Car hire - the thread

[Winot]

Have just got rid of car after 15 years of low usage. Not going to replace it so looking for recommendations of car hire (including car clubs, sharing models and conventional hire).

I’m London based but thought it would be useful to have a general thread including for hiring abroad.

 

[Winot]

Thread prompted in part by being let down by Turo this Christmas. Turo is a sharing app (AirBnB for cars). I’ve used it successfully a couple of times in the US. It’s cheaper than conventional hire, you can get more interesting cars (have driven a Tesla and a Porsche in the US) and some hosts will deliver to your location).

However the downside is that hosts can cancel and our host (a handy 10 mins away by bus) cancelled our hire 4 hours before collection, by which point no conventional hire companies had anything left. Second host allowed us to book but then didn’t respond with vehicle location. Third host allowed us to book but then the BMW 5 Series was mysteriously unavailable and we ended up with an 8 seater long wheel base van.

So I have rather fallen out of love with Turo.

 

[Winot]

Next step - join car club. Any recommendations for low usage (say 4 trips a year)?

 

[pseudonarcissus]

I use Sixt. They may not be the cheapest, but I’ve never had a problem with them in 25 years. They do sometimes give a significant discount if you pre-pay.

I used to have a Zipcar membership. I didn’t use it as much as I thought I would. Partly as I was never sure how long to book it for and tended to over estimate.

 

[BigTom]

I'm a member of Enterprise Car Club, not sure it's worth the money against just hiring a car for a day when I need it and using taxis otherwise but we'll see how often I use it. Main problem I have is going to the tip, which has to be done by car, and I need to do for my garden waste and occasionally for something else.

The cars are nice, always been clean and no mechanical issues. I was a member previously a couple of years ago and the car near me had issues with the card reader that's used to unlock the car but not had problems the two times I've used them in the past couple of months. Their customer service is only open 8am-8pm iirc so if you book something outside of those times and have a problem you don't have anyone to call. One of the recent times I needed them, the car near me was booked so I had to cycle to another one about 20min cycle away but the other time it was free. I imagine they'll add more cars pretty responsively to demand.

this is the only car club operating in birmingham afaik, certainly the only one with cars anywhere near me, so I didn't have a choice of ones to try. I'm lukewarm on this, don't feel like I will use it enough to justify the membership fee but we'll see.

 

[marty21]

I did hire a car from Europcar in Kings Cross a few months ago - was pleased with the car, and no hidden extras, it was about £200 for the week I think.

 

[High Voltage]

I’m into my third week in a hire car after my car mysteriously died at exactly the wrong time to try and get it fixed

That's £600 car hire

£350 RAC membership with a lot of whistles and bells on

And there's the towing fee to the garage to pay yet

I love this time of year

 

[weltweit]

I used to hire cars for personal and work reasons. At the moment I only have a debit card and I think you need credit card to hire a car ..

 

[weltweit]

Anyone seen John cooper Clarke's poem "Hire Car" I can't embed it but it is very funny.

 

[Idaho]

You all probably know this, but when hiring a car, the excess insurance they offer you is astonishingly expensive. It's often a tenth the price of you look online and get excess insurance from a separate company. You can even get a cheap annual cover of you hire a lot.

 

[Winot]

You all probably know this, but when hiring a car, the excess insurance they offer you is astonishingly expensive. It's often a tenth the price of you look online and get excess insurance from a separate company. You can even get a cheap annual cover of you hire a lot.

Good point. I use this website:
https://www.insurance4carhire.com/

 

[Manter]

We have zip car- there are loads round us (and you) and you can do it one way now too- zip car flex- which can be useful.

Proper hire in UK we use Kendall’s. Requires organisation (they are out near Morden, so northern line) but much cheaper than Hertz etc. Abroad we tend to use hertz as some of the small hire companies we have used have gone rather memorably wrong

 

[hash tag]

Car clubs I imagine are fine for low mileage low time usage but if you want a car for longer distances or term I reckon they would really cost.
Enterprise cost me half a day and a lot travelling once when the car I booked weeks in advance failed to materialise.
have used Kendall a few times without any problems. Lower spec cars than Enterprise but reliable.

 

[weltweit]

I have used enterprise in the UK, I like that they pick you up.

Abroad mainly Hertz iirc. I haven't hired a car for a few years though.

 

[Spymaster]

Good point. I use this website:
Car Hire Excess Insurance | insurance4carhire

If you hire cars more than once or twice a year this is essential. I buy an annual policy. It means you have to make sure you refuse their attempts to foist their own cover on you when you book and pick up the car and also have to keep a reasonable balance on a credit card as they will block the excess amount for the duration of the hire (usually between £500-£1500 depending on the car). If you have an accident they will take the excess from your card and you have to claim it back from the insurance company.

