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ArishMell · 70-79, M
Only one bad experience. Almost all my hire-cars were for work trips, and one of those involved us flying to another part of the country and picking up a car for the onwards trip of perhaps 60 miles.
I had carefully booked one with manual transmission, but the hirer's office had mis-read it and I ended up struggling with an unfamiliar car anyway (just where are the far corners of this acre of steel and glass?) on busy urban roads on a dark, wet Winter nights, and automatic transmission!
How I avoided running into things or skidding by too-harsh braking, I don't know, though I became accustomed to it by the end of the mainly-rural drive.
.....
The oddest was when I had bring a hire-car back to base, on my own. The distance was over 100 miles and we were expected to refuel it as closely as possible to the works to avoid the hirer's "refuelling fee" on top of the fuel cost. Someone else had booked and driven it on the outwards journey, using probably only about 20 litres.
I stopped at a filling-station only two miles from "home". Found eventually how to open the filler-cap, with a secret latch in some unlikely place.
Ah. What fuel? The cap label had only a meaningless heiroglyph, no words or numbers, and the tank was so well designed I could not smell whatever was in there. No owner's handbook in the vehicle, either.
I asked in the garage - no-one there could work it out either, though it didn't occur to any of us to lift the bonnet to see if it had sparking-plugs, if visible anyway of course. I think, now, a garage could find out from DVLA, simply by using the registration number, but perhaps not there and then.
I could only apologise, drive the rest of the way and explain to my manager that even a filling-station could not work out the right fuel!
I had carefully booked one with manual transmission, but the hirer's office had mis-read it and I ended up struggling with an unfamiliar car anyway (just where are the far corners of this acre of steel and glass?) on busy urban roads on a dark, wet Winter nights, and automatic transmission!
How I avoided running into things or skidding by too-harsh braking, I don't know, though I became accustomed to it by the end of the mainly-rural drive.
.....
The oddest was when I had bring a hire-car back to base, on my own. The distance was over 100 miles and we were expected to refuel it as closely as possible to the works to avoid the hirer's "refuelling fee" on top of the fuel cost. Someone else had booked and driven it on the outwards journey, using probably only about 20 litres.
I stopped at a filling-station only two miles from "home". Found eventually how to open the filler-cap, with a secret latch in some unlikely place.
Ah. What fuel? The cap label had only a meaningless heiroglyph, no words or numbers, and the tank was so well designed I could not smell whatever was in there. No owner's handbook in the vehicle, either.
I asked in the garage - no-one there could work it out either, though it didn't occur to any of us to lift the bonnet to see if it had sparking-plugs, if visible anyway of course. I think, now, a garage could find out from DVLA, simply by using the registration number, but perhaps not there and then.
I could only apologise, drive the rest of the way and explain to my manager that even a filling-station could not work out the right fuel!
Moneyonmymind · 31-35, M
@ArishMell damn and i thought my experience was bad