Warning! Dollar car rental! Avoid!

[archibald]

At Easter we had a clean shiny Dollar car with only about 1500 miles on it. It was a LOT cheaper than all of the others, even if we paid their crazy toll fees (which we didn't). My worst car hire experience was with Alamo, and we've had best service and no hard sell hassle from Budget on multiple occasions.

[Guest]

Yes, our worst experience was with Alamo. They refused to give us a replacement car after it had been totalled in a nasty RTA. The police eventually took a photo copy of our insurance then made sure we got back to Orlando safely via their transport.
They must have laid the law down literally as the next day Alamo told us they were delivering a car to the hotel for us!

[BucksBugsy]

Originally Posted by Mr Tom Morrow

Avis are very good. I put them up there with Alamo and Hertz.
The others, well... !

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Are Dollar normally cheaper that the three you have mentioned above? Is it a case of getting what you pay for (or not as the case may be)?

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Originally Posted by BerkshireBugsy

Are Dollar normally cheaper that the three you have mentioned above? Is it a case of getting what you pay for (or not as the case may be)?

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B.B. It's a lottery really and you can never determine who will be the cheapest for a particular day/week etc.
You could search say for 2 weeks this October and find Alamo is the cheapest, shift it by 1 day and it could be Dollar etc etc.

I'm certainly not a petrol head but I will not drive a car that is dirty and has dents all over it. I wont let my own car get like that and I'm certainly not paying good money to drive one in that condition - sadly my experience of Dollar over many many years is that is what they tend to be like.

I will only hire from Avis, Alamo and Hertz (plus National etc as they are Sister Companies)

When Dollar were 'contracted' to Virgin I had their cars for years. Always the same - Old, dented, dirty and full of mechanical issues so much so that most times I got monies refunded.

[Gizzy]

Originally Posted by toonarmani

Doesn't the original paperwork detail how much the fuel surcharge would actually be (should you bring it back empty or partially filled)?

I would have expected it to be detailed somewhere (since you have to agree to it), otherwise they could charge anything they feel like?

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Nope nothing was in writting about the prices, we didn't even have it in writting that they would charge us for fuel. We only knew this from what they told us but nothing was written down, all we had was our receipt and it had a line through the roadside assistance and 'cancled' written a above it

[toonarmani]

Originally Posted by Gizzy

Nope nothing was in writting about the prices, we didn't even have it in writting that they would charge us for fuel. We only knew this from what they told us but nothing was written down, all we had was our receipt and it had a line through the roadside assistance and 'cancled' written a above it

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"The fuel charge is based on the estimated number of gallons needed to refill the tank multiplied by the rate per gallon charge specified in the rental agreement. ".

Taken from their Terms and Conditions (available here), if they've charged you $156 for fuel alone, then I would say that's not in line with their T&Cs and should be easy enough to challenge.

[margyloveswdw]

Originally Posted by Pinchy

Wow, lots of scare stories on here. Can't say I've ever had a bad car or bad deal really from Dollar or any of the companies at MCO in many years. Just to redress the balance a bit.

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I agree with this. We've rented multiple times from MCO and various locations in the US and never had any issues other than hard sell at the desk re upgrades (which we firmly decline). Almost always have gold package for the extra driver and prepaid fuel for convenience. I do think however they (all companies) try to take advantage of tired Brits.

[PPM]

Originally Posted by Gizzy

Nope nothing was in writting about the prices, we didn't even have it in writting that they would charge us for fuel. We only knew this from what they told us but nothing was written down, all we had was our receipt and it had a line through the roadside assistance and 'cancled' written a above it

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So they wrote cancelled on your copy? But the computer will still be showing that you bought the product. Too late for you this time, but if this happens to anyone, insist on having the item removed and a new contract printed, not just someone writing on your paperwork. After all they will just say that it could have been anyone that wrote on the paperwork. Harsh? Yes. But they will try everything.

[Bobbins]

Originally Posted by sha9

We always use Hertz now and never had any problems.

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We've always used Dollar or Alamo but after the original Hertz / Expedia glitch I was so impressed with Hertz I used them two more times and both times had problems - one very similar to OP, where they told us we were signing for the deposit that we'd get back, but they'd added roadside assistance on.

The next year they charged us for someone else's fuel. Turned out (so they said) an empoyee had signed another car out in my name!

I think the difference with Hertz is that it did get sorted out in the end (although the roadside one took a while, with them offering half at first).

[Debski]

Sorry to jump in - We were thinking of using Enterprise as there is a desk at the Hotel we are staying at rather than return to the airport the next day - does anyone have any experience of them.

thank you