Rental car options in the u.k.

I've rented cars from Arnold Clark on pretty much every trip I've made to the UK, and recommend them highly. They have a "click and collect" office right at the Cairnryan ferry port there (and a rental site at Heathrow).

What you will need to do is let them know that you're dropping it off there when you book it and they will give you a price. There will be an additional fee I'm sure, just like there is any time you pick up and drop off at two separate locations, but you can find that out when you try booking it. https://www.arnoldclark.com

FWIW, Arnold Clark is a pleasure to deal with. Their agents explain everything to you and make sure that you understand the fine print. They are good about upgrading sometimes, and very courteous and helpful. I will always use them in the UK for future rentals.

Driving in London itself can be stressful and financially challenging. You might consider taking the train to your next destination after London, and pick up the car there.

kim, David is correct in that it would be a lot easier to take the train out of London unless you are planning to meander casually through England and up to Edinburgh. It would be helpful if you could give us your itinerary.

I would still recommend Arnold Clark. But they have offices all over England and Scotland.

Whilst I don’t think it should affect the OP’s plans it’s not true that Arnold Clark have bases all over England. In the whole of southern England they have 4 bases - one in Sydenham in south London, one at Heathrow, one at Southampton and one in Milton Keynes. They have many more north of Birmingham and of course plenty in Scotland.

Thanks. We do not plan to drive in London (been there, done that and not fun!) but will drive from London to places out of town while we stay in the city. After a few days, we will eventually make our way to Edinburgh, meandering through the Cotswolds, up to Fife and some golf at St Andrews. We were hoping to continue to the ferry in order to see some of the Scottish countryside on our way to N. Ireland.

I have never had an issue renting from an American company like Budget or Hertz, but had a bad experience with Autoeurope (Europcar).

Also, on you way to Scotland, don't miss York, it is my favorite city in England. Amazing, don't miss the National Rail Museum, the Minster and walk the ancient walls.

I have never had an issue renting from an American company like Budget or Hertz, but had a bad experience with Autoeurope (Europcar).

Keep in mind that your bad experience was with Europcar, not AutoEurope. AutoEurope is a consolidator that allows you to book with various rental agencies via its website. But the experience you had, bad or good, would have been with Europcar.

That said, I agree that Europcar is sketchy. I had a bad experience with them in Cornwall. However I do not blame AutoEurope for that.

And John, with regards to Arnold Clark, they may have limited service in the south, but as you pointed out, it has nothing to do with the OP‘s itinerary, and they do have offices over most of England from what I’ve been able to see. The only place I couldn’t find them was in Cornwall, which was why I was stuck with Europecar. However I didn’t look in the south east, because I haven’t really been to that area yet.

But honestly, I have had such good service from them that I would go out of my way to rent from them. I’ve rented from them three different times, and every time it has been a good experience.

We have used Arnold Clark once in Scotland last year and recently this fall in Northern England. We have had similar experiences as Mardee both times.

And they were significantly less expensive than others as well. Generally we use AutoEurope but not where we can use Arnold Clark.

Are you planning to stay in London and take day trips by car to places outside London? I would say this is not the best idea due to the amount of traffic you’ll encounter and the time it will take you to get anywhere. It would make more sense to see London first, then base outside of London for any trips requiring a car.

Mardee - my intention was not in this case to directly help the OP, but to make sure that anyone else who saw this thread did not get the idea that Arnold Clark has offices across the UK. They have a good spread across Scotland and Northern England but south of Wolverhampton there are only the 4 offices I outlined above and nothing at all in Wales.

Here's a amp of all their locations -https://www.arnoldclarkrental.com/rental/web/xcr3/xcrv/xcrvlocations.p?uid=avkIbTacLFccbajd&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19577753911&gbraid=0AAAAADsNWmzUmhNbiDS-4549DjMX7wGpj&gclid=Cj0KCQiAo4TKBhDRARIsAGW29bdQa6PjX_29y7Bs3Dc4wMcS_n-U1Ztm-Dp0-BelddFmNQsxTNEGYJwaAgL9EALw_wcB

Helen, it sounds like the OP is planning to rent a car on their way out of London.

will drive from London to places out of town while we stay in the city

I have to admit it didn’t sound to me like they were picking up on the way out - but either way, I think they have opinions now. Plus, none of us answered the actual question about drop off at the ferry.

Edit: missed that Mardee answered! Sorry!

Yes, Mardee did answer the ferry question.

The question though is which Cairnryan port is the Click and Collect at? From the postcode I think this is at the former Enterprise Office at the P and O port (the one for Larne). I know Enterprise have vacated that site, within the last 18 months.

Google maps supports that theory.

There is no such office at the Stena Port (for Belfast) which is not quite a mile further north, unless it is very new.

There used to be a car hire desk inside the Stena Port but it has been closed for a fair few years now (wish I could remember which company that office was for).

Helen and TexasTravelMom, you are both correct. The OP did say that she was going to be staying in London and driving out of the city on day trips. I missed that.

Kim, I would agree with Helen that it's going to be tough to do that. Traffic is horrendous, plus you need to find a place where you can park your car, and I THINK (please correct me, Brits if I'm wrong), don't you have to pay some kind of congestion fee to drive a car in London? The expenses pile up.

It would be much much more convenient and cheaper for you to stay in London and use the train to get to where you need to go, and not pick up the rental car until you're ready to leave London for good.

