Car Hire Lottery

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NotoriousREV
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by NotoriousREV »

mik wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:45 am The proposal promises to provide some fascinating insights into the comparison of apples with oranges.
Apples and oranges are both roughly spherical, are fruit, are edible, contain fructose, grow on trees, contain their own seeds, can be put in a fruit salad.
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ZedLeg
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by ZedLeg »

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:09 am Stop it, all of you. The new test is 1000rpm in 3rd gear, floor it and rev to limiter. Timed plus min/max speeds.
I might need a new car for this. I'm not sure my car will pull from 1000rpm in third :lol:.
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McSwede
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by McSwede »

NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:09 am Stop it, all of you. The new test is 1000rpm in 3rd gear, floor it and rev to limiter. Timed plus min/max speeds.
This I like too.

Three categories, 60-100, 60-100 in one gear and 1000rpm to limiter in 3rd.

Sounds like a plan and I'm going out for a little play 👍
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Mr Pish
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by Mr Pish »

I am going to need quite a long road to hit 18k rpm
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NotoriousREV
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by NotoriousREV »

Mr Pish wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 11:46 am I am going to need quite a long road to hit 18k rpm
No lifting, that’s cheating.
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McSwede
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by McSwede »

McSwede wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 11:23 am
NotoriousREV wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:09 am Stop it, all of you. The new test is 1000rpm in 3rd gear, floor it and rev to limiter. Timed plus min/max speeds.
This I like too.

Three categories, 60-100, 60-100 in one gear and 1000rpm to limiter in 3rd.

Sounds like a plan and I'm going out for a little play 👍
After some extensive testing I propose a slight alteration in that manuals should in 3rd and autos in 4th for the 1k to limiter category.
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Rich B
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by Rich B »

1000rpm to 100mph is bloody hard to organise. In mine it’s 15-100mph. That takes some planning!
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McSwede
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by McSwede »

Rich B wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:05 pm 1000rpm to 100mph is bloody hard to organise. In mine it’s 15-100mph. That takes some planning!
I've ordered a mount for my Chinese GoPro and when that comes I'll have a crack as it's easier up here and with turbot and in 4th it pulls really well.
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NotoriousREV
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by NotoriousREV »

Anyway, after a week I decided I sort of liked the A3. It cruised remarkably well on the motorway at 130kph, it was really quiet and refined even with the engine spinning away at 2700rpm. It averaged 47mpg so was pretty frugal. I reckon with a DSG box it’d be a good spam wagon for MrsREV.
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NotoriousREV
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by NotoriousREV »

Oh, forgot the bad points:

- Satnav took forever to start up
- Apple CarPlay integration wasn’t great; I couldn’t figure out how to listen to the radio and have Google Maps on. Sometimes it would drop out of CarPlay (eg to display parking sensor stuff) and you’d have to manually go back into it, which wasn’t straightforward and took a few clicks.
- The parking sensors were garbage. I’d park up somewhere, then the parking sensors would go crazy after I’d stopped and they’d carry on shrieking after I’d put the handbrake on and was in neutral.

Considering how well these things worked in the Golf, I was amazed how badly implemented they were in the Audi.
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McSwede
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by McSwede »

NotoriousREV wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 3:27 pm Oh, forgot the bad points:

- Satnav took forever to start up
- Apple CarPlay integration wasn’t great; I couldn’t figure out how to listen to the radio and have Google Maps on. Sometimes it would drop out of CarPlay (eg to display parking sensor stuff) and you’d have to manually go back into it, which wasn’t straightforward and took a few clicks.
- The parking sensors were garbage. I’d park up somewhere, then the parking sensors would go crazy after I’d stopped and they’d carry on shrieking after I’d put the handbrake on and was in neutral.

Considering how well these things worked in the Golf, I was amazed how badly implemented they were in the Audi.
The standard nav in Audi's is dreadfully slow.
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NotoriousREV
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by NotoriousREV »

McSwede wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 3:46 pm
NotoriousREV wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 3:27 pm Oh, forgot the bad points:

- Satnav took forever to start up
- Apple CarPlay integration wasn’t great; I couldn’t figure out how to listen to the radio and have Google Maps on. Sometimes it would drop out of CarPlay (eg to display parking sensor stuff) and you’d have to manually go back into it, which wasn’t straightforward and took a few clicks.
- The parking sensors were garbage. I’d park up somewhere, then the parking sensors would go crazy after I’d stopped and they’d carry on shrieking after I’d put the handbrake on and was in neutral.

Considering how well these things worked in the Golf, I was amazed how badly implemented they were in the Audi.
The standard nav in Audi's is dreadfully slow.
Plus someone should tell Audi that if I input, for example, the letters “cen” it’s probably more likely that I’m looking for somewhere that begins with the letters “cen”, like maybe “centre”, rather than somewhere that contains the letters “cen” somewhere in it, like “placenta”, and they should probably list those first.
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Gwaredd
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by Gwaredd »

We've just got back from Florida (we like it there, ok?) & rather than hire a big truck like the Tahoe, or Expedition like we normaly do, we went full tourist & hired a minivan.

