Gold Car

[Macherts]

We used Algarve Driver twice last year. First car was in April brand new with delivery mileage, very impressed. The second car in July had tyres which in UK would have been considered illegal (not in Portugal). So I requested either the tyres were changed or we were given another car, which we got. However whilst driving to Carvoeiro we found the Air-Con was not working, so we continued onto the villa with windows open. Phoned Algarvedriver and returned to Faro Airport the next day for another car, which was not far from where we were going to. Got another car no problems all at a very reasonable price. We will use them again no problem. However next time we would check the Air-Con is working before leaving the car park

[traveler]

I also had a very negative experience with Gold Car. I booked through economycarrentals.com and found a favorable price but was shocked by some of the abusive policies. 1) pay the extra insurance or leave a 1000 euro cash deposit 2) prepay for a full tank of fuel, if returned full I would receive a refund. The cash deposit was actually charged to my credit card and then refunded on return. Meaning they had full use of my cash for a week - add hundreds of rental cars to this equation and you can see they are using this money to boost their working capital. I wrote to economycarrentals about this and they did not even bother to write back. So I will never use them again. Three interesting items to note are that goldcar was so slow - it took over an hour at the desk to agree my contract, almost everyone in the queue was subject to the abuse and a lot of customers just bought the insurance, lastly the actual contact was through some obscure local rental company but fully administered by Goldcar staff - is the local franchisee ripping off the parent company?

[alf1956]

this mirrors my experience with them a few weeks ago.i did protest at the time to the girl on the reception but she had been brainwashed !!i said to her "no wonder your office is empty with no customers in with your ridiculous terms&condition!she replyed "we are the best company with the best prices" i replyed you are certainly not as 4 weeks previous i hired a car from 121 hire&it was a lot cheaper & without you ridiculous full tank&1,000 euro deposit policies"she would not accept this s i gave up & told her i would never ever use the company again & i hire a car 8 times per year minimum & that i would spread the word about how bad they are!

[mrsgoonball]

Thanks all for the advice and comments. I've taken the wise option of booking with Algaredriver and am more than happy with the deal I've got. Roll on June, it can't come soon enough!

[alf1956]

just got back to the uk today was in carvoeiro from sunday 12th feb.i booked a hire car through the internet&to my horror i found out it was booked with "GOLD CAR"!!! anyway i went through the usual stuff of me telling the staff how unfair the"full tank " policy was&that they also overcharged for the price of the fuel etc etc to no avail so i just syphoned all the fuel out of the tank & took it back empty as they tell you to do.it didnt get me the 80 euros back that the charged me for the full tank of fuel but they cannot put 20 euros of fuel in the tank which is about the amount of fuel i would have used & charge the next customer 80 euros !!

[EMM]

There is a feature in the travel section of todays Sunday Times reporting the spread of the " full tank scam " across many of Spains hire car companies.
As many of these have links to some in portugal as in the case of Gold Car it is something we should ask any company we obtain a quote from before booking.

The second word should be "off ".

[Polli62]

Yes I read that too about the full tank rip off thing. I would never dream of hiring a car with that fuel policy as done it once and learned a lesson. Using economycarhire.com for car hire I always read the terms and conditions of the hire companies on this. I also found recently on economycarhire website that Lagorent one of their car hire companies now have transponders in their cars of which you pay a €5 admin charge for the privelidge on pick up + any charges you incurr on road tolls.

[coedfive]

I am delighted that so many people are now aware of the 'full tank scam' - I wanted to sing it from the rooftops when we hired our 'Gold Car' at Christmas. Maybe if we boycott the companies that favour this policy they will think again. Our 'Gold Car' looked like a rally car, it was filthy, bashed to bits and missing all wheel trims. Our cloud had a silver lining........... we looked dangerous, nobody would park near us, so there was no shimmying into the drivers seat on restaurant hill.

[alf1956]

i am glad everybody seems to be talking about the full tank rip off now maybe we will get the hire companies to re-think this rip off policy,the only problem is that theres a hell of a lot of companies that do it.i have just booked with economy hire&they do not so maybe we should compile a list of companies that do not operate the full tank policy?

[e-richard]

.maybe we should compile a list of companies that do not operate the full tank policy?

I suspect that a list of those who DO operate a full tank policy would be a much shorter list.

[alf1956]

disagree richard as i spent 2 hours looking through lots of hire companies&their terms & conditions & the majority had the full tank policy,interrent pt have the policy as you take it full & return it full which is ok although it has to be bang full&if it shows a tiny bit below full its a 25 euro fee! i had to go to the petrol station twice as the 1st time i cudnt get anymore fuel in but it showed just below full i went back & had to rock the car & managed to get 3 euros more in & that was ok !!

[Polli62]

Just done a mock quotation for a car on economycarhire and the companies RentAuto & Kings quote Fuel Policy as: A deposit for fuel must be made by credit card when collecting the vehicle. The payment is refunded when the vehicle is returned with the same amount of fuel. Please note: Due to refuelling logistics you will be charged at a higher rate per litre compared to the normal pump price.
Luz Car, Travelrent, Drive4fun, Autovirgem & Lagorent quote fuel policy as: No charge when vehicles are returned with the same amount of fuel. If the vehicle is returned with missing fuel, a refuelling charge will be applied plus missing fuel. Please note: Due to refuelling logistics you will be charged at a higher rate per litre compared to the normal pump price.
Drive4less quote fuel policy as: Vehicles will be provided with at least a quarter of a tank of fuel. Clients must return the vehicle with the same amount of fuel otherwise a refuelling charge will be made. Please note: Due to refuelling logistics you will be charged at a higher rate per litre compared to the normal pump price.
If you are a previous customer and can log in it will give you the car hire company names and it says all companies have a "fair fuel policy" the negative thing about Economycarhire website is if you are a first time customer you don't have the option of knowing which company you are renting from until you go through the booking process.

[alf1956]

nice post full of very useful information polli62

[adamalex1]

If you are a previous customer and can log in it will give you the car hire company names and it says all companies have a "fair fuel policy" the negative thing about Economycarhire website is if you are a first time customer you don't have the option of knowing which company you are renting from until you go through the booking process.

At least Economycarhire allow previous customers the option of seeing which company they are choosing to rent from before completing the rental process. Another agent I used previously, enjoycarhire, does not grant even previous customers that luxury, although their prices are very competitive and on the one occassion I did rent a car through them, I had a fairly satisfactory experience.

Adam