Christmas will soon be here and if you know you will need to rent a vehicle it’s time to book.
Need to pick up elderly relatives? Need to travel to family elsewhere? Work Christmas celebrations?
We have some cars and some people carriers still available but you need to make your booking as soon as you can.
Don’t risk disappointment, get in touch with us.
https://www.kwik-fit.com/blog/how-to-get-your-car-ready-for-winter#
Check your screenwash bottle and top up regularly. A lot of dirt and grime ends up on the windscreen during the winter months so having plenty of screenwash will help to maintain your view. Use a mixture of at least 50% undiluted screenwash in your bottle to prevent the liquid freezing.
You should also make sure your windscreen wipers are in good working order. It can be difficult to see when driving in conditions such as snow and fog. Don’t make your journey any harder than it already is this winter by having a dirty windscreen that you can’t clear due to damaged wipers.
Lights
It feels like it gets dark as soon as we wake up when it’s winter, so properly-functioning headlights, brake lights, fog lights, and indicators are absolutely essential.
Check all your lights are working and clean them regularly. Dirt can easily build up on your headlights, hindering your vision of the road and potential hazards.
Ensure that you replace blown bulbs as soon as possible. Not only is this an instant MOT fail but other road users may not be able to see you clearly in wintry conditions.
The weather throughout the winter days tends to cycle between really cold and moderate. This variation in temperature causes the rubber in tyres to expand and contract which, in turn, can lead to the rubber splitting or changes in tyre pressure.
For this reason, it’s crucial to check your tyres every few weeks in winter.
Adequate tread is critical to help tyres grip cold icy roads and to avoid aquaplaning. We recommend making sure you have at least 3mm of tread on all your tyres – the more tread you have, the shorter your stopping distance will be on cold, wet, or icy roads. If you do a lot of winter driving, consider fitting all-season or winter tyres for added grip and control in the snow.
Coolant is stored in a bottle near the engine and is usually a bright pink or blue colour – check your vehicle handbook if you are having trouble finding it.
Coolant, also known as antifreeze, protects your engine from extreme cold temperatures by raising the freezing point of the fluids within. If the fluids in your engine were to freeze and expand, the engine block could crack, causing serious and costly damage.
We advise that you check your coolant level regularly and top up if necessary.
if your car battery is more than 5 years old, have it checked regularly to ensure it carries on working effectively.
Batteries naturally lose their charging capability over time but during the winter, the cold takes its toll and a fully charged battery is weakened by about 35%. Batteries are the number 1 cause of breakdowns, so if you’ve been having trouble starting the car lately, get your battery checked before winter really hits.
… Before you set off on any kind of winter trip, whether it be a long drive to visit the grandparents on the other side of the country, or just popping down the road to the shops, stash a few essential items in your car now so that you are prepared for any eventuality. Here’s a handy checklist:
The summer peak holiday rental season is over, but there’s no time for us to relax!
It will soon be Christmas and we are already aware that there will be shortages of rental vehicles for private renters.
We know that the Royal Mail is going to be short of thousands of vehicles this year, both cars and vans.
Cars, too, will be in short supply because of the numbers of businesses now renting them for their fleets.
So, while it may seem a little early to be thinking about Christmas, if you expect you are going to need to rent a vehicle please get in touch as soon as possible.
We do our best to satisfy all our customers’ needs.
We have our own mechanics and have completed our workshop expansion.
We have now also bought a new recovery vehicle.
This means that our rental customers need have no worries if their car breaks down during working hours.
We will get to you as fast as possible with a replacement vehicle and recover the broken-down vehicle.
We like to think this makes us more responsive than other breakdown services during the day.
Outside office hours, however, you need to use another recovery service.
After a challenging few years and with a large increase in business we are lucky to have an experienced team dealing with everything from repairs and maintenance.
We have a team of 4 in the office with a combined experience of 78 years, there is not many situations that arise that we haven’t dealt with or heard about before.
We all bring our own strengths in different areas so as a collective we can advise you on the appropriate vehicle for every customer’s needs.
We have also increased the size of our workshops to enable our experienced team of mechanics and engineers to increase efficiency in fully maintaining and repairing our extensive fleet.
Enabling us to continue to give the customer service and reliability that over the last 90 years J.D.Robertson & Co. Ltd has been renowned for, continuing to be led by a family member with Mr John Robertson taking over from his father in the 1960’s.
As the summer holiday season approaches our most popular rental vehicles are people carriers.
Ironically these, along with mini buses, are also the most difficult to replace.
It is also the case that Robertsons are the biggest suppliers of rented people carriers as many other rental companies do not provide them.
If you are going to want to rent a people carrier sometime during the summer, please let us know as soon as you can.
However, please note that we only rent vehicles for use in the UK, not for overseas trips.
We thought for a change we would give you a little on the history of J D Robertsons.
The company was founded in 1930 by the father of its current owner, John Robertson, and originally it specialised in engineering and in replacing vehicle tyres.
We started hiring cars in 1937.
In 1960, John Robertson took over from his father and expanded the company’s engine reconditioning operation as well as introducing van hire in 1969. They included a Bedford CA 15 cwt van and the Bedford Luton as well as motor homes.
By 1973 the company had become VAT registered and as the economy thrived so did the vehicle rental sector so that more specialised vehicles were added to meet customer demand, among them 7.5 tone tippers.
By 1990 the company had many large contracts, including supplying John Menzies and the armed forces.
The range of rental vehicles had also grown to include people carriers, cars and vans.
Now, as well as supplying fleet cars and cars and people carriers for private renters Robertsons also supplies companies such as Parcelforce, Royal Mail and local authorities.
As memories of Covid lockdowns and travel restrictions fade the numbers of people planning summer holidays are increasing rapidly.
Already we are near capacity for the months from May to Jul so the sooner you can book the better.
Cars and minibuses are going particularly quickly, with people carriers not far behind.
We now have a wider range of makes and models due to the difficulties we are experiencing in a availability for new vehicles.
Remember, the sooner you can book your rental the better to make sure you will not be disappointed.
No, we’re not only talking about Easter, but bank holidays and summer too, in fact any time when demand for rentals for more than a day is likely to be high.
Why is this such an issue?
It’s all about the supply chain. There’s a shortage of car parts and new vehicles, making it hard to get repairs done or to add to our fleet.
So if you know you will want to book a rental care for a week at Easter, or in the summer particularly please give us as much notice as you can but certainly a minimum of two weeks
Thank you
Have you ever wondered why car rental companies do not offer hybrid or electric vehicles for rent?
Mostly, the reason is the availability of the charging infrastructure, but it is also about pricing.
Generally, rental companies require vehicles to be returned with a full tank of fuel and many have petrol pumps available on site or there is a petrol station nearby.
That would not be a practical proposition for electric vehicles. For example, in Colchester, there are just two charging points in the city near our location. Also, the time it takes to fully charge is considerably longer than filling up a fuel tank.
Setting up charging facilities on our sites would mean a significant investment and there would still be the issue of the time it takes to fully charge a vehicle while a customer waits.
Equally, charging points are not always available near to our customers’ homes or businesses and in a typical town terraced street, how could enough charging points be made available to enable vehicles to be charged overnight?
The investment a rental company would have to make in electric vehicles would be considerable as they are generally considerably more expensive than petrol or diesel-powered cars.
Then there would be the issue of determining a viable level of pricing that would be realistic for the rental company and affordable for the customer.
While in an ideal world it would be nice to offer the option of a more environmentally friendly electric vehicle, sadly, it is not a practical proposition yet.