DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

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johnnyboy
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DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby johnnyboy » Wed Feb 12, 2020 1:22 pm

Just back from Malaga after a disappointing car hire experience. In the last 3 years I have used Delpaso but only with their overpriced extra insurance. My last 3 trips to Spain in 2019 were through Granada and Almeria. I used Goldcar for all 3 trips and even though they have had bad press I found them ok to deal with even having my own insurance policy. There was no hard sell.
If you plan to use Delpaso and buy their insurance then I am sure you will not have a problem.
So back to the story … arrived late on a Friday to the usual smiley reception which soon turned frosty once I declared that I had my own insurance policy. Next the hard sell for their insurance which included the imposition of a punitive 80km a day allowance if I did not buy their insurance. The mileage cap was on the booking form
Once I got the keys and left the office to check the car the agents became totally disinterested in any further help. Their only offering was a warning to take photos and videos in order to put up a defence against any charges on return. They did not want to see anything before departure.
Got in the car to drive off but couldn’t clear the trip screens. Unsure about which buttons to press to clear these screens so I didn’t see the actual start mileage and used the mileage on one of the trips to monitor my journey. I was on the ‘560km deal’. Also, I didn’t bother going to ask the disinterested agents for help based on the customer service skills displayed to that point.
Car parked up all Saturday and on Sunday I went to check the car and start it. Noticed a mileage figure which briefly appeared on a start up screen before dropping back to the Trip Screen I was using. I then calculated back to compare the start mileage with the hire contract.
Imagine my surprise when I found the start mileage was 420 km out. Took some photos of the trip screen and took others during the week when the car moved to try and prove that I hadn’t done 575 km in the first 24 hours of the hire and I hadn’t exceeded the 560km limit. This put a dampener on the rest of the week because there was one journey I had planned that I did not make.
Got back to Delpaso offices at end of hire and flagged up my concerns about the mileage. The initial reaction was not … that doesn’t sound right lets check .. but no start pictures then you are most probably facing a charge. ‘You were warned to take pictures when you took the car’. After some further discussion the agent agreed to review the previous hire mileage and he confirmed an error! They had used the start mileage of the previous hire as the start mileage of my hire. They hadn’t (or couldn’t have been bothered) updated their records which got me thinking a bit later that they may not have updated the damage record either.
Chapter 2 – The desperate search for the 360E scratch.
The car had a bump and numerous scratches, so it wasn’t in showroom condition. You’d have thought that they had employed a full forensic team with fine tooth combs to give the car the once over. The desperate search for the 360E scratch even involved the rubbing of ‘specks’ of dirt on the front spoiler. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Then success, a couple of cracks in the underside of the passenger door wing mirror. You had to bend down to see it and I believe I missed it on the Friday. I don’t believe it was damaged during the hire (I checked the car every day in daylight and never saw it). The damage wasn’t captured on any of my photos taken whilst checking the car at night under a brightly lit canopy with shadows etc which can hide/mask possible damage. A bill to pay and insurer to contact.
I would be interested to see if any reader had taken a Fiat 500 back recently with a damaged wing mirror. This is where I am thinking that they may not have updated the damage record if they hadn’t updated the mileage.
In future I will walk round the car taking a full video then do a further walk round with the camera at slightly different angle. A good chance of capturing something. I will also physically feel for cracks on wing mirrors as well. Lesson learned.
This note is not to teach regular travellers how to suck eggs but with more people travelling with their own insurance just a reminder to be thorough when checking the car. Be ready for ‘unconventional’ customer service and that you will be regarded as a potential cash cow.
I wonder if any of these companies will ever break ranks and include all insurances in the hire charge?

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chrissiehope
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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby chrissiehope » Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:12 pm

Oh, how familiar this sounds ! We were 'done' by Delpaso several years ago (I think I posted about it at the time). With us, it was a tiny scratch along the near side - the kind you get whe brushing past a hedge or similar. Like you, we collected at night under the floodlit canopy, so couldn't fully check when we collected, but it was probably there already. I forget the amount we were charged, possibly around €450, but thankfully our annual insurance paid up promptly. Never again with Delpaso ;- )
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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby olive » Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:24 pm

What a horrible experience, especially as you couldn’t do all your trips.

We hired a car from rental cars.com at Granada airport while our car was off the road. It was supplied by one of the minor car rental players. We had annual excess insurance. Just as well as the car suffered damage estimated by company at 800 euros. I thought it a bit steep but our insurance paid out without batting an eyelid.

