Always check the rental car before driving off

We rented a car in Dublin last week, booking via Economy Car Hire as we had done in January. Before making the booking I checked the rental conditions of the various car hire companies the broker had listed.

My main concern was their fuel policy. It is all very well hiring a car and finding out that you pay for "their price" for a tank of fuel, but their policy is to return it empty and if you don't use that fuel, too bad its their gain.

I also declined Economy Car Hire's additional excess waiver insurance that is supplied by Questor Insurance Services, deciding to purchase it independently particularly as I could save 10% with Questor by using a special discount code at the Insurance4carrental .com site.

The plane was delayed by nearly an hour, however it was very early afternoon on a cold May Monday. I called over to a representative at the car hire desks at Terminal 2 and said should we proceed straight to the car hire buses which we did. The car hire terminal is only a short drive away outside Dublin Airport and we were attended too very quickly.

We declined their excess insurance as we already had the Questor product and such, we had a "reserve" that could be debited to our credit card of €1,350 / GBP£1,017.

The keys were handed over and I talked to their representative about the new rules for those with UK driving licences only having plastic ones and no paper counterpart this month. I was not asked for the counterpart and the representative told me she had heard something about this, but was not too concerned.

We were presented with the damage report and told there was a mark on offside front wing. On checking the car further there was also a mark on the nearside rear and the nearside front hub cap was missing.

I marked these areas and returned to the check out desk and had the changes signed off.
It looks like the car hire company had not done a full check on a 2013 Renault Clio from Cork.

It is very important to thoroughly check the car yourself and even photograph it before leaving the car hire depot if you at all concerned.

You also need to check if the fuel gauge is showing full after just paying a deposit on the fuel or buying depending on the contract you have taken out with the car hire company.

Sometimes because of bad light or weather conditions it is not possible to check everything.

A day or so after collecting this car we discovered  a mark around the opening system for the boot. Unfortunately you cannot look everywhere including looking under the bodywork in general.

This applies just as much if you are hiring a van, motorhome or even a minibus.

We have had a lot of bad experiences hiring cars in Dublin over the years, but of late have been well impressed by the polite friendly manner car hire operatives have been in looking after their customers.