1car1 Car and Van Hire > Reviews (6)

1car1

1car1 is a car and van rental company with different branches through UK. They work mainly through their website: http://www.1car1.co.uk.

HOW TO BOOK A CAR.

The website looks fine, they have different links in the top of the website which allow you to go directly into their different options: Car hire, Van hire, People Carriers, Flexi Leasing and Contract Hire.
On the top right, we can find quick links to manage our user profile, such as "login", "my details", "my bookings" and "contact us".
In the middle of the main page, there is a form to obtain a quick car hire quote, which it is really easy to use. You just select the day and time you would like to collect the car, and the branch where you would like to do it; and then select the same options to return it.
This will give you a list of cars available, with the price per day and some basic information. Next to the price, there is a button to press in case you want to book that model.
Once you select the car, the next page gives you the total cost of the car, including VAT and the basic insurance. The price you see, it's the price you pay… at least for now.
At the bottom of this page you have a form to fill in your details and book it online, although we decided to call to the branch at Manchester Central at this point, to book it directly with the branch.
We selected a Vauxhall Astra manual, for 2 days, at £62. When we asked what we needed to collect the car, we were told to take with us the driving licence and one utility bill.

1CAR1 AT MANCHESTER: LOCATION

The next step was to find the location of this branch; you can fin the details of the branch in the website, so we printed a map from the internet before going there. We selected the branch "Manchester Central" to collect and return the car, which is close to the M.E.N and Victoria Station, in Corporation Street.
I expected the place to be a huge car park with several cars and a nice office on site… but I expected too much. The place is inside one of the arcs of an old building almost in abandon. I could see only about 3 or 4 cars there, the walls were cracked and in bad condition, and the office is a small room, with one desk, dusty and old.

1CAR1 AT MANCHESTER: SERVICE

Anyway, we were going on holiday, and we didn't want to let the appearance of the site turn us down, so we stepped into the small room and greeted the two girls at the desk and a guy that was standing there.
I have to say none of them smiled back or said anything; the guy was standing there just as if he were looking what the girls were doing. Both girls were tipping something on their computers, and they hardly looked at us. We said we had booked the Astra manual, and one of them started to look into the system, and said that they didn't have any Astra manual at the moment. They started to talk between themselves, as if they were trying to find out where the car was, but they did not let us know what was happening. One of them said that they will give us then the next car "as an upgrade", which was a Vectra.

We said that it was fine, but we wanted to know why we couldn't have the Astra we booked. As soon as we said this, she said that we could actually have the Astra Automatic, which they had in stock, and it seemed that for them that was now the only option, because they didn't say again anything about the Vectra.
We ended with the Astra automatic, then. All this process took about half an hour of waiting, standing there without any information about what they were doing or what we could do. They didn't apologise once for not having the car we booked, and they looked really miserable and unhelpful.
Once we decided the car, they took the driving licence and the utility bill, and then told us that they needed both driving licences, both in paper and card, when they didn't say anything when we asked over the phone. We didn't want to come back home to get it, as the place is far away from where we live, so they said that the only option was to pay an extra £7 for a verification over the phone.
After paying the extra £7, the guy who was standing there in silence said that he was going to get the car and told us to go outside with him to make some checks. He took on paper with the image of a car, and told us he was going to check all the scratches around the car to write them down.

1CAR1 AT MANCHESTER: THE CAR

The car had so many scratches all around that you could easily count up to 20 without really looking for them. The guy started to point at them and to write them down. We pointed at some of them also, and asked him if he had put all the ones we pointed at. At the end, he showed us the paper with his drawings, and we thought it was all right, there were loads of marks in the paper, pretty much in all over the car, so we signed it in agreement that he saw him to do the check.
After we left, we realised the car was a little bit crap, as the stereo didn't work properly, the car seemed to tremble all the way, it didn't have a good response, and the point that it was automatic, instead of manual, was quite disappointing.
Again, we were on holidays, and we tried just to arrive to our destination and forget about it.
We only used the car to go to our hotel and come back, so we didn't use it to move around, and it was parked in the hotel car park all the time.

RETURNING THE CAR

When we come back to Manchester, we decided to return the car one day earlier, because we had to return the car around 10am next day, and we didn't fancy waking up early to do so.
We arrive at the place and the guy recognised us, saying that we didn't have to return the car until the next day. He then went back inside and said he needed to do another check to see if everything was all right.
He took the same paper we signed when we collected the car, and as soon as he approached the car, he went to a tiny scratch on the passenger's side. He then said that the mark was not there before. I have to say that we do remember that scratch, mainly because it was beside a huge scratch all over the wheel.

