Do you carry luggage that will not fit in the boot?
By booking a larger vehicle rather than by improvising at a kerb. Give the dimensions of the biggest item when you enquire and the car is chosen around it: a V-Class for most things, a Sprinter for the rest, and a saloon for nothing awkward at all.
Category
The car and the journey
Contact
+44 7775 554848 or info@firstclass-chauffeurs.co.uk
01/The short answer
By booking a larger vehicle rather than by improvising at a kerb. Give the dimensions of the biggest item when you enquire and the car is chosen around it: a V-Class for most things, a Sprinter for the rest, and a saloon for nothing awkward at all.
Almost every luggage problem is a shape problem rather than a weight one. A boot with plenty of volume and a low lid will not take a two metre ski bag, an instrument case or a boxed display stand, however generous the specification sheet looks.
QA-01/What we need from you
What we need from you
Length, width and height of the largest item, and how many of them there are. Descriptions do not work: everybody's idea of a large case is different, and a number settles it before anybody is standing beside a car.
Also say whether the item is rigid. A soft holdall compresses into an awkward space; a flight case does not, and a rigid item is what actually decides the vehicle.
Dimensions of the largest item, not a description
Whether the item is rigid or compressible
How many passengers are travelling alongside it
Whether anything is fragile or needs securing
Nothing travels on a roof, on any vehicle
QA-02/The vehicles that solve it
The vehicles that solve it
The V-Class covers most cases: skis, instruments, exhibition material, pushchairs and boxed items all go in with passengers aboard. It is cheaper than an S-Class by the hour and vastly more useful when something long is involved.
The Sprinter handles what the V-Class cannot, at the top of the fleet and on a six hour minimum. The SUVs take bulky items well but not long ones, since the load area is tall rather than extended.
QA-03/When a second vehicle is the answer
When a second vehicle is the answer
When the luggage and the passengers genuinely compete. Six people with a great deal of equipment is often better as a saloon plus a V-Class than as one crowded vehicle, and it costs less than people expect.
It also suits deliveries that happen alongside a passenger movement. Equipment going ahead to a venue while the principals travel separately is two bookings that share a reference rather than one impossible car.
QA-04/What we will not attempt
What we will not attempt
Roof loading, of anything. Nothing goes on top of a chauffeur car, so the interior is the whole of the available space and the vehicle has to be chosen accordingly.
Nor will we take a booking where the item plainly will not fit and hope. If the dimensions say no, we will say no and offer the vehicle that says yes, which is a considerably better conversation to have on a Tuesday than at six on a Saturday morning.
With the dimensions in advance, yes. A cello or a double bass in a hard case is a V-Class job rather than a saloon one, and the instrument travels secured in the load area rather than propped against a seat. Say if it needs particular handling.
What about exhibition or display material?
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Routine, particularly around the big venues. Boxed stands and pop-up displays are long and rigid, which is exactly what pushes a booking towards a V-Class or a Sprinter. Give the packed dimensions rather than the assembled ones.
Will you take a booking if the luggage does not fit?
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Not knowingly. Where the dimensions say the vehicle you asked for will not work, we say so and quote the one that will. Turning up with a car that cannot take the load helps nobody and wastes a morning.
Tell us the journey. We will send the price in writing.
Message us the date, the pick-up and where you are going. You will get a fixed written quotation with the vehicle, the chauffeur’s arrival time and what the figure includes — no form to fill in, and no estimate that moves later.
