It works for me..... (easyCar)

Member Name: Highwayman

Product:	easyCar
Date:	26/04/02 (162 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap, newish cars

Disadvantages: lack of handbook in car, no choice of car - you gets what you gets, as long as its an A class......

In March I hired an A class merc from easycar.com.

I had been thinking about trying them for a while, but after hearing some good word of mouth reports I decided to give it a bash. The booking process was easy enough, once I'd reliased that you have to use Internet Explorer. I printed the confirmation, goy my driving licence out, and found a recent utilities bill. Thankfully nor EVERYTHING is direct debit yet! The depot I picked the car up from was London Bridge - not too difficult to find.

The check-in process is rather frenetic - I guess it's having so many cars and so little staff. Once I'd corrected my Driving Licence number on the booking ( which can only be done by doing the booking again on a steam powered computer in the 'office'). I found the car, checked it out ( seemed Ok - but who can tell in the dark), but noticed the milage was wrong on the booking form (it was showing less in the car than on the form). I pointed this out to the people in the office who made a note to correct the records. Why do I do these things? I could have had free miles!

When I drove away towards the Rotherhythe Tunnel I got as lost as its possible to get whilst still being in Southern England. No fault of theirs, I know.......

For those who havent driven an A class Merc before, a word of warning - there is no handbook in the cars. It took me ages to work out the mirrors, doorlocks, radio ( I never found out how to turn it off) CD player (if indeed it WAS installed, rather than just having the CD trays). and there is no explanation of what all the buttons do, and what the yellow triangle and exclamation mark on the dashboard are about.
The Alarm works though............ALL the time. You have to make sure all the doors are properly closed, and all the windows fully wound up, otherwise the alarm sets itself off after you lock the car. Also, if you drive off with a door not fully closed, the alarm goes. Effective, bu
t very crude. I rang Easycar ( which costs an arm and a leg) about how to re-set the alarm but never found the little hole the key goes into.

We had the car for 10 days - no problems, drove nicely, stayed on the road, VERY comfortable, blown around a bit crossing the Severn Bridge ( but who wasnt, that day).

We managed 1,150 miles in 11 days. You have a milage allowance of 75 miles a day, and every mile after that costs you 20p. This would normally have cost us £65 in excess miles. For some reason i havent managed to fathom, after I dropped the car off and received the condition report the milage hadnt been changed when I picked the car up.....not only that but according to them I only had the car 3 days. I pity the poor sod who got my bill though.


A hint or two on the cars/booking process:

The centre armrest is always in the way.

If your licence details arent correct before you sign the contrat, your insurance isnt valid.

Consider the extra insurance, it's a £500 excess. There is a chart in the office giving details of how much per inch a scratch will cost you.

You can book to pick up the car between 18.00 and 23.00. It gets you a deduction on a day's hire, but you get the full 75 mile allowance for that day. Also you can drop off the car early in the morning for another deduction but also keeping the 75 miles for that day. Unfortunately, for me this meant being stuck in a traffic jam at 6.30 in the morning. (6.30am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 hours to drive 8 miles - what the hell was THAT all about??)

Theres a button to turn off the stability control which turns on a warning on the dashboard (thats the yellow exclamation mark). Why?? who knows, just keep pressing buttons until it goes away.

All in all I had a good experience. I was worried about the £500 excess ( I didn't take the extra insurance you see). The car was confortable, even for me at 6'3 and 16st.
<
br>I'm intruiged about the extra miles though - what DID happen to them?

and the cost?? oh...........a whole £93 for 11 days.

not bad eh?

Summary: