Why do hire car companies never have the vehicle you book?

[blearyeyedboy]

280E said:

Hired a cheapie car online for pickup at Cork airport a few years ago. On collection, I was asked if I'd like to upgrade for the special price of €50 to a car a couple of rungs up the class ladder.

I politely declined the offer, and was then told that my chosen cheapie wasn't available. As a substitute I was offered - you guessed it - that very same 'upgrade' model

Cork airport's hire desks are infamous. I always order a Golfocastra sized car and always get a size bigger.

[cwis]

Many years ago I did some contract IT work for a large vehicle hire company.

During Y2K (remember that?) testing by their subcontracted Indian programmer team they managed to get production and test mixed up, and cleared a database table. The "cars" database table. On production. No one noticed for a day or so until they fessed up and yours truly recovered the table from a backop.

Funnily enough no cars were hired that day.

I can imagine the arguments at various airports etc all round the country:

"I'm sorry sir but the system says there are no cars available"

"But there are some parked right outside!"

[AlexHat]

On the subject of damage, on holiday last year in Tenerife we hired a Citroen C4 (was supposed to be a Focus...) Which didn't have one panel without a dent or scratch! We went back to the hire place and dragged one of the reps out to show them. God only knows how it got in that state

[loafer123]

AlexHat said:

On the subject of damage, on holiday last year in Tenerife we hired a Citroen C4 (was supposed to be a Focus...) Which didn't have one panel without a dent or scratch! We went back to the hire place and dragged one of the reps out to show them. God only knows how it got in that state

That's always the best option! I had one in Majorca. The hire car guy handed the keys to a beaten up old Seat and said "when it comes back, we're going to scrap it, so do what you like."

Surprisingly good at offroading...

[Hugo a Gogo]

best was being given an MX5 for a Focus-sized car at Prestwick airport

[Swanny87]

Clearly hire companies have different definitions for the words 'similar' and 'upgrade'...

[V8forweekends]

cwis said:

Many years ago I did some contract IT work for a large vehicle hire company.

During Y2K (remember that?) testing by their subcontracted Indian programmer team they managed to get production and test mixed up, and cleared a database table. The "cars" database table. On production. No one noticed for a day or so until they fessed up and yours truly recovered the table from a backop.

Funnily enough no cars were hired that day.

I can imagine the arguments at various airports etc all round the country:

"I'm sorry sir but the system says there are no cars available"

"But there are some parked right outside!"

Yeah, sure that happened - no cars hired, right. And the database schema was so perfectly normalised that clearing a single table stopped the business, oh yeah. No.

[cwis]

V8forweekends said:

Yeah, sure that happened - no cars hired, right. And the database schema was so perfectly normalised that clearing a single table stopped the business, oh yeah. No.

Edited to add detail and remove somewhat snotty tone. Apologies for that.

The database was on an iSeries so it was a single physical file that was cleared. And yes, it did stop the business.

On an iSeries the legacy filesystem IS a database.

You create a physical file or files with a format to suit your data, like you'd create tables in a conventional database. You then compile logical files over your physical files to perform what in SQL I suppose would be joins, order and group by etc etc.

A logical file exists on the file system just like a physical file, and you can do file type stuff to them, but they contain no data. Changing them obviously changes the based-upon physical files where the data really resides.

Logicals are vaguely analogous to SQL views or indexes, depending on their properties.

Then you write your RPG application. When you want to access your data you access it like you would a file, rather than a database. You choose the file (physical or one of your compiled logicals) depending on what data you want from what files/tables and in what sequence. You can open multiple files in read only or read write, and you loop though the data returned and do your processing.

When you get to the end of the data, you get an EOF (end of file) marker returned to the program, which traps it and moves on the next step.

When the developers cleared the cars file it therefore didn't affect any schema as this concept was unknown to the iSeries at the time. The booking/reservation programs would have used their normal file access to the data, and would immediately hit the EOF marker, which would indicate no cars were available to be booked.

So the day passed without any cars hired until end of day processing hit enough program errors to alert the developers, who then phoned a grown up. Me.

Happily those days are long gone.

iSeries machines now understand SQL, schemas etc and a modern program running on one written in php, java, python or anything else would explode immediately if you dropped a table, as you correctly say.

