Worst holiday car rentals

[RWDpetrol]

Was just looking through some old photos and came across this rental car I hired in Jerusalem in 2008. What's the worst you've had on holiday?

Mine came complete with a mismatching wing mirror, peeling paintwork, unbalanced wheels and some serious stone 'chips' as it was Israeli registered but often taken by tourists like me to the West Bank.

 

[RWDpetrol]

 

[GP801]

Kia Avella, Lada Riva or a Ford Laser. All in Malta where my wife comes from. The Ford Laser was for our honeymoon. I think it was built for Africa or somewhere else really hot. Did not even have a fan or heater let alone aircon.

 

[BigSilverEstate]

Good thread, thank you.

I think hire cars are one of the main trials of going on holidays as you always end up with something worse than you drive at home. My most frustrating experiences have been very underpowered cars on holidays in mountainous areas e.g, a Yaris when we were in a village house in Gaucin, high in the hills of Southern Andalusia.

Also more recently some of the van conversion style people carriers that you tend to get when travelling with family - Fiat Doblo in Lanzarote= fine so long as you only drive slowly in a straight line.

 

[PenelopePitstop]

Renault Megane Cabrio Coupe which had 80K km on the clock and was so badly damaged everywhere ... I think it was Tenerife. Only cabrios were in so bad condition in this company, all normal small cars were rather new.

My holiday rentals are always worse than the car I own. I don't see a point to overpay for holiday car. Usually end up with Polo or Golf. Once got Avensis because Avis run out of small cars. That's in Europe.

 

[RWDpetrol]

My most frustrating experiences have been very underpowered cars on holidays in mountainous areas e.g, a Yaris

I had a Chevy Spark in St Lucia, 1.2 litre I believe. It was so bad I upgraded the next day to a Yaris...not much better!

Didn't know they made Saloons.

 

[itaintemeyouno]

Good thread, thank you.

I think hire cars are one of the main trials of going on holidays as you always end up with something worse than you drive at home. My most frustrating experiences have been very underpowered cars on holidays in mountainous areas e.g, a Yaris when we were in a village house in Gaucin, high in the hills of Southern Andalusia.

Also more recently some of the van conversion style people carriers that you tend to get when travelling with family - Fiat Doblo in Lanzarote= fine so long as you only drive slowly in a straight line.

Surely if you want a more powerful car you don't order the smallest category? How many Yaris and fiesta sized cars are powerful?

If you want a more powerful car, then you'll need to upgrade to one. Yes it will cost more, but a E350 costs more than a fiesta, but you paid more for the E350 than you would a fiesta, right? Why is car hire any different? :bannana:

In our family, we always use/d hire cars as a way of 'auditioning' a car we were interested in getting. First time we drove an E class was in Austria.

On one occasion, we had booked a C class type vehicle via Avis and were upgraded to a Porsche Cayenne Turbo. Ok, it's a glorified Q5, but it was a nice upgrade. On the other side of the coin, in Barcelona airport, they tried to give us a manual passat saloon when we'd booked C class. Told them no, and got a nice, if slightly underpowered C180 CDI 'AMG' sport. It had 'enough' power, but compared to the E220 we had driven in Austria you could tell the difference.

 

[RWDpetrol]

Surely if you want a more powerful car you don't order the smallest category?

Depends on location. In some holiday destinations if you want a Merc, it comes with a driver.

 

[DSB SL AMG]

Kia Matiz hired Alicante Spain (business trip)...had to drive Valencia and back (110 mls)....pretty scary stuff but made it, I thought at one stage the car would fall apart lol never again had Golf / A3 from then onwards, pretty good

 

[janner]

I think you mean Daewoo/Chevrolet Matiz. If so, I agree it's one of the worst cars ever made.

 

[Howard]

We hired a Kia Picanto when we flew into Malaga , when we picked it up , it was gorgeous , gloss black , polished , 150 miles on the clock all for 15 e a day !

Drove off in it , popped into the eroski ( supermarket ) on the coast road , didn't notice a big pillar holding up the sunshade in the car park , and took the side out of it.

We were popular after that !

