I’ve never been very keen on hiring cars. The whole process is often expensive, fraught with risks and generally quite stressful. I have previously encountered very poor service from Hertz, and very good service from Enterprise, but I recently wanted to hire an executive car, and neither of these companies was able to offer me anything. I spotted Autolinx in a local telephone directory and was initially very pleased with my discovery. Sadly, after the actual rental, I would not be likely to re-use or recommend Autolinx to any prospective renters.

Autolinx is a car rental “portal”, which operates nationally via a National call centre. Identifying the head office of the company is a difficult task, but credit card transactions are debited to a car rental agency called Alpha Rentals, in Farnborough. Prior to my recent rental experience, I had not previously heard of Autolinx – the fact that their web site is still under construction suggests the company’s relative youth.

Autolinx operates a central reservations call centre that handles calls from customers who are interested in renting a vehicle. The call centre captures the details of your required rental, and then refers this against a database of regional suppliers to see if a local dealership can fulfil your request. The advantage of this approach, of course, is that the bookings can be recorded centrally and then accessed by the dealerships, who can concentrate on delivering and collecting vehicles, without having to handle vast numbers of customer contacts. This works fine in principle – when I first contacted the call centre, the advisor to whom I spoke was efficient and helpful, recorded all my details quickly and accurately and then proceeded to arrange the rental.

WHAT DO YOU GET FOR YOUR MONEY?

The greater surprise, therefore, is the comparative cheapness of the rental rates quoted. Autolinx does not publish a standard tariff, so I’m afraid I can only quote the rental charges for the vehicle that I rented. I was offered a Mercedes SLK 230 Kompressor for a seven-day rental of £395 – including VAT. This is a very cheap deal indeed on a car of this class – I would expect to be charged double this with one of the major rental companies. My disbelief at this rate was so acute that I found myself continually confirming the price with both the main reservations team and the dealership.

When my original booking had been placed, all the details of the car (make, model, and cost) were confirmed back to me, except for one – age. It transpired that age was a very relevant detail in this rental. The Mercedes that was delivered was an R-registered vehicle and had accumulated significant mileage. Needless to say, the condition of the vehicle quickly supported this. The bodywork had superficial damage to both the front and the rear, where it had been involved in an accident. The doors and paint work were peppered with dents and scratches and the interior was old, worn and quite dirty. An attempt to clean the vehicle had been made, but the age of the vehicle meant that this was pretty much a fruitless task.

I therefore contacted the dealership, to advise of the problems. To give credit where it is due, they showed genuine concern and offered to replace the vehicle. The only possible replacement in the class was an X-registered BMW 323ci due to come back later that day. They agreed to exchange the two vehicles the following morning, and I kept the Mercedes until the following morning. To be fair, they did also agree to a refund if I preferred (although the area manager had to authorise this).

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