Mis-sold car hire upgrade

cubegame

The golden rule of hire car is to say have excess insurance (as you did) and say no to every thing; over and over again if necessary.

Otherwise you just end up subsidising those in the know.

waamo

If you ask for it they will provide it. If, as I think it does, it shows the charge for the upgrade you won't really have a leg to stand on.

Try asking for it, you never know it might have been filled out wrongly and give you genuine reasons to complain. If it's filled out correctly shout at your husband for not reading what he has signed.

Wanderingpomm

Astras and Mokkas are the same class from europcar

WiltshireMum

Thanks everyone for your help! You're all agreeing with what I thought, legally we don't have a case but hopefully they will take pity on us. Yes Waamo, he's already been given a piece of my mind for not checking paperwork. Feel a bit sorry for him though coz he did question the £228 but I can't help feeling if I'd done the paperwork we wouldn't be in this mess.

WanderingPom it was a Mokka X, I'm not sure if that's different from a Mokka without an X but I just checked their websites and it says that's an intermediate car whereas an astra is a compact. But thanks anyway!

peterbaker

Wanderingpomm wrote: »

Astras and Mokkas are the same class from europcar

That's interesting if the OP can rely on it in discussions?

WiltshireMum wrote: »

Hi Peter,

The total miles was noted on the return documentation, it was something like 550. The fuel used I can work out approximately by looking on the credit card statement as all fuel was charged to the credit card. We didn’t keep receipts though so without making some calls to the garages I can’t find out what the per litre charge was. We only filled up 3 times so we didn’t spend a fortune on fuel.

If it was a petrol Mokka then over Christmas you can just guesstimate a rough price of around £1.20 per litre to get an estimate of how many litres you used from the petrol station charges on your card statement. A Mokka fuel tank holds about 54 litres so lets say you used 1½ complete tanks - 81 litres maybe - for 550 miles , that'd work out at a p-poor 31mpg approx.

Hopefully your three fill ups (last would have been a top up I guess) did not together equate to much more than 1½ full tanks and your mpg was better than that 31mpg estimate I just floated.

However, having driven a petrol Mokka as carefully as I could to see what best economy I could get out of the damned thing, quickly dismayed by its obvious guzzling, it doesn't surprise me that my calculator yielded that piffling 31mpg just now as a guesstimate.

However, unlike my regular car hire company, I see that Europcar does not seem to advertise mpg but concentrates on CO2 emission stats ... so my suggestion of hitting them with the mpg you actually achieved may be less useful. Generally, though, the more streamlined Astra might have given over 40mpg under the same right foot, despite the engine probably being similar.

Putting aside the gas guzzling, and trying to see the positive side in the deal you did, the question of when is an upgrade not an upgrade is one which you could argue all day long in a forum like this. Although Wanderingpomm tells us otherwise and I am sure he knows what he is talking about, I don't think my car hire company makes the Mokka the same group as the Astra, and it does look like a slightly bigger car because it is taller of course. That makes it more handy for strapping in toddlers or for carrying frail relatives who can't easily get down into lower cars. Did your Mokka perhaps come with free SatNav (for what that is worth thesedays!) and a few extras like a decent reversing camera?

I am trying to put myself in your position - Car hire queues are frazzling at the best of times, but at Christmas, even the car hire staff often get frazzled when the queue does! When I collected mine, a customer was complaining bitterly in front of a long queue and taking names for his list! As a regular I caught their attention, quickly got pulled aside handed my key, a rapid Merry Christmas and a "good luck" from me to them, and I was away in a flash without knowing what my upgrade might be - I wasn't going to hang around making the place look more untidy!

Turns out my upgrade from the Astra was a Hyundai - not my normal idea of much of an upgrade at all - actually I was thinking "will this be as bad as the Mokka" However it was fun - it was an i30 diesel auto with seven gears and the gear paddles on the steering wheel, and at about 50mpg, I was happy. I've had better upgrades (I daren't tell you how good - my best ever was less than £8 per day for 11 days - and even Clarkson himself would have been rather pleased with the vehicle!). Either way, it is sometimes fun to try out the different types for free, but £190 - you were unfortunately done up like kippers I reckon.

Oh also I realised I didn’t reply to your question about the extra insurance. We didn’t pay anything extra for insurance/excess protection as we have an annual policy that protects our hire car excess. It only cost about £30 and covers tyres/windscreen etc.

Oh well done - yes in the event the worst happens and you have that bump, you can still get out of jail free without too much fuss - that is of course so long as you have both the creditworthiness to swallow a large excess initially, and the administrative nouse to get that excess successfully reimbursed via your insurance later. For some of us then, annual hire car insurance can be very moneysaving indeed even for just one or two hires a year. It's not for everyone, because you need to be confident you can successfully handle the insurance admin to get back what the hire company will debit immediately from your credit card because you've returned a damaged car and did not buy their full insurance.

I think my own annual policy costs me about £40pa.

Anyway, good luck in arguing it, OP! As with most moneysaving ventures or excursions, if you don't ask, you don't get:dance:

And as an aside, I just learned something new from the Europcar website: One way deals for a mere £1

budgetflyer

peterbaker wrote: »

And as an aside, I just learned something new from the Europcar website: One way deals for a mere £1

These are positioning hires. Limited , to getting cars back to original base.

Personally, Regarding refund, I doubt it will happen
Sometimes, you just have to "pay to learn" and lessons learned will save multiples in future.

However, I agree with peterbaker. The car hire business needs strict regulation. Matbe not in this case but some of these firms are just crooked

peterbaker

budgetflyer wrote: »

These are positioning hires. Limited , to getting cars back to original base.

Indeed but did you see that you can keep it for some days and do up to 550 miles for just £1 so you could get a mate to pick you up or catch the airport bus back home if it made economic sense ... I saw one offer of a pick up at Dartford and drop off at Gatwick ... so if you live somewhere in between then it might be quite handy, or perhaps all those with a flight to catch should check to see if there is a positioning going their way? (most offers are from outlying areas back to airports it seems?)

brianposter

Wanderingpomm wrote: »

Astras and Mokkas are the same class from europcar

Wp, could you post a link to support this ?



Seems to me that you need to argue that you should never have been offered a charged-for upgrade simply because the particular model you had booked was not available. Indeed you could argue that Europcar failed to comply with your first contract and are therefore liable for the extra costs resulting from that failure.
The fact that the upgrade was apparently not an upgrade would be a very strong argument.

Do not blame your husband - it happens to almost everybody over time. And be patient about making a claim - you need to get your statement clearly organised before forwarding it to Europcar.