We are looking to book a car in Croatia for a week.

The costs are looking extremely reasonable, just over 130 euros with refundable excess insurance.

issue is every time I Google the name of the hire company it’s like opening the door to a room full of every episode of “Watchdog” – according to Trip Advisor they’re all scamming ****!

So atm i’m a bit like “euuahhh shall we just get the bus…”

We are looking to use Auto Europe – anyone used them?

Anyone got an horror stories, or tips and advice?

cheers

We booked with what essentially was a Greek bloke in a shed earlier this year in Cyprus. He was nice though and drew me a map to my hotel on an envelope. I’ve heard of Auto Europe but haven’t used them. Can’t say that renting a car abroad has ever bothered me too much tbh. Just go for it!!

Doesn’t Auto Europe just manage the booking then pass you on to a local agent?

If worried I’d probably look to book with one of the big boys.

The only horror story was with one of the first cars I hired abroad. Didn’t really look round it much. We got a few miles down the road and the digital speedo decided to pack in, kept coming on and back off. I just decided to drive with the flow of the traffic and then took it steady when on quiet roads. Got up a mountain in it, parked up for a picnic and noticed a massive bulge in one of the tyres. We only had the car for a day so just risked driving it back. Took it back at the end of the day, pointed it out to the lady at the company and she just shrugged her shoulders and said “ah well”.

Watch out for speed cameras too. You’ll get the usual fee for them passing on your info to the authorities, plus you’ll then get stung for a foreign transfer from your bank account (unless your account allows this or are happy to fax your bank/credit card details across Europe).

Oh and take Tripadvisor reports with a pinch of salt, most people only seem to use it to moan/complain (or I have very low standards!)

Doesn’t Auto Europe just manage the booking then pass you on to a local agent?

Yeah you’re right – would it be better to just look straight for hire companies?

plyphon – try them all. Last time I hired I used Auto Europe, Holiday Autos and then found out which hire companies had offices at the airport. I then did direct searches with each individual.

We were travelling out on Easter Sunday, the holiday hire companies were looking to charge me an out of hours fee – hence looking at all of them directly. I found a few didn’t charge out of hours as their offices were open. Ended up booking direct with Hertz.

Also try looking at Topcashback to earn a bit of money back from the hire.

I don’t know if they do it elsewhere, but most of the car hire companies (Hertz seem to be the exception) at Dublin Airport offer you a simple choice of (a) 15-18 Euros per day insurance to cover your excess, or (b) just pay the excess up front. 1-2000.00 Euros.

I now use Hertz whenever I go to Ireland

weve always booked direct, sometimes the big companies and sometimes the local ones.
no horror stories but dont be tempted to save a few euros and decide not to take the full insurance cover.
i needed it once and saved me hundreds of euros.
also note that many full insurance cover do not cover wheel damage and bottom of the car damage.
so take note on unfamiliar roads as weve come accross some craters on our way to meteora in greece.
also watch out for the mileage limits

I use autoeurope a lot

They are pretty much brookers but recently seem to be tied in to thrifty hire co.

One of the benefits to using them is that the quote will be the final price, in the past when i have used avis or hertz there is always an additional charge long after i have returned home. Usually some kind of airport return or some other surcharge

We go to Croatia a fair bit- going to Korcula again in 6 weeks. Holiday Autos each time with the full cdw refund thing has been good for us.

Driving standard is pretty random and you can have to show passports etc at ‘border’ controls in the middle of the country. Taking a car into a neighboring country is a royal pita.

Otherwise if what you’re looking at is too cheap I’d be suspicious (possibly a strange fuel policy or something).

This may be bollocks, but I’ve got it into my mind that your insurance wont be valid if you drive a hire car into another country?

Holiday Autos

cheers, we will look into them.

there’s just a lot to read and make sure we understand – we’re doing this on a budget and REALLY can’t afford to be stung by extra stuff. let alone the fact its on my credit card and i’ll be having to chase everyone else for cash!

bump for the daytime crowd, still interested to hear stories etc

TAKE the insurance waivers out if offered!

I used to rent a lot of cars for use in ski resorts and have seen loads of stupid stuff happen to them…

For the sake of £40 it can save you a fortune. The worst ones were a car that got written off and a massive icicle that fell off a building and went straight through the roof of a two day old VW Passat (very nearly killed me that one). Without the waivers we would have been looking at a few thousand euros a go with those. After having had a lot of hassles with smaller hire car companies I just wont bother with them now and just use the big companies direct like avis, hertz europcar, sixt etc. I find you get far less hassles and less spurious charges than with the smaller companies who always seem to charge for something.

Oh and make sure you return the vehicle when the office is open and get them to check the vehicle down with you and sign the forms. That way there can be no dispute. Most daft charges appear when you have had to return the car out of hours and leave the vehicle unchecked.

