First 'proper' trip. Interesting dealing with Enterprise.. (1 Viewer)

m1chae1

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Hello all.

Recently got back from our first proper trip in the motorhome.
Went up to York for a few weeks. Stayed at York Caravan Park, which we had already booked while we had the caravan. Very nice site.
Still not 100% decided if we've done the right thing in selling the caravan, but while we are feeling our feet we decided to hire a car instead of setting up an A frame and car.
Phoned Enterprise to arrange the car, to collect when we got there.
Now, we have never hired a car before, and certainly didn't know what was involved.

£190 to hire the car for 13 days. Not too bad, we thought.
£200 deposit, to be refunded on return of the car. Fair enough.
£1000 excess.
What's that about?
Evidently, if the car comes back with ANY damage that is larger than a ring they have, they take £1000 from your account. If it is caused by a third party, they take the £1000 from your account and YOU have to chase the third party's insurance.
BUT you can reduce the excess to £100 by paying £9.99.
That's better, we'll do that.
PER DAY!!
Well, already committed, so had to take it for the sake of the holiday. This is not including breakdown cover, by the way.
As you can imagine, it put a bit of a dampener on the holiday for a few days. paranoid about leaving the car in a car park.
However, if anyone is thinking of taking this route, there is another way (according to a bloke at work).
On the internet, you can get an insurance to cover this excess for about £1.90 per day or £50 for multi uses in a year.
Oooh, another thing. Make sure you really check the car over before you take it. There was a scuff on the wheel arch, which I could barely see, as the car had been washed but not wiped. The lady dealing with me said she would make a note on my invoice. When I asked about putting a circle on the diagram of the car where the damage was, she said this would be ok.
Again according to the same bloke at work, there has been an article in a paper about Enterprise making several £1000 claims on the same damage.

Anyway. Had a good time and the motorhome performed very well.
For those who asked, I am trying to upload some photos.

Sorry to go on a bit.

Mike
 

DanielFord

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£1000 excess.
What's that about?
I think you must be referring to the insurance excess, and then the collision damage waiver (CDW). This is common across all vehicle rental companies.
I may be speaking out of turn, but did you need a car? We have been many places, and just used the motorhome to get to places we needed to go to. We are members of Caravan Club, so we get a good rate from Enterprise, but we haven't used it yet. We have spent a week touring around the Isle Of Wight, had no issues there, apart from the somewhat Kamizkazi coach drivers. Are you still in the 'tugger' mindset, where you have an extra vehicle at your destination perhaps?
 
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DanielFord

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They do this to try to extort money out of you for extra insurance cover, called CDW or collision damage waiver. It's a rip off

We use a CDW excess insurance, costs are low, https://www.direct-carexcess.co.uk/?advertiserid=300339&gclid=CJbbkYn14c4CFU2eGwodGiULBQ

£42 a year is better that >£9 a day!

For the deposits, always use a credit card, never a debit card
Sage advice there. Also, if hiring for extended periods, the amount you pay for CDW will outweigh the benefit you would get if you happened to have a crash.
My father never paid for CDW, and then one time he managed to crash his rented car into a wall whilst parking. He took it to a local bodyshop (in the Algarve), and got it repaired for €250, he said that he was still quids in for all the money he had saved by not getting CDW! :D
 
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m1chae1

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Hello Daniel.
Of course you're not speaking out of turn.
Yes, we feel we do need a car, as we do a lot of miles while we are away. Visiting stately homes, - national trust and all that!
You are probably right, in that we are still 'tuggers',in more ways than one!
We are also members of the caravan club, but when I asked about the discount Enterprise said it was not available on this deal.
I also now know that other firms have similar excessesssss.
Don't get me wrong. We probably saved more money in fuel than the rental, and we would possibly do it again. It was just the excess that was a shock, due to our ignorance. The cover from the internet would make it more acceptable.
I just wanted to point out what was involved to any members who are in the same boat as we were.

Mike
 

Puddleduck

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I rarely rent a car but when I do I try to rent an older vehicle .... much cheaper and they don't faff on so much about the CDW and so on.

When I have had to use Enterprise and the like I have gone over the car in minute detail and taken LOTS of photos of every tiny bit of damage .... and then taken the damage sheet from them and marked it up myself. I refuse to sign anything until I am 100% sure it is all okay ..... when there are a lot of people waiting it makes it even better as I (loudly) offer to wait until people with more money to spend on existing damage get away before I do!!!!


Last time i rented was in Orkney, one of the budget cars from a garage in central Kirkwall, £35 a day all in except for fuel - including airport pick up and drop off.

