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Thu 17 Oct 2019 21:43

hire car companies - retgwte

went to pick up a hire car from one of the biggest brand hire car firms.

one of the tyres completely bald... told them no way I would be driving it

they faffed on and took an age to get another car

had a look around their site, standard of cleanliness of the cars they are handing to the punters is very poor, a six year old could wash the cars better

many a vulnerable person would have driven off in that car, indeed im not convinced they wont have just handed the car onto the next punter

so all in all not impressed at all

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Fri 18 Oct 2019 13:32

hire car companies - Gibbo_Wirral

You should have got a photo and put it on their Facebook or Twitter page.

Unless they're publicly shamed they never change their attitudes.

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Fri 18 Oct 2019 14:14

hire car companies - Falkirk Bairn

What age / mileage was on the car?

Day rent cars are normally under 12 months and 12K miles.

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Fri 18 Oct 2019 15:14

hire car companies - gordonbennet

Won't say the make but i once collected, among a full load of new cars, a brand spanking new and seriously fast GTi equivalent model from the docks, upon inspecting i noticed odd black marks around the front wheel arches which upon closer inspection revealed two feather edged almost bald front tyres, this obviously happened somewhere on its journey as the rubber debris burned into the inner wheelarches proved it happened on that very car, to be fair very doubtful it happened in the UK.

The balloon went up as you can probably imagine when i went to get the vehicle damage signed off.

Similarly unfortunately some people assume renting a car is a licence to thrash it to death, i don't get the mentality but it's not exactly uncommon.

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Fri 18 Oct 2019 16:05

hire car companies - Senexdriver

Q. What’s the fastest car on the road?

A. A hire car.

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Sat 19 Oct 2019 20:25

hire car companies - Steveieb

Picked up a rental company at an airport abroad and when I put the wipers on to deal with the drizzle I heard a loud knock and the passenger wiper flipped out of its location with the arm and started scraping the screen.
Couldn't stop as there was no hard shoulder so I drove semi blind until I reached a petrol station.
Struggled back to the airport with one wiper and collected a new car.
Reaction from hire company was they will tell the staff to check the wipers in future. But collecting a strange car in the dark and rain with faulty wipers is a scary experience.

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Sun 20 Oct 2019 07:50

hire car companies - dan86

I've never had the need to hire a car before but I've hired a few lorries for when myself or family have moved house.

I hired a 7.5 tone Iveco euro cargo to move my sister from maidstone to Orpington it was about 10 years old and a complete dog. Driving from mottingham in south east London where we got the lorry to maidstone the thing could just about do 30 on the motorway empty and loaded on the way back it really struggled.

When I returned it I told them and they couldn't be bothered in the slightest and said what to you expect for the price you paid.

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Sun 20 Oct 2019 08:50

hire car companies - gordonbennet

I got caught by a big local based hire company near us some years ago, hired a really quite decent MAN 7.5 tonner for the weekend, due to them being closed on the Sunday they collected it on the Monday morning from my house (that was my mistake but i had to be back at work), now i know how to check things over before and after hire but amazingly it had developed a puncture in one of the inside rear twin wheels whilst parked, which they duly charged my card for...i had no way to disprove it.

Having spent many years transporting renters and seen it from the inside, i try to avoid having anything to do with the industry at all, you as an irregular punter are an easy target for all sorts of charges, they are more careful with company accounts who might be renting hundreds of cars a year.

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Sun 20 Oct 2019 19:27

hire car companies - focussed

I used to get issued with a new Volvo every six months for my sins .

One of them less that a week old seized the windscreen wipers - totally - the wiper shafts were solid. Not lubricated on assembly was the story - it was a 240 built in Ghent though!

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Sun 20 Oct 2019 17:22

hire car companies - Engineer Andy

Q. What’s the fastest car on the road?

A. A hire car.

Followed closely by delivery drivers in white vans, which have a 'warp speed' button on the gear stick.

As regards hire cars, many years ago a former colleague specified a large number of A/C units from a manufacturer, and in gratitiude (not a bribe - he never knew about this until the rep phoned him), they gave him a Porsche Boxster for the weekend.

Needless to say during Friday lunchtime (and I suspect for the whole weekend) he apparently discovered the full capabilities of the car bombing down the local dual carriageway (a nice bit of road if I do say so myself - I used it as an 'Italian tune-up' for my old Nissan Micra at the time).

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