Ceinwen

We are scheduled to spend six nights in Ebrington and then Fossebridge and finally Oxford. We had hoped to rent an auto with automatic gearbox in Evesham; however, no luck there. Is there a location relatively easy to reach from Ebrington that might suffice? Automatic is important since my wife hasn't driven a manual in 30 years, and of course is leary of left side of road issues.

janisj

My question is how are you getting TO Ebrington? And from where? That would seem to answer your question.

For instance if you are taking a train to Moreton in Marsh and then a cab or bus from there . . . instead take the train to Oxford or Stratford upon Avon or somewhere and collect your car there.

In any case - give us more details and we can help.

flanneruk

Ordinarily, assuming you're travelling by train and starting from London, your best bet would be to get the Deutsche Bundesbahn (in this case, dba Chiltern Railways) train from Marylebone to Banbury. Trains to Stratford aren't that frequent, and Stratford's not a huge car hire centre: the drive from Oxford is a bit of a schlep.

But my experience of booking automatics in Continental Europe is pretty iffy, and I imagine the same's true here. Whatever the company agrees, there's no way of guaranteeing an automatic will turn up on the day, and few of us see the point in paying over the odds to drive a dodgem car, so there aren't that many around.

Though Banbury's got a decent range of hire places, there's still (though I'd appreciate hearing the experience of others used to driving on the wrong side of the road) a real possibility there just won't be an automatic.

If it really, really matters, you need to hire from Heathrow, which isn't just Britain's biggest car hire location, but is more geared to people from the quirky-driving part of the world than anywhere else. If there's one location most able to honour the automatic commitment, it'll be Heathrow.

You then use the 70 miles of divided highway to Woodstock to get used to driving on the proper side.

janisj

Banbury would seem to make sense -- but the problem w/ Banbury is AFAIK the rental agencies are on the 'wrong' side of town over near the train station and it would require driving through the entire town to get to the west. But maybe there are some agencies in more convenient locations.

Do tell us where you are coming from before Ebrington and we may be able to come up w/ a good alternative.

Ceinwen

We are landing in Heathrow after overnight flight, intend to bus to Reading,train to Moreton in Marsh, probably taxi to Ebrington, spend that day and next carless, then hope to find an automatic somewhere in the area. How easy would it be to get to Cheltingham or Worchester? Because our second stop is at Fossebridge, would Cirencester be a viable option? Would wish to rent from a place where we could train to Oxford, after drop off

janisj

You are making things unnecessarily complicated. Land after overnight flight, schlepp to the bus, schlepp to the train, take a taxi, the next day taxi to some other distant town, hope to find an automatic rental in the Cotswolds.

If it was me . . . I'd either 1) Stay the first night at Windsor car-less collect a car the next day and drive to Ebrington after a good night's rest. Getting an automatic at LHR is no problem at all. (or you could collect the car on arrival and drive the 7 miles to Windsor for your first night)

or

2) Take the express coach from LHR to Oxford and stay the night (car-less), collect the car from Hertz in North Oxford and do the easy drive to Ebrington.

Both of these two options are easy, and getting an automatic will be no problem at either location.

Ceinwen

Advice much appreciated. Luckily did find an automatic in Evesham. So, will make it to Ebrington, spend two carless days there, then collect car.