Stuart, yes it is the P&O ferry, but it's called Arnold Clark Cairnryan Click and Collect. So I'm assuming that's the correct ferry. Kim, here's a link to the Google Maps location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/BnSvxVXpTUFMTpsV9

£15 a day in the London Congestion Zone- https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge

Mardee - there is indeed a congestion charge for driving in Central London. It would be relatively easy to hire from a location outside the zone to avoid the fee (£15 if paid in advance or on the day), but you would still need then to drive out of and back to town on each trip, which can easily add an hour on to any trip at each end.

For completeness there is also a ULEZ (Ultra low emission zone), which essentially is anywhere inside the M25 so a huge area. But this only applies to older petrol and diesel cars and there is no way a hire company will rent out a car not compliant with that zone.

I think that Arnold Clark location might just be for buying cars. I’m assuming it’s mainly used by Northern Irish residents who can get access to wider range of used cars this way. If you buy a car through them it includes free ferry crossing.

Mardee, if you keep moving the map up past the Lighthouse you will come to the Stena Port, which is where the Belfast bound boats leave from.
As I say it is the Larne bound boats only which leave from the P and O port where the Click and Collect is. P and O were at their port many years before Stena opened moved out there from Stranraer, with no room for expansion at the P and O port (apart from very bad blood between the two companies). Hence why a second facility was built.
It's about a 20 minute walk along the seafront between the two ports. I've done it (ironically when I was verifying erroneous car hire statements on this forum for another enquiry) and sailed out of both ports (Stena a good few times).
I went to the wrong port that time on purpose about an hour before my Stena sailing, then walked back to the correct port.

P and O also used to sail to Larne from Troon- where the new ferries to Arran sail from now.

If you are going to the Causeway Coast then Larne is actually the better port in my opinion. Certainly the closer one.

The P and O port was a military port (a restricted zone) in WW2 although the military railway to there went as far as the Stena Port. Both modern ports together were a reserve port for if Liverpool or the Clyde had been bombed out of action.

It's naughty for Arnold Clark to call it Cairnryan Port, for those who aren't aware that there are two ports.

There's a car park with wonderful Loch views in between the two ports with historical interpretation boards, a very nice place for a picnic on a good day.

Helen, that is also what I thought. Online, there is no way to reserve a car to either pick up or drop off at the Cairnryan Ferry. All places available for rental on the website are on John’s list. I guess an exception is always possible.

The other option for Cairnryan (Stena) is to use Arnold Clark's Ayr (for Prestwick Airport) location, then either take the Citylink bus to Belfast from Ayr Bus Station (frequent buses from the airport to Ayr Bus Station) or the Rail/Sea dedicated bus to Cairnryan (Stena) from Ayr Railway Station.

You can't miss the rail connecting bus as it is in the Stena Line livery. Given a straight choice I would choose the rail connecting bus.

Prestwick used to be (before Inverness airport station opened) the only airport in Scotland with it's own railway station (with a covered bridge from the terminal building), so drop the car at Ayr, use the Arnold Clark shuttle bus to Prestwick (choose that option in the booking), train two stops to Ayr (at least two an hour), then the special bus from Ayr station.

We just returned from the UK. We would've liked to have rented a car in Reading or Bath, but went out to Heathrow so we could use Arnold Clark. We used the car for Bath, Wells, and Highclere. This was the second time we have rented from Heathrow. We have also rented from them in York. Whenever we can make it work, we will rent from them.

I've been doing some digging into this Arnold Clark office at Cairnryan, and it is indeed a car sales office, NOT a rental office.

This Linkedin post from Paul Robinson, Product Controller at Arnold Clark tells the story-

GREAT NEWS!! For all my friends/family in Northern Ireland, Arnold Clark have opened our click and collect site at Cairnryan Port making buying your next car even easier!! The car can be purchased via phone/email/video call and delivered to Cairnryan for just £99, we’ll then throw in A FREE RETURN ferry trip to have you over, collect your car and on the way back in 2 hours!! Interested in seeing if I can save you money on your monthly payments, get you a newer car or if you just fancy a change give me a shout via
messenger and I’ll be happy to help you out! Finally if I can ask you to help spread the word by sharing this post that would be appreciated!!

[2 hours is the length of time it takes P and O to turn round the ferry at Cairnryan. So in essence you take the train (or bus, either works really well) to Larne Port, travel over as foot pax, then drive back over). An interesting idea. Maybe AC also do part exchange- drive your old car to Cairnryan, then the new one back.]

Arnold Clark's main business is car sales and not car hire. There are many AC car dealerships across their main areas in Scotland and Northern England. For example they have 3 dealerships close to me in Preston but only one also offers car hire.

I agree that it looks like there is not a car rental drop-off at Cairnryan. Sorry for the misinformation—obviously I was mistaken. You could contact Arnold Clark via their website and ask them about the options for dropping it off near there. They're very good about responding, I will say.

But honestly, I agree with Stuart (isn31c) that your best option is to drop off the car in Glasgow and then take the bus to Cairnryan Ferry Port. From what I can see, it's faster to take the bus than it is the train. And since it looks like you'll be in Scotland at the end of your UK travels, it wouldn't be that difficult to drop it off there. I checked other car rentals and I don't see anything that's close to that area at all. So all things being equal, I would still go with Arnold Clark.