Enterprise Rent A Car

The day had all gone so smoothly - work for once was reasonably disaster free, trains were on time, and I was getting home at a decent time. Then the mobile rang and it was Mrs Philippephiloppe telling me that her car had broken down and what should she do. Well the first call was the AA - and they were incredibly helpful - but that's another review! Anyway, having towed me down to the local car mending shop - thats a whole adventure in itself which I cant go into here - I began to wonder what Mrs P was going to do for work while her jalopy was being given the appropriate TLC.

AA man to the rescue again - its not an AA review, honest!! Apparently with the deal we had with the AA (one of these added value bank account things and again I'm not reviewing the bank here) we also had the option of a free hire car whilst hers was out of action. Anyway the normal car hire place they use was miles away - Gatport Airwick to be precise - and it was now 7pm and I didnt fancy the hike. So he suggested an alternative - our reviewee....Enterprise about 5 minutes drive away.

But Enterprise were shut - as you would expect, it being well beyond going home time! Ah but were they to be deterred? Nay verily for indeed the gallant young man sadi that he would be happy to go back to the office, open up shop and let us have a car that very night. Could we meet him there at 8pm?

Well yes, of course we could. So we waved goodbye to AA man (he has no further part to play in this review) and hot footed it round to Enterprise. True to his word, there was our Hero, Enterprise man, opening up shop as he had promised.

Apparently it was 'no trouble at all' to him (I'm sure it was, but he made us feel like it wasn't) and could we just sit down while he went through the paperwork. This was generally easy to do - the only decision was whether we wanted to pay a little (I think it was about a tenner) to bring the insurance excess down to 0 from £500. Well if you've seen Mrs Philippephiloppe drive you'll know that this was a smart move - but ther was no hard sell on his part.

He explained the terms of the deal - we had the car courtesy of the AA for two days, and if we needed it beyond that because the garage couldnt fix Charlie Citroen, then just get back to him and he would see what he could do about extending it - or charging it to the garage. He even said that if we wanted to use the car the following weekend we could have it at the AA rate of about £20 per day.

The car itself was a Ford Fiesta, Ghia with leather seats and all sorts of bits and bobs so it was a very fair swap for the old jalopy - the range generally is good including Mercedes S class and People carriers if you want them. The only thing was that it was a bit dirty since they hadnt had a chance to clean it - well they werent exactly expecting us! He let us give the car a good inspection and as it was dark he said we could have another look in the morning and if we found anything (bumps or scratches that we hadn't delivered) just to let him know.

As for collection all that was required was a phone call and they would pick it up from the drive - no charge. All that was asked was that we put back into it the petrol that we had used- which is only fair. If we hadn't, then they would have to charge us. He took a swipe of Mrs Philippephiloppe's credit card in case of need to charge for anything, and we were on our way. Her in the new car driving very carefully and slowly, and me following on behind pretending to be an impatient other road user.

She got the car back safely and it did all the things that were asked of it for the two days it took Citroen to mend the ignition on Charlie.

And he was as good as his word - if not better. Original car delivered, and a call to Enterprise later there was our hero ready to pick the hire car up. He returned the credit card swipe clearly unused, and off he went - also into the sun just like the AA man (I knew he'd have to turn up again).

So - all in all a very very satisfactory transaction from one of the lesser known car hire companies. I would very definitely use them again if I had to rent a car for my own use. I really couldnt fault them - which is precisely what Mrs Ph'oppe said when she received the customary evaluation call a few days later.

Well done our heroes at Enterprise - swoooon!!

And by the way Rodney - why is it that the French don't have a word for 'Entrepreneur'?

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. Oh and if there's anyone from Enterprise reading this, please get in touch and I'll tell you the name of the gallant knight.