Budget Car and Truck Rental

First the first time ever, I was thinking of submitting an opinion in the buyer beware section; but seeing as though budget have operations all over the world, I think it would be unfair to tarnish all of their rental locations with the same brush.

I’ll start from the beginning, as this opinion is based on 2 rental experiences which produces an overall picture of a generally poor operation by Budget at Dublin Airport.

The first car was booked with bmibaby extras, because I was booking the flights in rather a hurry, I didn’t have time to make a detailed internet search of all possible avenues of car hire; but they seemed fairly good value. I booked a “Toyota Corolla (or similar)” at just over £100 for 4 days rental. I had also selected the excess waiver insurance at about 12 quid.

We got to Dublin airport and made our way to the budget car rental desk. The staff were friendly and we had a choice of cars, a VW Golf, Peugeot 307 or something else (but can’t remember what). Seeing as though I could drive my mum’s golf anytime, I opted for the Peugeot, because I’d never driven one before. Because it was early in the morning, we also got talked into the excess waiver insurance at 8 Euro / Day. You may be wondering why I paid for the same thing twice (as I am now), but I’ll explain.

I did query whether we had already booked the waiver insurance, but the lady at the desk said we hadn’t – and to a degree, she was right (I hadn’t got my confirmation email with me so I couldn’t check). The extra insurance we had purchased was (as I found out on my return) a separate policy which simply refunds any excess you have to pay if you bash the hire car, and was nothing to do with Budget. You live and learn – but this wasn’t the many reason for my gripe with Budget.

After completing the paper work and paying the fuel deposit (you bring it back full and you get the cost of fuel refunded) we went on our long walk down to the car hire car park. It took about 5 minute to get there on foot, but as it was throwing it down with rain it seemed longer.

We found our Peugeot and it wasn’t good. We went straight to put the luggage in the boot, but pressing the key didn’t yield any results – no the battery wasn’t flat, but it’s not Budget’s policy to supply the remote locking keys because “customers loose them”. Doing it the old fashioned way (by inserting the key into the door and turning) opened the car up, and we loaded the luggage in. There was no parcel shelf (which is good for leaving my laptop on display to potential tea-leaves), but assume a customer must have lost that as well.

Our poor, dark blue, 307 looked like it had just come back from a stint in downtown Baghdad. It had no hub caps, a large dent in the rear door and back wing and more large scratches that the lion handler at London Zoo. The inside wasn’t much better; it was filthy, there was no litter, but it didn’t look like it had ever seen the end of a vacuum cleaner and the plastics on the door, dashboard and seat backs were covered in mud. There was also something sticky all over inside the windscreen which made driving with the November sun in your eyes even more of a challenge. We should have complained a took a different car, but as always we had to be somewhere 5 minutes ago and simply didn’t have time or inclination for the trek back to the arrivals hall.

Out on the road, it didn’t drive very well either. The service light was flashing away and the engine sounded really gruff. The worse problem was the clutch was on it’s was out– it was very light – and I mean feather light. A flea fart could have pushed it to the floor which made driving smoothly almost impossible. It also ‘slipped’ at anything over 4,000 revs. The brakes were also particularly fierce so you could kangaroo away from the lights and shove your self through the windscreen when you stopped.

Even though it was a poorly presented and serviced car, it did the job while we were there. Returning it seemed relatively painless and we got our fuel refund.

On my next trip, I need a car for just one day. I tried bmibaby extras, but they seemed expensive – so I had a quick look on www.budget.ie. Even through the last rental experience was poor, the prices seemed cheap. The rate for a small 4 door for the day was 33.10 Euro – and even adding on the excess waver cover, this made a cost of about £30 (stering). Bargain.
I booked in on line and gave my credit card details etc.

Arriving at the airport again they had my reservation, but didn’t know what rate it should be (apparently their internet site doesn’t store this) so she put down 30 Euro. I was given my key (again not a remote one) and was directed to a different car park. It took just as long to get there, but at least it wasn’t raining. My black VW Polo was clean inside and out and free from dents and scratches. The mileage was a bit high for a rental car (15,000 miles), but it seemed in good condition. I figured that the 307 must have been the black sheep of the family and that Budget was an ok place to rent from again.

On returning the car I got my fuel refund, but I did a quick check of the receipts and I figured that my 38 Euro rental had just cost me 63 Euro. I queried it with the girl and she said there was a €25 Airport surcharge. She said, they get a lot of complaints about that and directed me back to the rental desk in the airport.

Yeap, they confirmed, this is correct – all airport rentals cost an extra €25 per rental. I explained that I had put in as a pick up and drop off location as the airport, but the rate quoted was only about 30 and didn’t mention any extras.

They weren’t budging, so I decided just to dispute it with my credit card company. I rechecked their website and still found the same prices, and nothing about an airport charge. I looked in the terms and conditions – nothing there. Then I found another button which said “excluded”, which does included details of this charge.

I don’t know why their system doesn’t give proper quotes, had it have done I would have rented from elsewhere (and I guess I’ve just answered my question). Rather like quoting a price for a glass of coke at 2p, but adding on a £20 surcharge for the glass. I thought the days on companies burying extra charges in the small print were gone, but apparently not.

My dad always says to me – “to make a mistake once is forgivable, to make it twice is just stupidity”. Guess it makes me stupid then – but I won’t be making third and ever renting from them again.