I booked through Avis prefered & was given a Chrysler Pacifica 2020 model. It's a pretty big thing, not much smaller than the trucks mentioned, but makes much better use of its interior space & legroom, with 2 captains chairs in the rear, & a 3 seater bench row in the very back (which the 15 year old lounged across)

The boot was plenty big enough too, which could be opened electrically via the fob, as were the 2 sliding rear doors, which was pretty neat. It's also a big relief knowing your 'eager to get into Walmart' kids can't smack their doors into the side of someones Dodge Ram.

Ride was super comfy, if not a bit wallowy, but hey. Minivan. The biggest surprise was the engine. 287bhp from a 3.6 V6 mated to a 9 speed auto meant it had respectable grunt. Not too disimilar to the Ford Expedition we hired last time. MPG over the 1400 miles we did was 26.1 US (31 UK), so much better than the 17 from the Tahoes. On a 200 mile run from the airport, it actually returned 38.2 US MPG, but that got slowly destroyed around town, even with stop start.

Nice to have built in Android Auto too, which means no more Tom-Tom map upgrades for the old Sat Nav before we leave or phone floating around the cabin.

Would hire one again in a heartbeat, as they drive the same as the trucks, are comfier & use less fuel. The only thing we missed of the trucks is the looks, but at half the price (£315 for 10 days vs £590) I can overlook that.
Cheers.

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Swervin_Mervin
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by Swervin_Mervin »

Been in a crappy Fiesta for a week with the 330 still in the garage. I say crappy - it's only 12mo old and 30k but clearly someone's snoked in it and it reeks like an old taxi. Driving everywhere with the windows open and coat zipped up.

I got shafted as I needed a car at 30mins notice last week and everywhere was out of stock. I pre booked a Leon via Sixt tho for £130 which seemed very reasonable but meant I had to go to Manchester Airport (not too much bother as it's only about 15mins away). Only trouble was when i got there Sixt wouldn't let me rent it as I needed to have 2 bills in my name for a credit check. WTF - no mention of it in the booking and why? I said I'd complete the online payment on my card but she said not to bother as it would be wasted as they still wouldn't rent it to me without the bills. Madness.

So I trudged across the hall to europcar who I've used tons before to see if they had owt. They managed to dredge up the fiesta's keys from the bottom of a bucket and wanted £280 for 5days :shock:. He saw my face and knocked it down to £200. Given it was 10mins from closing I had little other choice.

Tl;dr - don't book a hire car on a short notice walk-in late in the day. You'll get bummed and given the dregs
Nathan
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by Nathan »

I've booked a few hires locally at £20-30 per week :

Easirent
Greenmotion

Expedia Car Hire

All brand new cars
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Simon
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by Simon »

Nathan wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 8:32 pm Greenmotion
Literally the worst online reviews of any car hire company.

They were even exposed on a 'Watchdog' style program a few months ago for fleecing customers with fake damage reports.
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by Nathan »

Simon wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 9:19 pm
Nathan wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 8:32 pm Greenmotion
Literally the worst online reviews of any car hire company.

They were even exposed on a 'Watchdog' style program a few months ago for fleecing customers with fake damage reports.
Never had a problem personally
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NotoriousREV
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by NotoriousREV »

I sort of kerbed a wheel on the A3. I hit one of those plastic barrier things at Ferrari Land. I didn’t expect it to do any damage, being plastic, but it put a few slight gouges in the rim and smeared a load of red plastic into the gouges to make sure it stood out. I used some toothpaste and a pan scourer and it cleaned up enough that I didn’t get charged.
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GG.
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by GG. »

Recently back from a quick trip to Portugal where the "Seat Ibiza or equivalent" ended up being a Fiat Tipo Station Wagon (diesel :( ). Interesting to try something that you see very few of in the UK.

The state of the cars they had there in the off season was spectacularly awful - they all looked like they'd just come back from a tour of duty on the Rally de Portugal. I initially asked to change as I didn't want to argue which scuffs and gouges I'd caused versus what was already on there but the alternatives were no better! On the plus side it was £45 for four days...

Image

Image

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As for the car itself, it had a sweet gearshift but didn't have much else to recommend it. The engine was so underpowered it was laughable with pretty much all the power/torque occuring between 3-4000 revs and that was it. The steering had the most pronounced self centering I've ever come across - it felt like there was a great big weight acting as a pendulum on the rack.

Despite all of that I still preferred it hugely to the Renault shitbox we had last time. So Italy trumps France this time - even if it made me look like one of the groundsman for the golf courses pootling round the Algarve as pretty much everyone else was in Range Rovers and Merc AMGs :lol: .
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DeskJockey
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Re: Car Hire Lottery

Post by DeskJockey »

Had a Skoda Fabia something-something today.

Initial impressions were good. Light and airy cabin, good visibility, enough kit to make it acceptable and a three-pot thrumming away in the front.

No feel through the controls, but drove well enough at city speeds. Hard to fault as a shopping trolley for those that find a car a necessary requirement, but with no interest in them.

The biggest letdown was at motorway speeds. Only five gears, so at 70mph it was thrumming rather loudly at 3800(ish) RPM. The seats aren't very supportive either, feels too soft and vague. Definitely not a car to drive long distances in. Coming home after a 160 mile roundtrip, my ears were rather tired.

TL;DR: another soulless, identikit shopping trolley.
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