Beside this, it is a scratch that it is really hard to see if you do not go to the door and put your face almost on top; and I think that the way "he found out" about the scratch was too suspicious, as if he knew where he was going.
We said that we didn't move the car around, we didn't have any kind of accident or anything, and we were completely sure we didn't do it, and the scratch was there before. We also said that when we did the check at collection, the check was done in a rush, just pointing at things for him to write, and we assumed that he wrote down everything. And it was a huge chance that he didn't write that one down, as it was difficult to see, in the first place, and we were just telling him all the ones he didn't point at us, so we assumed he did write that one too.
He went then to call the "manager", who was one of the girls at the desk, and she said that we had to pay for the "exceed" of the insurance, because she wasn't going to pay for it, and it was going to be deducted of her salary if we didn't pay. At the same point, we found out that she could take that fee directly from the account, because the contract we signed when booking allowed her to do so if needed.
They both went to the office, and return with "other previous customer's forms", that they say that prove that the scratch wasn't there before. They only brought about three, and we couldn't see the date on the forms, so actually they could have been from last march, or September, or whatever. She just showed us the drawings of the scratches on those forms. For me, that doesn't prove anything, because there's no way for me to know if that form was from the immediately previous customer or not. At the same time, that scratch could have been done in the car park, so there would not have been a report of it, and we are paying for that.
The girl said that it didn't matter whether we did it or not, as it was not in the paper we signed, and because of so, we were responsible for anything else found when returned. She gave us the paper to sign as in agreement that we returned the car with that "new" scratch. We didn't sign that one, because we didn't agree that we did that scratch, but she said that it didn't matter if we signed or not, as the amount was already deducted from the card we used to book the car.
The amount, we found out also there, was £500. She said that the car would be evaluated, and if the cost of repairing that scratch was less than £500, we will have the rest refunded. Anyway, she didn't know when or how, she didn't know who was going to evaluate it, and she didn't know how to claim for that money back, which I think a manager should know.
She then disappeared into the small room, and as we didn't know what to do, we went there as well. We told her that we didn't sign for the return form, because we didn't agree that we did it, but as we were going to pay, because we didn't want further problems, although we would like to know what to do next. She then said that we didn't need to sign, that she already deducted the amount, and that she didn't know anything else because it's another department the one that deals with the insurance.

We had to ask several times for details and copies of the forms, because she didn't give us any information. At the end, she gave us a copy of the contract, a copy of the paper with the scratches, and a telephone number to call and follow the claim.

MY EXPERIENCE AND ADVICE

Well, my boyfriend said that he hired cars lots of times before and never had an experience like this. Usually, when the car was already full of scratches (as this one), they didn't do a check about how many scratches the car had, and that was the reason why we didn't check all the notes he did, and we do regret this, because we are 100% sure that scratch was already there.
I don't know how other 1car1 branches are, as we think that are a franchise owned by different people, but what I can say is that I don't recommend this one at all. The service was poor, they didn't say anything about the insurance, or at least explain exactly what the check was for and what involved. After this, we found out on the website (almost hidden) that if you pay £5 more per day, you have the exceed fee reduced to 50%, that means that if we had paid £10 more, we only would have to pay £250 at the end. I think they should have told us that this option was available, because although we didn't expect to have problems with the insurance, I wouldn't have mind to pay £10 more, just in case something happened. They didn't smile once when we collect the car, of course when we returned it, neither. They weren't helpful, they didn't give us any information about anything, and they didn't help either at the end, when we asked what we should do. They didn't show any kind of understanding of empathy, and we had the feeling that they did know about the scratch and we were the ones that paid for it, as if they were waiting for someone to pay for something they knew that was there. We even thought that maybe they did the scratch when moving the car any other time, and they were waiting for some customers to blame. We are completely sure that the scratch was there previously.
We were annoyed when they said that we had to pay £7 more for the driving licence check, because we asked over the phone what we should take with us and they didn't say anything about both driving licences. We were annoyed when the car we wanted wasn't there (well, you book in advance for a reason, don't you?). We were annoyed when they didn't say a word about what they were doing while we were waiting. And we were reaaaaaalllyyy annoyed about how things ended up.
The feeling just get worse and worse every time we think about it, not only because the guy "found" the scratch in about 10 seconds, while walking to the car; but also because the car was completely full of scratches all around, and it is suppose that the customer/s that did them should have paid for all that, and the car should have been repaired, so we should have received a car without scratches, because that exceed fee is for that, isn't it? It is supposed to be used to repair the car, and in the condition it was, I have the feeling that the company just make profit with the fee, but they don't repair the cars ever.

And with the number of scratches all along, it's so difficult to keep them all recorded than it's easy to blame the next customer for them.
We booked the car in this place because we didn't have to pay any deposit, but at the end we paid even more. For that price, we could have bought almost an old second hand car.
We are really disappointed, not only about how the service was when we booked it (it seemed that we were bothering them at lunch time or something), but also about how they handled the problem and the complaint. I definitely will not hire a car again in this place, and I think I will have serious doubts about hiring a car again anywhere else.
If you do hire a car, before leaving the place, be sure you have checked absolutely everything, so they will not have anything to blame you. Ask for the notes they have taken and check them again carefully, tell them to add anything you see, even if it is small and ridiculous.
Ask for the insurance, and for what it covers. Ask how much you have to pay in case something happens, and see if it does worth it. Maybe it's better to pay a little more somewhere else, and have a lower fee, just in case something happen. Please remember that for them, you don't have to do anything to the car, they only check their notes, and anything that it is not there it's your fault. If a bird shits on the roof and the acid damage the paint: it's your fault, so be careful with this.
I would like to know if any other people had the same problem, because I do think there's something wrong going on here. I didn't believe them at all when they said that the scratch wasn't there.
Hope you have a better experience!