Which car hire do you use?
 

Just back from five weeks holiday in Europe (Italy, Austria, Germany and France). Hired a car from Hertz at Venice Airport, what a nightmare - service what service? Never again too many other car hire companies.

RD -

What problems did you have? Just saying there is no service doesn;t help people understand what happened and judge if they should cross Hertz off their list.

More people will read your report if you re-post with something like "Bad experience with Hertz rental car." The present title asks people to say which car THEY use.

Sorry but here goes, collected the car at Marco Polo Airport Venice. Headed for Lake Garda but after 20 km the car started making a terrible noise. Now for those who know the autostrata in Italy , you will be aware that you cannot just exit this road. Pushed on to our hotel in Torbole. On the carkey ring there was an emergency number. Relieved I phoned the number explained my predicament but was prompty asked to phone another number which I did and which in turn requested me to phone another number!! I explained my problem to the latest number and was told that they do not have any replacements for me but if I brought the vehicle to them, they would get a mechanic to look at it for me. It was late so we attempted to find the Hertz location the following morning without success. Having already wasted the morning we returned to our hotel and I then decided to phone Hertz at Marco Polo. Same reply, they do not have any swops but if I again tried to find the Hertz agency in the next village and they were able to repair the vehicle, could I pay for the repair and that would be deducted from by bil.
I received a second call informing me that a car has been found but was in Balzano. We had to pass this city in a few days time. Managed to find the agency at the airport and was told that there was a car but it had no fuel. They went to fill it and an hour later we were able to continue our journey in a dirty car that had an engine capacity way below the first vehicle's.

I contacted the Hertz head office who told me that the matter would be investigated. Later received an offer of a voucher to be deducted from my next Hertz car hire. No thanks I said there will be no future Hertz car hire.

Now forgive me if I am living in cloud cookoo land but what I imagined should have happened, was one call to the emergency number with the following response: "don't worry sir we will locate another car for you exactly the same and deliver it to your hotel for exchange" oh well !!

We have picked up a little Peugeot 205 from their works in Strasbourg on three occasions and been very happy with the service each time.

In 15000 km we have not had any of the problems that Rd mentions and so cannot comment on the way something like that would been handled by Peugeot, but are confident of getting a proper response from them in an emergency.

My sympathies,
Harzer

Harzer please explain the connection between Hertz Car Hire and Peugeot, one is a car hire company and the other a manufacturer? I'm sure any response would have been better than the one I received.

Yes it's Hertz at fault, but - no - it's not so much your Hertz rental office at Venice airport you have to blame, they're all individual franchises. You need to stir up trouble with Hertz Corporate, they need to exercise better oversight of their franchise operators and offer them better corporate support so that they can offer better customer support in turn.

An individual franchise operator who pays dearly for the name Hertz must be in a position to get backup when you call in distress, and that's what the corporation must provide, not just collecting franchise fees for the use of their (supposedly good and worthy) name.

Give 'em hell - posting here is a good start.

As to the question in the title of your post: I've used www.europcar.com and it sent me to a local franchise according to the locations I picked online - in the UK and in Australia, Coolangatta and Melbourne for example. I had no problems so that doesn't tell us anything.

WK

Use Autoeurope.com and book before you leave next time.

Recently booked a car with AuroEurope in both Calabria and Sicily. AutoEurope is a broker who will look for the best possible offer for you. Our cars were both from Avis at about 25% lower than if we would have rented directly from Avis. Plus we got a free upgrade (twice) from a compact to a midsize. Both were clean and new cars ; service at the Avis offices was very good.