I was in Scotland last weekend and rented a car from Hertz.
I had booked a “Hertz Compact 4-door car” as I would be carrying passengers, but what I ended up with was a dodgy 3-door Vauxhall Astra, although I didn’t really bother to count the doors until I got underway.
My dad tells me that rental cars usually have fewer than about 13k miles as they get pretty well shagged after that, yet mine was showing over 33K and only 18 months old.
It felt old and abused too, with some worrying mechanical noises from up front. Anyways, it didn’t break down, so I suppose no harm done.
However, today I get the invoice from Hertz, on which it claimed the mileage when I collected it was 3989 and when returned 4083 and that I’d done 94 miles.
Bollocks.
I’d actually done 280 miles according to Kate (my TomTom) and used 44 litres of fuel (about 23mpg!)
So not only did Hertz give me a gas guzzling, under-doored, ageing piece of shit, but they lied about it on the invoice.
I wonder if all car rental companies are like this?
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Interesting, the Adrian I used to know a few years back didn’t really care much for cars, now every other blog post is filled with the things!
About 10 years ago I rented a car at Aberdeen airport. I’d booked Fiesta, or Corsa, or something else small. They were pleased to tell me I’d been upgraded to a Volkswagen Octavia. Hardly surprising I’d ever heard of this car, I don’t really follow cars.
When I got to the car there was a big Skoda badge on it, now a VW one. I know VW own Skoda but that’s pushing it. I guess they didn’t have the nerve to tell me I’d been upgraded to a Skoda.
Anyway, I’m on my second ex-rental car and its no problems. Hertz used to be owned by Ford, a lot of Ford cars go into Hertz for 6 months (about 15,000) miles and come out into their “Approved Ford” scheme. We’ve got on from there and its fine, it was cheap for a 6 month old car, we don’t do much milage so I’m happy.
Thing is, when the dealer sold us it she was very defensive when I suggested most of the approved cars were ex-rental.
Yes, you’re right, my early years were spent saving the planet, walking and cycling etc! No more.
I hope nobody ends up with that Astra as an “approved used” vehicle..
FWIW, the reg was NC57 AXZ – or maybe Hertz will falsify that too
We recently had to rent a car (ironically enough so we could go buy a new car). The only car left was a Vauxhall Astra (3 door, 1.6) which, apart from the fairly naff visibility out the back and the fact it was slightly larger and more powerful than what the girlfriend was used to, was an OK car. We also got some money knocked off as we’d not done many miles and ended up putting £10 worth of petrol in to fill the tank. That said this was a local independent hire firm not some faceless multinational.
double park – don’t lock the door,
push the pedals through the floor,
give it loads and then some more,
it’s a hire car baby.
grip the stick – grind the gears,
watch that distance disappear,
never yours in a thousand years,
it’s a hire car baby.
hire-car, hire-car.
why would anybody buy a car?
bang it, prang it, say ta ta!
it’s a hire car baby.
etc.
Johnny Clarke, sometime in the 80′s prolly.
Excellent. I like this.