Edited by cwis on Friday 29th May 15:41

[e8_pack]

TooMany2cvs said:

Well, I'll report back what Alamo Sweden give me in a few weeks - the booking says "Economy, similar to Polo".

Any bets?

Auto C Class Merc, leaving me who has booked a Merc, with a VW Sharan.

[va1o]

Its very difficult for them to guarantee a specific vehicle since the fleet is made up of many different models and availability can change at last minute.

Last rental I had was a couple of weeks ago was Hertz at Cork Airport. Booked a Golf or similar and they tried to give me an Astra Saloon. I questioned this as we didn't really have a need for a Saloon, they then almost immediately handed me the keys to a brand new Golf! Seemed to have loads of vehicles in that class including A3s and Focuses.

[130R]

Years ago in Spain we booked a Fiesta (or similar) and got given a brand new C-Class Merc. We were delighted until one of my friends was sick down the hole where the seatbelt comes out.

[V8forweekends]

cwis said:

V8forweekends said:

Yeah, sure that happened - no cars hired, right. And the database schema was so perfectly normalised that clearing a single table stopped the business, oh yeah. No.

Edited to add detail and remove somewhat snotty tone. Apologies for that.

The database was on an iSeries so it was a single physical file that was cleared. And yes, it did stop the business.

On an iSeries the legacy filesystem IS a database.

You create a physical file or files with a format to suit your data, like you'd create tables in a conventional database. You then compile logical files over your physical files to perform what in SQL I suppose would be joins, order and group by etc etc.

A logical file exists on the file system just like a physical file, and you can do file type stuff to them, but they contain no data. Changing them obviously changes the based-upon physical files where the data really resides.

Logicals are vaguely analogous to SQL views or indexes, depending on their properties.

Then you write your RPG application. When you want to access your data you access it like you would a file, rather than a database. You choose the file (physical or one of your compiled logicals) depending on what data you want from what files/tables and in what sequence. You can open multiple files in read only or read write, and you loop though the data returned and do your processing.

When you get to the end of the data, you get an EOF (end of file) marker returned to the program, which traps it and moves on the next step.

When the developers cleared the cars file it therefore didn't affect any schema as this concept was unknown to the iSeries at the time. The booking/reservation programs would have used their normal file access to the data, and would immediately hit the EOF marker, which would indicate no cars were available to be booked.

So the day passed without any cars hired until end of day processing hit enough program errors to alert the developers, who then phoned a grown up. Me.

Happily those days are long gone.

iSeries machines now understand SQL, schemas etc and a modern program running on one written in php, java, python or anything else would explode immediately if you dropped a table, as you correctly say.

Edited by cwis on Friday 29th May 15:41

OK, thanks for the history lesson and apology duly offered for my snotty tone, but really? Customers in hire car offices all over the UK walked in and were turned away for an entire day? How many customers? Or did staff work around the issue and do the paperwork manually that day?

ETA you have just called back a full catalogue of horror from that generation of IBM stuff that I'd consigned to the background of my memory arrrghhh. Those legacy things where you could set the program to pick up the settings of the eight switches on the old mainframes....

Edited by V8forweekends on Friday 29th May 16:52

[mmm-five]

Why can't they show a 'typical' example, rather than the 'ultra rare' example.

So if their fleet is mainly BMW 320s then say 'BMW 320 or similar'. However if the cars are all Hyundai i40s then say 'Hyundai i40 or similar'.

Alternatively legislate that they have to show the most basic model the supply in each class, so a Hyundai i10 for Class A rather than an Aston Martin Cygnet.

[Fox-]

mmm-five said:

Why can't they show a 'typical' example, rather than the 'ultra rare' example.

So if their fleet is mainly BMW 320s then say 'BMW 320 or similar'. However if the cars are all Hyundai i40s then say 'Hyundai i40 or similar'.

They do show a 'Typical' example. BMW 320d will be Premium Saloon, so the class will contain the 3 Series, A4, C Class etc. You won't get an i40 unless some sort of nightmare has occured and they've literally nothing else left. You'll usually get a rate adjustment as a result.

[cwis]

V8forweekends said:

OK, thanks for the history lesson and apology duly offered for my snotty tone, but really? Customers in hire car offices all over the UK walked in and were turned away for an entire day? How many customers? Or did staff work around the issue and do the paperwork manually that day?