I hire from Leeds Bradford quite a bit and used Firefly last time. The car was actually supplied by Hertz. It had an astonishing amount of damage including windscreen damage which I am sure would have failed an MOT. I am not sure how you can record the damage in such cases. Being cynical, I think the margins are so tight that they make their money on claims.

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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby Pamela1 » Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:45 pm

Olive, the money the carhire companies make is on claims, no doubt about it...I always inspect every inch of a car as much as i possibly can and there isn't one occasion where i haven't had to go back to the desk and bring out a member of their staff to point out scratches which were not highlighted on the sheet. So far i haven't had any problems but i never feel confident that we never will.

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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby ashtondav » Wed Feb 12, 2020 4:44 pm

If they find a scratch we just claim on the annual insurance. We do take photos but if the insurance will pay anyway i wonder of its worth it. Delpasso gets horrid reviews.

Budget outfits like Record, Goldcar and OK rentals have cleaned up their acts recently but Delpasso seems stuck in the dark ages. I recall one poster even claiming his card was cloned.

Of the non budget boys I reckon Malagacar.com and hellehollis are best.

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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby 1bassleft » Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:11 am

Having bought my own car two years ago I wake up every day thanking all deities I no longer have to do this. Before that, I'd packed in with almost all local companies (the exception being Cargest) and paid the extra for Alamo/Enterprise.

My last experience with old DelPaso, which is slightly too trivial for its own thread but I'll recount it here, was standing in a lengthy queue after the near-midnight lander. One guy processing the tourists and the minibus driver randomly picking people who look Spanish (fair enough, but I kept telling him I could speak Spanish to no effect) and processing them. The English speaker answered the phone every few minutes, disingenuously (and increasingly rudely) telling some woman at the airport that the driver was definitely on his way and she should wait and stop bothering him. I don't know when she was collected, but the driver was still behind the desk by the time I finally drove off in my hire car.

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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby fincalospinos » Thu Feb 13, 2020 10:26 am

I may be causing a stir here, but if you are hiring a car for the daily cost of a bottle of wine, it stands to reason that the hire companies have to make up the deficit from somewhere.
I always look at the overall cost of hiring, including the full insurance cover, and have never experienced any problems when returning the car.
This gives peace of mind during the rental, and I dont have to spend precious holiday time continually inspecting the car and watching my mileage.
Hardworking resident !!

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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby peteroldracer » Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:44 pm

I have always found that the hirers in the UK are just as keen to check for damage, even though the costs are more like a bottle of good brandy per day..Best quote I have had for 32 days in a Corsa is £666, and this from a company that does not surcharge for "Senior Drivers". Maybe until they sort out the UK law I should just buy an electric scooter!
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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby elusive » Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:01 pm

Firefly are owned by hertz. Family members and friends who have been coming to spain for decades wont use anyone but carlos lopez at orion car hire at the airport. He was previously navarro. Does a meet and greet service. No hassle with the insurance. Straight in and out. They swear by him.

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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby ashtondav » Mon Mar 02, 2020 3:56 pm

Just back from a very sunny and hot 8 days yesterday. Rented through doyouspain.com using OK renta car at malaga airport.

€7.60 for the 8 days. We got a lovely little fiat 500, photo'd all the minor scratches, declined their insurance (with no fight back), prepaid for a tank of petrol and drove off. Dropped it off yesterday and the operative didn't ask to see the photos just said everything OK. We even brought it back full so got a refund for the pre hire fill up.

1€ a day. Presumably financed by those who do buy the insurance, do add extra scratches and don't bring it back empty. They did "block" 900€ on one of my credit cards but no deduction was made and therefore no transaction or exchange cost incurred.

Great little car, the Fiat 500. And for 1€ a day - magic!

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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby peteroldracer » Mon Mar 02, 2020 5:49 pm

You must be a skinny b***** - normal-size people need one on each foot! We have friends who visited having hired a Fiat 500 - he is 6'6", she 6'4" and the two teenage kids are heading for the same sizes....they could not get up a bit of a slope in our village.
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Re: DELPASO Car Hire – A cautionary tale.

Postby ashtondav » Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:47 pm

Just two of us 6' 1" and 5' 2", went just fine - even up steep slopes. In fact better than the 1 litre corsas we've had in the past.

Yes i wouldn't book it with 4 people - there wouldn't even be space for the cabin luggage!


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