If you don't have a credit card (or sufficient balance on your card for the deposit) you can still hire a car with some firms on a debit card but they will insist that you take their premium daily excess waiver option which can be extortionate.

 

[Manter]

Car clubs I imagine are fine for low mileage low time usage but if you want a car for longer distances or term I reckon they would really cost.
Enterprise cost me half a day and a lot travelling once when the car I booked weeks in advance failed to materialise.
have used Kendall a few times without any problems. Lower spec cars than Enterprise but reliable.

Zip car has an all day rate which isn’t cheap as chips but is actually OK. We’ve taken a zip car to Hull, when we totally failed to book something, and were surprised how decent it was

 

[moomoo]

What is a zip car? I’ve heard about them before.

 

[Manter]

What is a zip car? I’ve heard about them before.

Pay as you drive city car hire. They are parked all over the place and you book them with an app as you need them- half an hour, by the minute, chunks of time etc. Some you have to take back where you found them, others you can drive one way and then just leave. There is one on our street quite often, which is useful for trips to football club when we are late
Zipcar UK - Car Sharing | An Alternative To Car Hire with Zipcar

 

[T & P]

For all the reports of car hire abroad having shot up in price, I’ve just booked a BMW 1 series with Sixt for £23 per day for the weekend of 6 September in Madrid. I got 10% discount as a gold member, but still, it seems madness to me. I know Madrid is not a beach holiday destination, and around Christmas time it is £70+ per day, but most other times of the year it seems ridiculously cheap for a major city

 

[pseudonarcissus]

stop complaining! I'm paying a lot more than that for a Golf from them that week from Geneva

 

[Elpenor]

You could always do 37 car hires in a weekend to get lots of air miles

37 rental cars - 2 days - 185,000 miles - FlyerTalk Forums

Trip Reports - 37 rental cars - 2 days - 185,000 miles - This was going to be either a genius move or a miserable failure. Either way, I figured I'd at least end up with a good story. Back in June, Avis had a promotion offering 5000 EuroBonus miles per rental. What made this offer so special was...

www.flyertalk.com

 

[T & P]

You could always do 37 car hires in a weekend to get lots of air miles

37 rental cars - 2 days - 185,000 miles - FlyerTalk Forums

Trip Reports - 37 rental cars - 2 days - 185,000 miles - This was going to be either a genius move or a miserable failure. Either way, I figured I'd at least end up with a good story. Back in June, Avis had a promotion offering 5000 EuroBonus miles per rental. What made this offer so special was...

www.flyertalk.com

That is absolutely epic

 

[Odessa111]

I have never hired any cars but really want to a party bus hire for my birthday. It’s such a fun option, especially for group events in London. Plus u can party all night long without going outside and having some troubles like at the bars or clubs. Cool tho

 

[T & P]

It seems the Spanish franchises of the major car rental companies are becoming as untrustworthy as their UK counterparts regarding alleged new damage. I have rented two cars in the last month with Sixt and Europcar in Madrid, and on both occasions I’ve had them reporting new damage that I can say with full confidence I had not caused, and neither could a third party possibly had.

Sixt is a company I use all the time and have always been impeccably trustworthy. So when I returned the car at the airport and was told there was no need for me to hang around whilst they checked the car, I didn’t think twice. Yet I received an email the following day informing me of a new scratch, and charged me some €90 for it. Unfortunately I didn’t film or photograph the car on collection as they have always been so reliable.

This week I hired with Europcar for one day. I collected it late last night. The person at the desk told me if I noticed any damage I should call them this morning as there was no representative left at the collection point that late. Luckily I had the presence of mind to film the car throughout, because sure enough when I returned it this afternoon (and ensured it was checked in my presence), the bloke proceeded to embark on a forensic examination that wouldn’t have been out of place in a CSI episode, and sure enough took pictures of a couple of small scratches on front grill and one of the alloy wheels and claimed they were new. After I showed him the video he immediately said all was well and to go to the main desk to report they were pre-existing damage and I wasn’t at fault. It totally felt to me they were trying their luck, and undoubtedly so under company pressure.

I have an annual hire car insurance so I never bother buying the car hire firm’s laughably expensive offerings. It increasingly feels to me they rely on that revenue more heavily than the actual hire charges, and employees are ‘encouraged’ to find fault with rentals where the driver has not bought their insurance. Bottom line: inspect and film the car within an inch of its life if you’re not insuring it with the cunt hire company