ETA you have just called back a full catalogue of horror from that generation of IBM stuff that I'd consigned to the background of my memory arrrghhh. Those legacy things where you could set the program to pick up the settings of the eight switches on the old mainframes....

Edited by V8forweekends on Friday 29th May 16:52

No apology required - in a sane world you would have been quite right to be highly sceptical. It was that in mind that prompted me to remove my initial snotty riposte!

I'm not sure! I know customers were turned away initially but the office staff knew how rubbish the system was (it wasn't but it was managed really badly) so I guess they started using common sense and paper records at some point, but at which sites and when this started I never found out. I guess the busier outlets would have done this, as riots would have kicked off otherwise.

But that's conjecture really. I was a contract back office guy with no contact with customers (or the real world!). This would have been around winter 1998-1999 so it was a while ago too.

The incident was the final straw as far as I was concerned as I was the platform support chap so I was the one woken up in the middle of the night to fix other people's cock ups, and this was a big one in a long line of smaller ones. I didn't hang around to witness the fallout - I was off site permanently a week later.

It was the only contract I ever walked away from.

Happy days! I still use iSeries (AS400, System-I whatever) machines now, but I learned all that new fangled SQL stuff and some modern languages to go along with my legacy knowledge and now have a niche making them play nicely for the Playstation 4 generation.

Bless 'em. They never physically spliced a reel to reel tape back together with sticky tape and moved the magnetic EOT marker along a few inches to get a batch run to complete on a mainframe in the middle of the night. Lucky buggers.

[ChevronB19]

I don't mind generally, although budgets are obviously compromised a bit at the moment as the number of damaged (and in some cases dangerously so) vehicles are increasing. Worst was a transit I hired for one of my team members, which had front end damage equivalent to Cat C and no rear lights whatsoever....

[gtidriver]

My best upgrade years ago was in Europcar Calais, i booked a Twingo/Clio and got a Grand Espace on long term hire, that was a result.
The worse hire experience was i asked for/booked a Volvo diesel estate from Hertz at Dover, i went to pick it up and i find I've been upgraded to a 156 2.0 petrol alfa,OMG what a pile of st that car is,they knew at the hire place that i was taking it abroad as they had robbed me of about £100 for a green card. Just over 2 weeks later i giggled as i handed back the car with 4850miles more than when i picked it up,i did remind him it was unlimited mileage, the car only had 110miles to start with.

[Glosphil]

Hire car companies not having the car ordered as always worked for me. When going to the US I have always ordered the smallest 4-door. On all four occasions only the 2-door version was available. I have insisted we required a 4-door and so was given a free upgrade.

[Pistom]

Booking a small auto often results in a free upgrade.

[hairyben]

JulianHJ said:

0a said:

Car hire companies are just ways of the car industry laundering excess new cars that they can't sell quietly into the nearly new or second hand market, with no costs for storage. Which is fine, but it still means you should get something from the class (or better should you agree).

When I worked for Enterprise 15 years ago, our branch profits were expressed in terms of the number of cars on our fleet. Where the monthly profit for the process of actually renting cars and selling insurance might be say £50 per car, we were making £200 per profit on the sales of the old fleet. It was a constant turnover and the demand was so high (from dealers and car supermarkets) that cars were generally sold at only a few months old.

With regard to never getting the exact car you ordered, the mantra was 'Sell up, sell waiver, run tight' - meaning rinse as much as you could for upgrades and insurance and try to run as close to 100% occupancy as you could realistically get away with. IIRC 95% was the target.

All to be sold off as "ex-demo" or "principles own car honest luv" no doubt, however thats all well and good, but for for the model to work they do actually need to supply the product type the punter needs- a couple of my own experiences are a 3 series estate instead of "large estate eg passat" - problem here being we did actually want to seat 4 adults while using a big boot which the 3er doesn't deliver, and another time, a nissan note instead of a van.

The problem is it gets to the point you have to ponder whether giving them your business by hiring a car at all is ideal- I was looking at hire car options for a holiday in the south of france, something like fly into toulouse and drive across to monaco, needn't be "special" so much as something "nice"; several cars on the pretend-choice-list appeal, from a 3'er to or one of those slightly gay little french convertibles would seem fitting for a couple cruising along the french coast, but the fact you might roll up to be confronted with (whats french for "tough st?") and a wheezy diesel zafira or an odious little econohatch just doesn't "fit" and puts me off the whole idea.