Hey old/new friends on funkysnooker~

I haven't been around for quite some time now, hopefully some old timers still remember me Here is the thing, I am now working in an automobile company in China, and I was given a task to research how vehicle rental works in UK/Europe or any other country outside China for that matter, and I hope you guys can give me some input if you know anything on that topic.

The type of information I am looking for is:
1. How do they charge? Do they charge by time? By distance? Or another way?
2. Fuel problem. When renting the vehicle, is the fuel tank full or empty? Is it the customers' responsibility to add the fuel themselves?
3. If I want to rent pure electric vehicles, how is it different from renting a normal vehicle?
4. In many large cities(like Paris, Mexico,Milan and so on), there is a bicycle sharing system, is this type of system being used on vehicles on any places?

Hopefully anyone who has the experience of renting a vehicle can help me with some of these questions, or even better who works in this industry, it would be much appreciated.

I have rented both daily/weekly many times both here and abroad and had a 6 month deal renewed monthly when one of my companies I worked for did not provide a company car.(they paid lol)
Also rented many vans.
1) They charge daily rates (or pro rata usually discounted if its for a longer period).Usually some type of max mileage in the agreed rate but in my experience usually adequate unless you are planning a 800 mile journey in a day.
They offer to cut the insurance excess if you want to pay a bit more too.
2)Usually you take it with a full tank and return with a full tank...some offer fixed rate at a reasonable price to refill with fuel agreed beforehand.
3)Not seen any of the major players offering electric
4)Not that I know off.


Edited at 23:17 Sun 05/04/15 (BST)

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Alright Kaison, long time!

I used to work for a company who had affiliates in the rental industry. http://www.europcar.co.uk and http://www.enterprise.co.uk were the most popular, always competing with each others prices. Hope this helps.

First of all, sorry for the late reply due to time difference.

Thanks a lot for the reply, this sure is a great help, especially it was of your own experience!

Back on the No.1 issue, do all companies you came aross (or know of) charge by time? None of them charge by distance?

I had a little research on the internet, I understand roughly how the whole borrowing procedure is, however there is one more thing I am not sure about - when it comes to returning the vehicle, can you return it when the store is closed? How does returning work exactly when there is no one around?

Thanks again @kilimanjaro

I believe you are Mike, right? Has been a long time!

Thanks for your reply, I have looked at the websites, but on the website it is hard to find the answer to my specific questions. Do you personally have any experience in vehicle rentals that can answer my questions above?

Hello Kaison, nice to see an old name back on here.

I use hire cars on a regular basis for my job, how they work in general is as follows:

1. Price per time rented. So if I hire a small car for one week this will be based on the size of car etc. £30 per day for example so a total of £210 for the week! Most cars have a certain level of petrol or diesel you can either replace on return or the company will charge you the fuel (normally at a higher rate)
2. I'm my case I pay an additional up front £200 this is incase there is any damage to the car on return (small bumps scratches etc)
3. If none then they will take this off the final hire rental price!
4. The bigger the car the bigger the price, 2 litre turbo versus a 1 litre will be huge in daily rental prices.
5. You can rent large vans or exclusive cars like mercs etc and they are even higher so the deposit you pays goes up with the value Of the car (in most cases)

I have never paid for total miles, in some cases I have driven 1300 miles at the same rental cost and when my car has been in the garage I have hired the same car but driven only 200 miles the total cost was the same apart from the fuel I needed to replace!

If you smash the car then this will be covered with your insurance etc

Hope this help

see below

I have never seen one that charges by distance.

I have usually found that you have to generally return it while the offices are open as they check over the car for any damage and to see if it is a full tank.(they let you check it for damage when you first take it and agree any dents, scrapes etc)

I think once while abroad I was able to return one and drop the keys in a irretrievable box because of a late night flight but ran the risk of getting a charge if they claimed it had damage..although that did not happen.
But I think this is not usual and if you are late ie return it a day late (say the morning after) you incur an extra days rental.

Thanks @kilimanjaro & crazy_dave

So is insurance a mandatory thing in vehicle rental?

Could it be that I am not willing to pay any insurance before I rented the vehicle, if anything does happen unfortunately then I will have to pay myself.

You have to have third party insurance to cover for if you crash into somebody else, I assume this is the same for rental.

hello

in germany you usually rent a car per day. havent seen any mileage limits yet but i can assume it exists aswell with a certain price per mile if you overshoot the mileage included. different vehicle classes cost different prices here too. so a mercedes S is for sure more expensive than a volkswagen golf.

one thing nobody mentioned yet is that all the companies have different stations across the country. so you can drop it at any station different from the station where you picked it up but if you drop it at another station it is usually slightly more expensive because they have to transfer it back somehow to have the carpool still same for the specific station/city.

usually it is allowed to drop the car even if the office is closed. but then you have the risk of getting charged for something probably not caused by yourself. i think the risk can be minimized though by probably taking pictures at dropoff although i never had a problem like that.

insurance is a must here. without insurance you are not allowed to drive vehicles on german roads. to keep it easy the insurance is included in the price.

Thank you, that was very helpful!

The insurance is built in , however usually with a high excess should you crash , sometimes £1000.
They offer you a deal to reduce the excess down (say to £250 typically) that costs extra.
Sometimes this can be the same as the daily rate ie recently I got a deal on an Astra sized car for only £28 per day but to reduce the excess would of cost an extra £28..I took a gamble on a £1000 excess .Normally an Astra would typically cost £40 plus but you can get good deals searching round.
I have often found you can get upgrades and go up a model size if you hunt around and once got an Audi A4 estate when i was expecting an Insignia.And a top of the range fully equipped jobby too.
Had that for a month and did not want to give it back lol.
Normally if I am not fronting up and my employers pay I pay the extra to reduce the excess and always do with a van as I feel its more likely I'll scrape or damage a van.