I used Holiday Autos – who book through a local supplier. Their assistance phone line was excellent when I managed to forget the pin of the credit card I was supposed to be using to pick the thing up the next day.

Oh and make sure you return the vehicle when the office is open and get them to check the vehicle down with you and sign the forms. That way there can be no dispute. Most daft charges appear when you have had to return the car out of hours and leave the vehicle unchecked.

nice one, good advice. our flight back is at 3 so we will be arriving at 12 to make sure – should be there!

Remember to take it back full of fuel (if it’s a full full rental) as their fuel cost will be at least twice the cost of fuel in the garage down the road.

We rented a car in Lanzarote from a place called Auto Feber.

Decided “let’s hire a car and go for a drive tomorrow” so went with less than 24hours notice, after an automatic Focus. Booked and paid, abour €40 for the day.

Turned up the next day to be told “we’re very sorry senor Bails, but we weren’t able to get the car that you wanted so we’ve had to get a different model. It’s a 2.0T Saab 93, is that okay?”

“Yes, I think I can live with that”

“Okay, well here are the keys, all damage is included in the price so if you crash it then just give us a call and we’ll bring a replacement one out to you. And don’t leave any fuel in it, just enough to drive it from the hotel back to our office. And you can just park it outside where you’re staying, drop the keys at reception and we’ll pick it up tomorrow morning.”
😀
After hearing horror stories I was pleasantly suprised!

thats how it should work! none of this hidden fees ballshit thats got me up to my ears in small print!

Once all paid by cc.

Cancel credit card if they try to fiddle it after your holiday.

DO NOT:

TAKE the insurance waivers out if offered!

They are usually terrible value. Use a company like THIS instead.

Remember to take it back full of fuel (if it’s a full full rental) as their fuel cost will be at least twice the cost of fuel in the garage down the road.

Will smaller operators it is now common that they charge for a full tank when you get the car then you have to return it empty. Dead cheeky that one as they set the price of the fuel, and anything left in the tank is a freebie for them.

Take out the full whack cover then thrash the car within an inch of its life, that is your right.

DO NOT:

TAKE the insurance waivers out if offered!
They are usually terrible value. Use a company like THIS instead.

Not my experience. I paid £40 for 3 weeks fully covered, bells and whistles excess in Spain. If you don’t take it, they may charge a massive deposit, in our case £600. I just foresaw loads of hassle getting it returned. Also, if you do use a third party insurer then cause damage, you will have to pay it yourself then claim it back.

I dragged a hire car along a concrete pillar in Crete, caused a hell of a lot of damage. It was strangely rewarding just handing the key over at the end and walking off knowing I had no liability!

Not my experience. I paid £40 for 3 weeks fully covered, bells and whistles excess in Spain. If you don’t take it, they may charge a massive deposit, in our case £600. I just foresaw loads of hassle getting it returned. Also, if you do use a third party insurer then cause damage, you will have to pay it yourself then claim it back.

We hire cars in Europe a couple of times a year and never take the hire companies excess waiver, I use the policy from the company in the link above.

Deposit for last two weeks hire was £400 which was back on my credit card they day after we got home.

avoid using record-go. They are scammers of the highest order.

When you collect the car, they charge you for a full tank of fuel (at an inflated per litre price – not the price you could get at a petrol station).

This means that if you’re not going to use a full tank of fuel , you still get charged for one (at the inflated rate). They also charge you an extra insurance charge to cover things like wheel damage, clutch wear, brake wear, even though when you booked you paid for ‘full’ insurance.

The cost ends up being significantly more than you thought it would be.

Got done over by Europcar’s Nice airport office a couple of years ago. Google Serenity Pack and you’ll get the full horror story – they pulled the same number on me in 2011, and it took four months to sort out.
I got a full refund, but only after several complaints and lots of to and fro. On that basis, I’d never, ever recommend Europcar.

Linky:
Watchdog
MSE

Not my experience. I paid £40 for 3 weeks fully covered, bells and whistles excess in Spain.

That’s pretty reasonable. I was offered cover for a similar price with Avis last week for just 5 days hire.

DO NOT:

TAKE the insurance waivers out if offered!

They are usually terrible value. Use a company like THIS instead.

+1

We hired from Europcar a few years ago to drive around Denmark/Norway/Sweden. No problems to report but after research beforehand the common consensus was to take out a 3rd party insurance waiver rather than the one offered by the hire company.

