

Two cars meant two lots of insurance, car tax, parking permits, annual service bills, and regular maintenance costs. We started to add it all up and discovered it was costing a small fortune to keep a second car, which spent more time parked outside the house than on the road.

We were running two cars when what we actually needed was one and a half cars. And it was around this time, as I was hunting for a parking space, that I happened upon a bay marked City Car Club.

I “Googled” the company.  Hallelujah!  The answer to the half a car! An hour later I was a signed up member. Three days after that, my membership card arrived in the post.

City Car Club is a car hire membership scheme that allows members to book a vehicle by the hour. For an annual membership fee of £50, subject to a quick check with the DVLA, members can hire one of a network of over 500 cars that span the length of the UK.

City Car Club is, naturally, focused on the cities and busier areas of Britain but with most cars less than a year old and availability surprisingly good, through a simple web-based system, you can book any car for however long you need it with a few clicks of the mouse.

Once you have located and booked your car online, the process is quick and hassle-free. Your unique membership card also acts as the primary access device. Simply swipe it across the reader on the car’s windscreen and hey presto! the vehicle unlocks.

The car keys – my first City Car Club vehicle was a Toyota Prius – are located in the glove compartment and released by simply typing in your pin number (which is sent to you separately) into the onboard computer . Your booking reference is then confirmed and away you go.

Each booking or trip you make is charged by the hour and vehicle costs start at £4.95. If you need a car for a 24-hour period, lower rates are also available.

Insurance is included in your membership fee. There is a £500 excess charge as standard but for an additional £5 a month you can reduce this to £100.

Mileage is charged at a generous 0.21p per mile and at the end of your trip the onboard computer informs you of the total miles used and this fee is deducted from your bank account. If you need a car for a 24 hour period, lower rates are also available

If you do have any queries there is a 24 hour manned helpline. Roadside assistance is included with your membership and if you are running late or decide to extend your booking, providing the car hasn’t been booked out by another member, you can.

You are asked to leave at least a quarter tank of petrol in the vehicle when checking it in again but if you need to fill up, every car has a fuel card inside so you don’t even have to foot the bill at the pump!

So now to the nitty-gritty, the sums…

My car tax was £210, my insurance £580, my resident’s permit £110, my annual service £320. That was a grand total of £1220 per year –without additional maintenance costs and the obvious depreciation that takes place over the time of your ownership.

My equivalent car usage with City Car Club would be around 23 hours a month. That might not sound like a lot but there’s a trip each week to the supermarket and a day out further afield in there with time to spare.

Obviously the older your car, the more likely are you to incur additional costs and you may well take on finance payments or a bank loan to purchase the car in the first place.

Your membership doesn’t restrict you to your local city either. On a recent trip to Edinburgh, we used City Car Club (they have 100 cars dotted around the Scottish city alone) to great effect and London has almost double that figure.

City Car Club is undoubtedly a great alternative to a second car and my experience of the service as a whole was excellent.

If you would like more information then visit their website at www.citycarclub.co.uk 

Poppy Watt

Women Talking and City Car Club have joined together to offer all our subscribers the chance to join at a reduced rate and with an extra bonus thrown in.

Simply subscribe and then email us your username to offers@womentalking.co.uk and we’ll send you back a unique code that will give you 50% off the cost of a year’s membership (£25 instead of £50) and a credit of £20 on your account so you can get driving immediately.

Hurry! This promotion is only available for a limited time!

Posted Mon, 01/31/2011 - 12:59 by Poppy Watt