 

[gaz_l]

You have to take the rough with the smooth. Our last two trips to Italy - ordered the smallest cheapest thing on the menu.

1 (Bologna). Knackered old Lancia Ypsilon, 80+ thousand kilometers on the clock, missing wheel trims, scratches on every panel. :fail

2 (Pisa). Brand new Fiat 500, straight off the delivery lorry. :bannana:

Win some, lose some..

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[GP801]

Oddly enough had a good result at Bologna airport. Ordered a Panda as usual. (quite like them) Ended up with a brand new Peugeot 508 with satnav and all the toys. My italian was very basic at that time. Thought they had offered a 500 which I would have been happy with. Somewhat shocked to find a large saloon in the designated space.

 

[BigSilverEstate]

Surely if you want a more powerful car you don't order the smallest category? How many Yaris and fiesta sized cars are powerful? If you want a more powerful car, then you'll need to upgrade to one. Yes it will cost more, but a E350 costs more than a fiesta.

A fair point and of course you get what you pay for, but my experience has been that in Mediterranean holiday resorts the cost of 'premium' car rental is way out of proportion to the relative value of the cars, and I've never quite been able to justify it to myself (or more importantly to SWMBO). Also you tend to book by category so it is really a lottery what you get - we've had a fiesta which I thought was an excellent car, but then in the same bracket we've had Hyundai i10s, the Yaris, etc which have been less good

 

[del320]

Nah, nah, nah - no bad cars mentioned here!

My blood still runs cold and the hairs on the back of my neck still rise when I recall this:

Hired in 1990 just before war broke out, our Yugoslavian holiday was made even more memorable for this travelling companion. Inconceivably shyte, I could put my hand up to my wrist in the panel gap on the left side of the tailgate, whilst the right side was so tight the paint was worn off.

The driver's seat back collapsed and had to be propped up with our suitcase and I truly thought the entire interior was going to fall apart.

Considering it was based on the highly-regarded FIAT128 the Commies must have put immense effort in to make it so irredeemably bad.

It drank petrol and I remember initially driving off from a filling station before getting all my change from a 10 million dinar note.

The most exciting experience came in Sarajevo when standing at a red light, the back door opened and a girl of about 16 jumped in. She asked if we were looking for accommodation and, to cut a long story short, we finished up in her parent's fourth floor flat in what became known as sniper's alley on the outskirts of Sarajevo.

We slept in a small double behind a curtain whilst the rest of the family - about six of them - slept in the only other room.

Great people!

 

[mct_cars]

Citroen C2 a few years back.

Car itself was ok although the 50 mile drive south out of Barcelona was a bit hairy.

We hired a car seat as well. After much head scratching, we found the only way the car seat would go in was to pull the drivers seat all the way forward, drop the back seats, open the tailgate, put the car seat in and wedge it as far forward as possible, raise the rear seat and then strap it in. A full 30 minute job!

 

[itaintemeyouno]

Nah, nah, nah - no bad cars mentioned here!

My blood still runs cold and the hairs on the back of my neck still rise when I recall this:

Hired in 1990 just before war broke out, our Yugoslavian holiday was made even more memorable for this travelling companion. Inconceivably shyte, I could put my hand up to my wrist in the panel gap on the left side of the tailgate, whilst the right side was so tight the paint was worn off.

The driver's seat back collapsed and had to be propped up with our suitcase and I truly thought the entire interior was going to fall apart.

Considering it was based on the highly-regarded FIAT128 the Commies must have put immense effort in to make it so irredeemably bad.

It drank petrol and I remember initially driving off from a filling station before getting all my change from a 10 million dinar note.

The most exciting experience came in Sarajevo when standing at a red light, the back door opened and a girl of about 16 jumped in. She asked if we were looking for accommodation and, to cut a long story short, we finished up in her parent's fourth floor flat in what became known as sniper's alley on the outskirts of Sarajevo.

We slept in a small double behind a curtain whilst the rest of the family - about six of them - slept in the only other room.

Great people!

A friend of mine used to have an orange one of those. He's bought it off a corner of the road dealer before the days of PDI's and it turned out to have been stolen. The insurance company allowed him to keep it as they had already paid out. Not surprising really!