Holiday car hire tips?

rlw

Sporky said:

Nothing smaller than a V8 is a good rule of thumb.

Anything bigger is ostentatious and unnecessary.

V8s rule.

FX_Munkee

Has anybody actually collected the same car (make, manufacturer) that they  booked?
Ever?

peteri

Word of warning - damage waiver insurance over here whilst at the end of the day will pay out, chances are if you have any damage you'll have to pay locally and then claim back.

Had someone reverse into me whilst parked in Spain, and I had to pay £1000 when I returned the car and then claim it back, never again - I pay for that locally when I collect the car, then it's much easier.

speshul91

Thrash it.

Kebabkid

Read the small print!

Snap

bloodandtears said:

Snap said:

Excess insurance - this is the stuff that covers you when and if you have to make a claim. I've used an annual policy for this (which is cheap) but in the event that I needed it, it was chuffin useless. I had a crash in Portugal - bloke drove into us. His fault. I got the rozzers, and went back to the hire firm to swap the car. On getting there it was a case of - ah, but you need to pay the excess first, and then claim it back from your insurer. This was the princely sum of 1500 EUR. If I had taken out their additional insurance (someting like 5 EUR a day) I wouldn't ahve anything to pay. Until I paid, I had no replacement car.

So, when I got back I made a claim with the excess insurance company. THey wouldn't pay - said it was a no fault incident, and I should not have paid. It took me 9 months to get the money back. SO, in my experience, get the extra insurance. Its piece of mind, hassle free, and often not that expensive. What price is no hassle?

That flies in the face of their whole purpose.. who did you use?? Did you contact them immediately?

That's my point! Of course I did, I was on the phone pronto. Can't remember who it was, but it was a reasonably large firm. The whole process was a complete arse.

The advantage of taking out the hirer's excess waiver is that you don't ahve to worry about anything - dents, scratches, tyres.

What we often don't realise is that in the event of a no fault crash, you the injured party still have to pay your excess and this gets claimed back off the party of blame. That can take ages.

Snap

boogieman said:

Take the paper part of your driving licence too, some companies want to check to see if you've got any points on it. They can actually check online but it seems some simply can't be arsed.  

never had to, ever, in maybe 20 years.

You can get a DVLA code too. The paper part is now invalid I believe, I think!

boogieman

Snap said:

boogieman said:

Take the paper part of your driving licence too, some companies want to check to see if you've got any points on it. They can actually check online but it seems some simply can't be arsed.  

never had to, ever, in maybe 20 years.

You can get a DVLA code too. The paper part is now invalid I believe, I think!

Really depends where you go. They certainly wanted the paper part when we hired a 4x4 in Malawi last year. Given it's a country not exactly known for fast (or any!) internet access or even understanding what a DVLA code is.  An extreme example I know. 

jonnyburgo

We rented an RV to travel round British Columbia, all was well until returning to our RV after a visit to a hot spring to find that our side mirror had been nicked (no doubt by somebody else in a rental who had broken theirs. Got on to the rental company to discover that the excess was $5000 so that was £300 we had to shell out when we returned it! Fuck!

Sporky

revsorg said:

We went to Ireland last year and booked a VW Passat.  When we arrived at the rental company in Dublin a little Irish man who mumbled unintelligibly explained that they only had a Skoda which was the equivalent car. Or I could upgrade to a Mercedes for a couple of hundred Euros. My wife is convinced he weaved a magic spell over me.

You paid hundreds of Euros extra to drive a CLA over an Octavia or Superb?

Stevepage

FX_Munkee said:

Has anybody actually collected the same car (make, manufacturer) that they  booked?
Ever?

Nope, Alamo were the worst for it. First time, I booked a Hyundai Santa Fe from them in Orlando. Drove out with a Mustang, which was my fault because I jumped at the offer. 

Second time, I booked a Chevrolet Tahoe. They tried putting me in a Dodge Durango but I ended up with a Suburban instead. 

chillidoggy

The only time I've ever been asked for the DVLA code is in the UK. In France, or the U.S. they're only interested in whether your credit cars works.

stickyfiddle

I had a Fiat 500 this time last year, which was what I'd booked. Gave me a bad back - the ergonomics are entirely setup for people who are 5'6", which I am very much not!

Otherwise it's the usual potluck of Astra or Focus when the website said Golf. I've never even seen a Golf in the Heathrow Hertz & Enterprise places.

gubble

stickyfiddle said:

I had a Fiat 500 this time last year, which was what I'd booked. Gave me a bad back - the ergonomics are entirely setup for people who are 5'6", which I am very much not!

Otherwise it's the usual potluck of Astra or Focus when the website said Golf. I've never even seen a Golf in the Heathrow Hertz & Enterprise places.

"Golf or Similar" never ever means Golf.

When on holiday I've booked a "Corsa or Similar" but never had a Corsa. It's usually a Hyundai Atos or Chevrolet Matiz 9or whatever they most recent model of these is).

I once had a Renault twingo in Kefalonia - that thing was a deathtrap. Brakes were worn to dangerous levels and the oil warning light was on. I rejected that and they tried to palm me off with a small van - which was bizarre.

stickyfiddle

Yup. Obviously VW isn't interested in the used market being flooded with 6-month old Golfs at knock-down prices, so won't give the discounts that GM are happy to. Though once I did get an Astra GTC something or other turbo-diesel. It was far too stiffly sprung for UK roads but more torque than a very torquey thing and a rather large amount of fun booting it out of roundabouts