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CWH

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This one has good reviews, we took out a year's policy with them (we thought we were going to need to use a hire car quite a lot over the next few months but we haven't as yet) - they were very easy to deal with to set up what we wanted.
http://www.insurance4carhire.com/
TBH we tend to use public transport when we're out-and-about, or visit places "on the way" as we don't often stay anywhere more than a day or two.
 
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m1chae1

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Hi Puddleduck.

Thanks for the reply.
Obviously you now know I am a bit thick, but how do you go about hiring an 'older' car?

Mike
 

Puddleduck

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Hi Puddleduck.

Thanks for the reply.
Obviously you now know I am a bit thick, but how do you go about hiring an 'older' car?

Mike

Check on the internet for "bargain car hire", "cheap car hire" or similar in the area you are visiting, if that isn't successful phone the local car hire companies and ask what they have. Enterprise and similar large companies generally do not hire out older cars but sell them at auction once they get to a certain age / mileage. If you don't ask then you don't get!

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m1chae1

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Check on the internet for "bargain car hire", "cheap car hire" or similar in the area you are visiting, if that isn't successful phone the local car hire companies and ask what they have. Enterprise and similar large companies generally do not hire out older cars but sell them at auction once they get to a certain age / mileage. If you don't ask then you don't get!


Thanks again. I will bare that in mind next time.

Mike
 

DanielFord

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Yes, we feel we do need a car, as we do a lot of miles while we are away. Visiting stately homes, - national trust and all that!
You are probably right, in that we are still 'tuggers',in more ways than one!
We do that too, I have yet to find anywhere that I can't get the van into. A couple of points though, if you can park up over a grass verge, use the overhang at the rear, you can probably get into a single space with no problems. If you are occupying 2 spaces, buy 2 parking tickets.
Most of the places we have visited, will give specific directions on where to park. At Longleat we were directed to park in the coach area!
 
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Hi Mike - We have been using Enterprise for a couple of years now without any problems, we know nearly all the staff in our local branch now.
To save money and get vouchers from them log on to their site and register for the Enterprise Plus Membership.
I do all our booking through the Caravan Club site which gives you 10% discount on most bookings- for waiver insurance we also use insurance4car hire.com although we have never had to use them in 2 years.

Hope you enjoy your van
Steve and Sue

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Debs

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Hi Mike
We (and lots on here) are ex tuggers and it took us around a year to get our heads round having a motorhome & how to get the best use out of it. It means we do things differently, rather than staying in one spot on a prebooked site, we love the freedom to move along as the whim takes us:) but you'll find your own way soon enough.

A member on here @ceejayt also likes stately homes & has links on his blog to national trust places with parking suitable for motorhomes - many contributions have been made by other funsters

Might be worth a look?

http://www.annie-and-chris.com/maps/
 
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Whenever I hire a car I take lots of photos before we set off and again when we return the car, helps us check the car over, never quite trust places to not to try and stick something on us! Have also booked car hire in past and then wished I hadn't bothered as busy holiday traffic meant using a car was a nightmare anyway. Public transport can be so cheap and an occasional taxi saves a lot of hassle. We tend to do big shops on moving days then use our bikes between.
 
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m1chae1

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Jun 18, 2016
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Thanks SteveandSue and Debs
I'm sure you're both right and it may take a while for us to get used to the change.
It was never our idea to use the motorhome as a get about after arriving on site. If we convince ourselves that we have done the right thing we will get an A frame fitted with a small car.
We can end up doing a few thousand miles while we are away, so as you can imagine, costwise and wear&tear wise influences our decision.
The one big change, like people have said, would be to have shorter stays on each site before moving on.
Watch this space.
And maybe the 'for sale' ads!!!???

Mike

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Puddleduck

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Whenever I hire a car I take lots of photos before we set off and again when we return the car, helps us check the car over, never quite trust places to not to try and stick something on us! Have also booked car hire in past and then wished I hadn't bothered as busy holiday traffic meant using a car was a nightmare anyway. Public transport can be so cheap and an occasional taxi saves a lot of hassle. We tend to do big shops on moving days then use our bikes between.

We are much the same. If there isn't public transport and cycling is too dangerous a taxi is okay now and again but generally we would move on after a day or two.
 
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This car hire swindle needs to be illuminated by publicity. As far as I am aware they all do it, offer a headline price at bargain price then frighten the punter with crazy excesses and ludicrous CDW insurance rates.
It's even worse in Spain and places. In Spain last year they were even rejecting third party CDW insurance as invalid. When booking always try to get a quote that includes all costs and avoid on line brokers.
 
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If you take out 3rd party cdw you usually stil have to pay upfront then claim it back from your cdw insurance I usually just pay the desk cdw for peace of mind but check the amount first before booking as it varies a lot also make sure you check fuel policy we found on where they charge a bomb jus to check the fuel has been refilled even if you take it back full!!!!

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