My mum had her car written off last week and has ordered a new one, however seeing as it is a factory order, there will be a delay of 12 to 13 weeks while it gets built. She has a courtesy car for another 2 weeks or so and will then be without a car. Does anyone have any good ideas as to what to do in the mean time -hiring would probably be expensive and she's paranoid that if she bought a cheap used car to tide her over that something would go wrong with it causing her to have to spend a lot of money rather than being able to sell it on for more or less what she paid for it.

By the way, no one was injured and she wasn't in the car at the time. She's ordered a Fabia SE from Preston Motors: 1.2TSi 85 with spare wheel, heated seats, electric windows in the back in petrol blue metallic.

i would talk to the insurance company..... point out they wrote the car off which leaves her without a car.... see if they can work something out

For a lengthy hire like that you'd be surprised how much some of the main hire companies will be flexible with their prices. I knew of someone in similar circumstances a couple of years ago and they managed to talk Europcar into hiring them a basic Corsa for about £800 over a 3 month period, it worked out at roughly £9 a day. The car was insured by the customer's insurance company.

Yes it's lot of money but it was certainly no hassle.

Worth asking around?....

We had a customer in a similar situation, car written off, a wait for a factory order, so we lent her a car for the duration. Admittedly the car wasn't much, but it was better than not having transport.

I'd personally always go with a cheap run around. With a hire car your definitely throwing money away. There are plenty of cheap reliable cars out there with MOT/TAX, do your research on the model(s) before you have a look and if you buy smart and are willing to travel a bit you should get your money back.

This does seem to be the latest Insurance thing, when I renewed mine last week I had an option to tkae out cover against this situation, but declined as I'll probably buy used after this.

Long term hire car like Pete says may not be too expensive, worth chatting to a few companies about it.

Otherwise buy an old wreck and run it into the ground, if it breaks don't bother fixing it just get another. Although not sure what the rules on scrapping are, ie if you have to pay, however there will probably be someone who will take it off your hands.

I h ad a similar situation whilst waiting for my Yeti. I put the shout out on Facebook and a friend lent me his car for a couple of months. Then when he took it back the Škoda dealer gave me a courtesy car for the couple of weeks left until the Yeti arrived.

As a bonus, the friend's car was a Mitsubishi Evo VIII MR FQ 320..... which was nice.

Most companies only provide a car for 2 weeks if yours is written off, unless you take out extra cover. Cheapest option will most likely be to buy a banger! Although if it was none fault, ie your mum is claiming off a third party, see if you do get a hire car if you can claim the costs back

Otherwise buy an old wreck and run it into the ground, if it breaks don't bother fixing it just get another. Although not sure what the rules on scrapping are, ie if you have to pay, however there will probably be someone who will take it off your hands.

This is a worth wile shot, keep an eye out on Gumtree and ebay for cheep 1l 20-30yr old cars, can pick one up for a couple of hundred quid (already cheeper than hire) even if it has 6 months T&T its a car for 6 months.

Get onto somewhere like Caretakeback.com for the value of it scrap and the day before the T&T runs out, scrap it.

i have done most of my cars this way, bought a cheep, scrapped when time has come for T&T and bought another, TBH you will be really supprised with what you can grab for a bargain, you might even want to try an MOT on it, you will be plesantly supprised how well kept the cheeper cars can be sometimes.

Thanks for all the replies folks .

My mum has spoken to Preston Motors and they have kindly agreed to lend her a car for the duration from Monday. She will have to get it insured as an extra car as it will not be registered in her name so in addition to holding the insurance on the written off car she will have to pay a supplemental payment of around £100 per month -so £300 all in doesn't sound too bad at all.

She's still negotiating with the insurance company over a payout sum for the write-off but will probably accept their offer on Monday: £4,200 for a 7 year old Mazda 2 Diesel with 30,000 miles on the clock.

Thanks for all the replies folks .

My mum has spoken to Preston Motors and they have kindly agreed to lend her a car for the duration from Monday. She will have to get it insured as an extra car as it will not be registered in her name so in addition to holding the insurance on the written off car she will have to pay a supplemental payment of around £100 per month -so £300 all in doesn't sound too bad at all.

She's still negotiating with the insurance company over a payout sum for the write-off but will probably accept their offer on Monday: £4,200 for a 7 year old Mazda 2 Diesel with 30,000 miles on the clock.

That's a great result, well done Preston Motors