Large car hire – wtf?

Looking on Hertz, hire for one day.

Corsa, £34 – pricey, but ok
Octavia, £43 – ok a bit more
Mondeo – £132 WHAT?

I was just looking at 7 seaters, they are all stupidly expensive. Anyone got any tips?

Hire through enterprise. Book smallest care they have – once you get there ask how much to upgrade to a bigger car. It has always been £5/day more to upgrade to a zafira.

Hire two small cars?

We own two smaller cars.. I was looking into hiring one big one 🙂

Err, because the prices of near new Mondeo’s fall faster than gravity should allow?

I looked at hiring something a decent size when we are back in the UK. For 100 quid more i got a VW California for the whole time and i can sleep in it and make a cuppa !

Mondeo is more prestigious than Audi Q5?

7 seaters are always eye watering. Even though I’ve got a trade account it still costs more to hire one 7 seat car than two 5 seaters.

The difficult thing when you are shopping around between hire co’s is the prices are never like for like- in terms of fuel deposit, milage allowances, waivers and so on. So having booked on the basis of one price you might end up paying more to actually drive away

Looking at that Hertz price for the mondeo I wonder if they’re doing the airline/trainfare/travelodge thing and pricing in response to demand. Maybe they know on the date you want to hire you’re buggered for choice.

what we did was just wait for some dithering old giffer to smash into the car behind us at speed, which then obviously smashed into us..

Our insurance then allowed us the use of some mahoosive space-deck 7 seater chelsea tractor Cheverolet until the whole nonsense was sorted out and our car was fixed..

pimpin

I swear I’ve hired minibusses for less.. but that was a while ago.

Our insurance then allowed us the use of some mahoosive space-deck 7 seater chelsea tractor Cheverolet until the whole nonsense was sorted out and our car was fixed..

You ended up with a Craptiva 😯

I’d have just stuck with the broken car!

Unless you are planning to overtake a lot just go for the small car and save some money.

(When I say ‘planning to overtake a lot’ I don’t mean spending lots of time planning just one of them).

I hired a mondeo an ended up with a Ford Kuga – no the same load space at all but it was the only car bigger than a fiesta in the lot and I needed it that day.

A Chevy Equinox is “mahoosive space-deck 7 seater chelsea tractor Cheverolet … pimpin” 😆

That’s mid-size in the US. 🙄 You should have got a Chevy Suburban! Note the dimensions in mm (inches in parentheses)…

You ended up with a Craptiva 😯

Dude; it’s even got a GOLD badge !!
Schweeeet

We are just back from Spain. We needed a seven seater for 2.5 weeks, we saved about £350 by hiring one of these instead:

*Scratches chin and makes the assumption that Yunki has never been to Chelsea

The hire co I use has started using a lot of chevys. We booked a zafira but when we turned up it was actually a chevy orlando. Which to be fair is a zafira…. still in its crate. It was actually perfectly fine for what we wanted to do so long as we avoided any reflective surfaces.

*Scratches chin and makes the assumption that Yunki has never been to Chelsea

We took our chevy through Fulham and Chelsea on a fashionable, balmy spring evening and really did seem to be turning heads – the extent at one point I wound the window down to see if the car was making any weird noises (my 1988 astra used to turn heads but that was combo of the slipping fan belt, the tappity tappets and the blowing manifold) . But no, it was just the cars overwhelming ugliness.

driving around in a phat chevy made me feel like the estate’s coke dealer for a week, which is easily pimpin’ enough for me.. 😀

I’m from the ex post office diesel escort van school of car worship 😆

😆

Just book the tiniest car they have. No hire car company (especially Europcar) actually keep cars that small for hire so you get an automatic upgrade.

When we were in the US last month we had a GMC Yukon XL on hire to transport 7 of us and luggage across Minnesota.

It was easily the biggest thing you could call a car on the road, it was phenomenal. It was 2.5 times longer than my wife’s car over here!

Too much much snoberry here. Whilst in the Caribbean recently we hired a Toyota Yaris Saloon 1.4 auto. I nearly puked when i saw it.

However, is did everything asked of it, very simply and very efficiently, especially bearing in mind no one drives above 50(kmph) over there. Awesome air con abilities, and about 45mph with a family of five in. I bet its cheap to maintain too.

Since then (already own a Ford Kuga) I’ve been thinking in investing in the new Kuga, or that Chevy ^^ and using our old one for my bike / work car*. In my team, it’d be in a amongst a bunch of Beemer’s and audi’s, but do I care?

* the Haldex 4WD useful at SITS/Mayhem of course.

No hire car company (especially Europcar) actually keep cars that small for hire so you get an automatic upgrade

Then you get there .. “Here are the keys to your Aygo, sir”…

Funny though, just booking a truck for my home move and a 7.5 tonner is cheaper than a Mondeo!

We had Chevy Suburbans conversions at work a few years ago, they were huge beasts that made a lot of noise and went like the wind. However, they tool a long time to stop, were hopelessly unreliable and not safe at all. Great fun for making up time down the A1 thoug, I had the a Police traffic car follow me and he admitted it was hard work to keep up.

Unless you are planning to overtake a lot just go for the small car and save some money

Read the OP, I’m looking at 7 seaters. Given that I own two cars, there’s got to be a reason for wanting a 7 seater for one day, hasn’t there?

Hire through enterprise. Book smallest care they have – once you get there ask how much to upgrade to a bigger car. It has always been £5/day more to upgrade to a zafira.

Dunno if this works at all locations, and it doesn’t work every time, but has worked for me a few times:

Book your car from Enterprise on the website the night before you need it (after the branch has closed for the night). Book something small. There’s a good chance that when you turn up (at opening time) the next morning it won’t be there – the computer said there was one available today because there’s one due back today, but you’re here at opening time, it isn’t back yet, you need your car and you need it now – free upgrade to something that they do have in the lot.

For bonus points, if it’s a location where you can see in through the fence, cruise by after closing time and see what they’ve got in – book something that you don’t see that size of.

Best result I’ve had off this – booked an Astra, got a Navarra big 4×4 double cab pickup.

If it all goes wrong and they’ve actually got the car you booked, proceed with glupton’s approach above.

You can borrow my Kuga for a day if you want, a case of Spitfire in payment will do.

All I ask is that it comes back in the condition my wife leaves it – you know, kids toys / snakes all over the floor and Costa Coffee cups permantly in the cup holder.

^ 🙂

Anyway…

Mondeo – £132 WHAT?

I was just looking at 7 seaters

No you weren’t.

By that logic, the OP thought Corsas were 7 seaters. Duh. 🙄

I was. Most car sites put all their cars on the same page.

The Mondeo was the point at which prices suddenly shot from reasonable to bonkers.

All I ask is that it comes back in the condition my wife leaves it – you know, kids toys / snakes all over the floor and Costa Coffee cups permantly in the cup holder.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to tell the difference between that and my own car.

edlong – 🙂

NZCol – Member
I looked at hiring something a decent size when we are back in the UK. For 100 quid more i got a VW California for the whole time and i can sleep in it and make a cuppa !

who did you use? going back for TDF next year and we will need a bike van and kids want to go to go camping in Northumberland

I always go in hiring say a Astra class and be nice/ask nicely ‘oh what else there is/cheeky upgrade’.

Last time we got a diesel newshape Avensis up from a Astra etc that we booked. Questionable whether that can be classed as an upgrade but… 😆

I can’t believe the prices you saw. Through hertz we got (admittedly not a 7 seater), a Ford Mondeo for 12 days for £186.

I couldn’t believe them either. I can’t figure it out. I was checking dates for early August, maybe that’s got something to do with it?