Nothing handles like a rental car - a book of confessions
Discussion
I worked as a mechanic for a car hire company in the 70's and we saw it as nothing gets abused like a hire car, or van or truck or motorhome.
We hired a huge amount of landrovers to various companies at the time, one of whom was Shand mining. They kept having landrover chassis cracking which we and LR couldn't seem to understand why. Until one day I was on site and saw a landrover and towed compressor fully laden jumping across a probably 9ft gap at speed.
Where they were mining was a flood area so they had diverting ditches but these meant that they had to drive a long way around the site at home time. A small take off ramp was all that was needed to make a short journey and to crack a chassis.
The other one was another landrover that was not pulling well. I had a look at it and everything was good, but it was rubbish. Once we started looking further it looked well laden but there wasn't that many tools etc. visible. We the pickup bed was level with the wheel arches with concrete and just had a tarp and shovels on top. It was later alleged a disgruntled worker did it as he left, it was well floated. Took a few days to chisel that off.
Remember this was the 70's and cars which had been used in criminal activities were often met when they were being returned, the thief's not knowing they had been clocked. We saw many a chase begin there.
But for shear bravado, we had a man came in who wanted to hire a brand new, must be new Range Rover to drive to the South of France. His passport had him down as a "full time gentleman". He had all the airs to suggest he was wealthy paid in cash for 3 months as people did then. No photo id required. Unbeknown to us he had also hired a brand new caravan from a firm in Rotherham. Neither van, car or man were ever seen again.
We hired a huge amount of landrovers to various companies at the time, one of whom was Shand mining. They kept having landrover chassis cracking which we and LR couldn't seem to understand why. Until one day I was on site and saw a landrover and towed compressor fully laden jumping across a probably 9ft gap at speed.
Where they were mining was a flood area so they had diverting ditches but these meant that they had to drive a long way around the site at home time. A small take off ramp was all that was needed to make a short journey and to crack a chassis.
The other one was another landrover that was not pulling well. I had a look at it and everything was good, but it was rubbish. Once we started looking further it looked well laden but there wasn't that many tools etc. visible. We the pickup bed was level with the wheel arches with concrete and just had a tarp and shovels on top. It was later alleged a disgruntled worker did it as he left, it was well floated. Took a few days to chisel that off.
Remember this was the 70's and cars which had been used in criminal activities were often met when they were being returned, the thief's not knowing they had been clocked. We saw many a chase begin there.
But for shear bravado, we had a man came in who wanted to hire a brand new, must be new Range Rover to drive to the South of France. His passport had him down as a "full time gentleman". He had all the airs to suggest he was wealthy paid in cash for 3 months as people did then. No photo id required. Unbeknown to us he had also hired a brand new caravan from a firm in Rotherham. Neither van, car or man were ever seen again.
Haha, we used to regularly hire Fiesta's back in the day for our 60 mile 12 car rallies.
The Ford dealers were most apologetic about the noisy (lattened after a launch over a hump back canal bridge) exhaust and equally noisy brakes.. The pads had worn out and the backing plate on the piston side of the brake caliper seemed to have moulded itself around said piston. Seemed to have got quite hot..
Used to hold the light stalk on main beam flash to have dip and main on at the same time.
I did wash them and remove the winners pots (easily mistaken for egg cups) before handing them back though. Amazing how committed you could be in a hire car!
A couple of the other guys in the motor club used to use them for autotests, which seemed to involve wanton wheelspin to excess.
The Ford dealers were most apologetic about the noisy (lattened after a launch over a hump back canal bridge) exhaust and equally noisy brakes.. The pads had worn out and the backing plate on the piston side of the brake caliper seemed to have moulded itself around said piston. Seemed to have got quite hot..
Used to hold the light stalk on main beam flash to have dip and main on at the same time.
I did wash them and remove the winners pots (easily mistaken for egg cups) before handing them back though. Amazing how committed you could be in a hire car!
A couple of the other guys in the motor club used to use them for autotests, which seemed to involve wanton wheelspin to excess.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff