Quick bit of courtesy car info needed

colino

It is a better system than the full tank one. Never in the history of the business has a major hire car company, with a pump on site, not managed to squeeze oodles of their hugely marked-up fuel into the tank, no matter if you just filled up round the corner.
With return "as is" they don't actually make money on the fuel, the manager will just take home the one with most fuel in it, but that income source doesn't exist until they defleet the car.

Foxy-Stoat_3

So the car had 30 miles left (say £0.15 per mile for a normal small car) = £4.50 worth of fuel and you left £36.00 worth of fuel, so you are out of pocket by £31.50. Its unfortunate that you fell in on the Monday/Tuesday but hardly the garages fault.

If you wanted to drain out over 20 ltrs of fuel, then you would of needed at least 5 x 5ltr jerry cans which I doubt you would of had, I only have 3 given to me by various peoples of the years! So you would of had to of bought 1,2,3,4 or 5 depending on how many you had in your shed/garage. Halfords say each can costs £5.99.......I don't think you would of saved much money if you had removed your fuel.

Hopefully your car got repaired ok and all is well with the world.

od017

colino wrote: »

It is a better system than the full tank one. Never in the history of the business has a major hire car company, with a pump on site, not managed to squeeze oodles of their hugely marked-up fuel into the tank, no matter if you just filled up round the corner.
With return "as is" they don't actually make money on the fuel, the manager will just take home the one with most fuel in it, but that income source doesn't exist until they defleet the car.

My issue is that I've hired cars in the past, and returned them with a full tank as requested, and not once - neither with major hire companies and smaller independent ones - have I been charged extra from the garage squeezing more in there.

I don't see how, when you are waiting for your car to be fixed, and when the garage can't specifiy a day that the work will be finished, it is possible to time it accurately enough to return the car with only 30 miles left in the tank. Unless you only fill up £5 at a time. Which seems like a bit too much of an inconvenience.

To me the return-it-with-a-full-tank rule seems far more consumer-friendly. There is a petrol station within half a mile of the garage in question.

I have no interest in funding the manager's drive home in the car of his/her choice.

od017

Foxy-Stoat wrote: »

So the car had 30 miles left (say £0.15 per mile for a normal small car) = £4.50 worth of fuel and you left £36.00 worth of fuel, so you are out of pocket by £31.50. Its unfortunate that you fell in on the Monday/Tuesday but hardly the garages fault.

If you wanted to drain out over 20 ltrs of fuel, then you would of needed at least 5 x 5ltr jerry cans which I doubt you would of had, I only have 3 given to me by various peoples of the years! So you would of had to of bought 1,2,3,4 or 5 depending on how many you had in your shed/garage. Halfords say each can costs £5.99.......I don't think you would of saved much money if you had removed your fuel.

Hopefully your car got repaired ok and all is well with the world.

Thanks for your concern - yeah the car seems to have repaired to a very high standard.

There wouldn't have been an issue with jerry cans, my father has plenty of those. But a brief internet search indicated that the car has been fitted with an anti-syphoning device.

I disagree with the policy and, as you can see from the numbers you've provided, in this instance it has cost me over 30% of my weekly wage.

[Deleted User]

Mindless_Clone wrote: »

You might be able to syphon a small amount out into a petrol cannister if you have one, but you're very limited in how much you can store in these and how many you're allowed to have.

NeverEnough wrote: »

You can store 5 litre can (approved plastic container) or 10 litres in an approved metal container AFAIK.

Assuming this is a petrol car.

If it's a diesel, there are no such restrictions on quantity.

BTW. Regarding the 5 litre and 10 litre cans, I think the limit is 20 litres, consisting of 1x10 Litre can, and 2x5 Litre cans.

Of course, you could always syphon it into other people's vehicles.