Surprisingly good/bad hire/loan car thread.

[Mr SFJ]

Had my car booked in for some work today, and received an X reg Ford Focus with 110,000 miles on it, and it drives astonishingly well, as good as the car I've got in the workshop.

Which got me wondering, Have any of you PHer's got any stories of great loan/hire cars, or have any stories of cars which are awful to drive?

[hornetrider]

I'll give you a good one. Went to Germany last year and reserved a car. The website I found had a deal on a 'Mercedes C Class or similar' for the price of a Fiesta, bish bash bosh I got it booked.

Turned up at the airport to pick up the car, all going well, girl at the desk hands me the keys to a Land Rover. I thought, nice, they've given me a nice Freelander 2, look forward to that for the price of a Fiesta. Signed the docs and down the stairs we go to the parking area.

Get to my parking space and am greeted with this.





Bloody brilliant.

[ferrariF50lover]

Similar in so far as they could both, at a stretch, be described as cars. There endeth the similarities. Not a complaint, you understand, but any thoughts of 155mph Autobahn cruising probably disappeared out of your mind pretty quickly.

Simon.

[fireturk]

previous car written off (Hyundai Elantra 1.6GSi) got handed the keys to a smart four/four, drove it home and noticed the clutch seemed a bit "odd" was slipping a bit left car overnight went to use it in the morning and it would not actually move as the clutch was slipping so much! company replaced it with another of the same, this one had a blown exhaust and sounded like a tank!!

[hornetrider]

ferrariF50lover said:

but any thoughts of 155mph Autobahn cruising probably disappeared out of your mind pretty quickly.

Simon.

I didn't have any ambitions of doing that in a C200D anyway

It was a great surprise and every drive was an event. Also had the added bonus of both sets of families being able to head out on day trips in the same vehicle

[onlynik]

Company has a corporate deal with Hire company so we reserve an intermediate car, but because of our loyalty status we always get a lucky dip.

Last one was a brand new XC60, which was really nice, and now on my list of next family cars. Easy to drive (had go round the M25) comfy seats, adaptive cruise control was great. Just a nice motor.

My car was recently in for a service and they loaned me a Panamera for the day, again a lovely car to drive, however now the wife wants one

[Cfnteabag]

Got a hire car through the mitary contractor once, normally as the army is paying it's bog standard base spec.

Any way turned up to pick this one up and was pointed at a gleaming fiesta zetec s, petrol as well which you never normally get!

Had a great drive to hospital and may have even taken a wrong turn and come back on B roads! Was a lovely little car!

[Spuffington]

Paid for a Golf for pick-up at Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof. Arrived to find brand new E93 335i M Sport with 15km on the clock.

Let's just say it didn't get sympathetically run in!

[Chicane-UK]

Went to Germany a couple of months back and reserved a 'C Class or Equivalent' and ended up with a Volvo XC60. Was a bit surprised when I got to the parking space and found that tank parked there!

Truthfully I'm one of those guys that really dislikes SUV's and crossovers... but I absolutely loved sailing around in the thing for a couple of days. It had radar guided cruise control which blew me away - awesome gadget

[supertouring]

When I worked for a large consultancy, they had a similar hire car deal where our rate was for a low spec Astra but due to our rentals usually being for months at a time, we would get those that they were less likely to have a good turnover on.

So got a new Omega CDX 2.5V6. Lovely for cruising to London and back, but when I presented my boss the fuel bill, I got a very quick call as her rental Astra would not take that much fuel. Not happy bunny.

[ferrariF50lover]

hornetrider said:

I didn't have any ambitions of doing that in a C200D anyway

It was a great surprise and every drive was an event. Also had the added bonus of both sets of families being able to head out on day trips in the same vehicle

It's a C200D *hire car*, if you can't make it do 155, you're not trying hard enough.

Simon.

[Timbergiant]

Had a BMW 3 series lent while my porsche was in for warranty work a few years ago, diesel and automatic and I was so not looking forward to driving it, only took about half an hour to change my mind, ended up going back a bit early and into BMW next door and ordered one there and then, superb thing, never left bmw since, well done Porsche.

[Sammo123]

A few years ago when I had my Chimaera it needed a service and I wanted to take it to Racing Green in Farnham. I had heard good things about them and was happy to pay the extortionate price to have the job done properly. As I live about 30 miles from them I enquired if they supplied courtesy cars. The proudly stated they did so I booked the service and courtesy car for my day off. I turned up on the day, handed over my keys and reminded them about lending me a car. A couple of minutes later a basic spec 3 year old Ford Ka appeared out the front and the keys were handed to me! Now if I was going to Ford for them to service my run of the mill car and me to pay a couple of hundred pounds I wouldn't of minded, but I was paying in excess of £1000 (plus any additional work that the car might need) and they gave me that! I drove it straight home and didn't bother going out all day. I worked for Ford at the time as a salesman so drove the poxy things every day of the week

[kambites]

I remember once having a lowish mileage US spec Focus (I think a 2.2 petrol?) as a hire car and it was absolutely horrible - one of the worst cars I've ever driven. I was expecting cost cutting compared to the EU market cars, but I wasn't expecting it to be that bad!

[Shaoxter]

Got an Audi A4 Avant TDI instead of a Polo or similar so was looking forward to seeing what the "diesel torque" was all about.

What a complete piece of crap. Turns out my prejudices around diesels, estates and Audis were all correct.

[AngryPartsBloke]

I've been driving about in a 2013 Kia Picanto 3 cylinder thing all week while my car is having work done to it. At first i thought it was pretty rubbish but now i've started to love it.

[Truckosaurus]

In the last days of Rover I had a reservation from Enterprise and turned up to find they'd have a big delivery that morning of MG ZT diesels and they were giving them out to everyone no matter what you'd booked.

It exceeded my expectations and actually was a decent motor.

[C.A.R.]

Pug 308 HDi 1.6 6-speed

What was surprisingly good -
Didn't throw up upon seeing it in daylight (rare for modern Pug)
Standard Spec was high, nice equipment level
Ride was sporty but not crashy (even rarer on a modern car)
Engine was a peach for something 'eco'

What was surprisingly crap -
Sat nav - hands-down the worst unit I've ever used
Lack of buttons. Everything controlled from same, crappy interface

We 'fixed' the Sat nav with the help of Thomas Thomas and let them fight it out. The Peugeot unit was still confused even once we had arrived.

[mobile chicane22]

150 miles in one non stop trip in a chevy volt an experiance I never want to repeat

[Frimley111R]

Had an Insignia. Honestly it looked better than our Audi A4 (current model), had a huge boot, drove well and I really liked the big central digital speedo which made checking my speed far easier than a dial. I don't know why more manufacturers don't do this.