@julians: I was about to post the same thing. We used Record in Majorca, we were forced to pay for the fuel up front and told to bring it back empty. It’s a small island and it was an economical car, we only used a third of the tank…:-(

With regard to the “big” car hire companies (Avis, Sixt Europcar etc), as I understand it most of them operate a franchise model. This means that you are effectively at the mercy of whichever franchise you are dealing with at the time. So your experience of Avis for example could be radically different from franchise to franchise.
In the past I’ve always used Enterprise. This is because all the locations are directly owned and run by the company and the staff at each location are paid bonus based upon customer satisfaction surveys. So the company have far greater control over how each depot operates and the staff are incentivised to treat you well and not try to rip you off.
I’ve certainly never had an issue with them

When you collect the car, they charge you for a full tank of fuel (at an inflated per litre price – not the price you could get at a petrol station).

That’s standard practice from anywhere I’ve hired from in Spain.

I’ve always been asked if I want ‘excess insurance cover’, I’ve always said no. They would have asked and you would have agreed.

Once all paid by cc.

Cancel credit card if they try to fiddle it after your holiday.

Even better is to report the card lost or stolen (assuming you don’t want to actualy cancel it). That way they can never get any money off it… 😉

I managed to print out my car reservation info not realising that I’d cut off the end of the reservation number…of course the guy at the hire desk at Pisa airport could not possibly find the reservation on my name alone and I just had to take a new hire at the full desk rates ! Luckily when I got home I complained and had the difference refunded from the UK – I think this was Europcar so good in the end…just glad I’d booked in the uk and could sort it out with them here.

edit..I did take extra insurance on a camper van I rented, brand new, first time it had been out..of course I reversed it into a concrete post. Handed the keys back and said sorry..about the best insurance I’ve ever taken.

I’ve always been asked if I want ‘excess insurance cover’, I’ve always said no. They would have asked and you would have agreed.

I said no, so they said they wanted the full excess amount (~2k euros) up front which they would refund when I returned the car – I figured that getting the excess back might be difficult.

The thing thats annoying is that when I booked it (via holiday autos), the website said that was the full cost (I paid up front for full insurance) and there would be no ‘surprise’ extra costs to pay when I collected the car.

I now hire a car from a local small firm, they have non of the sharp practice that record-go inflict.

Even better is to report the card lost or stolen (assuming you don’t want to actualy cancel it). That way they can never get any money off it…

What I did with Europcar was call my bank and tell them the extra they’d tacked on was an unapproved charge (They’d told me I’d be charged 12 Euros for the upgrade – not 12 Euros per day, and I’d asked them about this repeatedly before signing). The bank cancelled the payment and also confirmed that they’d had complaints about Europcar at Nice airport before.

Ordered a Mondeo size car from Hertz at Schipol.
“Sorry sir we don’t have a Mondeo, will an E Class be ok?”
“That’ll have to do”
It was perfect for four rain-soaked drinkers to sleep in at Assen.

My current car is an ex-Europcar renter, I shudder to think what’s it been through!

Just used Goldcar in Mallorca. They were the cheapest by far, as evidenced by the massive cue at the Goldcar desk while all the surrounding desks were empty. BUT…..

They rape you senseless with the additional charges. With charges for an fuel, additional driver, insurance, and GPS hire (admittedly unnecessary), we ended up paying an additional 200 euros on picking up the car. The biggest rip-off was the fuel charge – 80 euros and you return the car empty. Except, of course, the fuel tank is never going to be completely empty when you return in (although I was tempted to do laps of the carpark until it was – followed by plowing into concrete pillar to make the most of the excess waiver that we paid for), and the Corsa that we rented could only fit about 50 euros worth of fuel in the tank.

Still probably marginally cheaper than other rental firms, but I’d much rather deal with people that are more upfront about the costs. Judging by the number of angry people at the rental desk, I wasn’t alone.

decent replies here.

yeah I made sure the policy is full to full. there were a few full to empties but i ignored that.

the insurance excess waiver offered by HolidayAutos/AutoEurope seem alright tbh, about £30 quid for the week. There is 4 of us so just a few quid really.

It’s about £130ish for a weeks rent. maybe a tad more. Does that seem about ballpark figure for the smallest “economy” car?

think i’m going to just book it tonight and take the insurance excess waiver offered and hope for the best.

I just noticed your points (about sharing the costs etc) after my recommendation above.

Just so you’re aware- if you do go ahead with holiday autos: you will have to have a normal credit card with a limit of whatever the insurance excess is (typically £1200) for the car hire company when you collect the car. A prepaid credit card wont work.

Otherwise the cost sounds reasonable.

BTW – where are you going to ?

yeah i’m aware of that thanks – I think it’s £600 quid from what I remember reading. will double check

going to Pula for Dimensions festival. Staying in some resort not far away from the festival, but flying into Rijeka. 2hour car journey or like a 4 hour military style operation to get the bus down.