Fox Rent A Car Review

Fox has never been my first choice in car rental companies, but I'd be a fool not to consider them when scouting out car rentals because every now and then, they really do save me money. Not every trip. Not every market. Not every car class. But their web site is very good about highlighting their specials, and if you're able to take advantage of them, they often are really good deals.

In most of the U.S. destinations I've visted recently, it's been either Enterprise or Thrifty who usually save me the most money. Not always though. On one trip into Minneapolis, it would have ended up costing me a big chunk of change if I'd stuck to my stalwarts --- instead, Dollar saved me a pile o' dollars by giving me a drop-dead deal of a rate on a beautiful new Cadillac. Their price was so good, that it was competitive with what Thrifty would have charged me for a much less interesting small Dodge. (I think I'm wearing out the pixels in my monitor where the "SPECIALS" link is for the Dollar web site (www.dollar.com). I especially like that it lets you narrow down the deals to specific markets and locations. No sense reading about deals that you can't get, is there?

I'm happy with the quality of cars I've gotten from Fox. They're big on Dodges over there, and there's an excellent chance that you're going to be driving a Chrysler product if you book with Dollar, but that's okay with me, since cars like the 300, the Magnum, or the Pacifica are really delightful cars to drive. If I get something like that, I'm happy. I'm more concerned with how reliable the car is, and I've never had a problem with a car from Fox. Late model, low mileage cars has been the norm. I'd be surprised if I was ever given a clunker there.

One area that disappoints me with Fox is their general lack of real upscale vehicles. I did get a Caddy from them once, and they do offer a lot of Chrysler 300 Touring Sedans --- but there's no "premium" or "elite" level beyond that. I find no cars that truly excite me or that make me celebrate the driving experience...and that's too bad.

Overall, Fox strikes me as a fairly average car rental company. They have fewer, and often smaller, locations than the bigger name companies, but their cars are just as good and their rates are often much better --- especially if you scout the deals on their web site. To me, the good prices on good cars is the whole ball of wax when it comes to car rentals, and I find that Dollar sometimes gives me JUST what I'm after. Sometimes they don't, but I'd still be a fool to write 'em off.

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EasyCar Review

Advantages: Cheaper, decent cars

Disadvantages: You aren't exactly treated like a special customer

The most important thing to remember about Easy Rentacar is that it is an explicitly no-frills car rental service - you are not supposed to be a valued customer, and so you will not be given unctuous service. The main disadvantages of the Easy approach are obvious

1) There is no choice over what kind of car you can drive

2) They cut costs on the staff, and so signs in offices explicitly warn of delays of up to an hour before you can get your car in peak periods

3) They operate a ruthless policy towards damage to your car - the standard insurance excess is £500.

4) The offices are located in inconvenient places, and the opening hours are not as good as other car rental companies (not 24 hours).

5) You can only book on the Internet - even in an Easy Rentacar office, you have to use an Internet PC to rent a vehicle.

But...

There's no pretence, you know that they're supposed to be cheap. The one car you can hire is the Mercedes A Class, a spacious, stylish and attractive car. The prices are genuinely cheap (as low as a tenner a day, plus the £5 set-up fee), and the nasty excess can be reduced, on payment of £15, right down to £25, which is lower than I think you can generally do it. I've never had to wait that long (20 minutes was the longest) and my local office is in Piccadilly, which is a very easy bit of Manchester to get into, and convenient for public transport if you are transportless having dropped off the car. If you don't have Internet access, it might be a problem - but you have Internet access, friend, because you're reading this review. In the end, I've found it easier to book online than having to phone other car rental companies, and the fact that they only carry one car means there's no question of having to rent a size of car that doesn't suit, or fiddle with various tariffs. They either have a car or they don't, and the earlier you book, the cheaper the car is.

Gen

erally, I consider car rental companies to be the worst for standards and customer care anyway. Given that Easy Rentacar offer, at least in Manchester, an efficient and straightforward service, and most branches of Hertz and Avis are staffed by (in my experience), miserable incompetents, I don't see the problem. I've had Hertz try to rip me off before now, and I had to write to the Chief Exec to get my money back, so the straightforward nature of the Easy Rentacar system seems like a model of transparency.

I have hired from them four times, and have never been charged for any damage. Most car rental companies make the business of checking the car for damage passive - they give you the keys and tell you to come back if there's a problem, probably in the hope you either won't bother at all, or won't bother to walk back to the office (which may be a considerable distance). Easy Rentacar make the checking of the car part of the process - they send you out to check the car and won't finalise the transaction until you return and actively say that you're happy.

On one occasion I found a scratch that wasn't mentioned on the contract and they changed it immediately. The only disadvantage is that I spent three weeks driving a smooth, extras-packed A Class before buying my current car, an old banger for whom the words 'clapped out' could have been devised.

Equally, they check it all with you at the end of the day when you're returning the car. The vehicles are clean and they don't break down, and if you aren't so self-conscious that you can't bear to drive a car with an orange sticker on the side, it's a pretty satisfying drive. All in all, I think that this company, like the airline that started the Easy empire, is a practical and worthwhile alternative to mainstream companies, and will be renting from them again if I need to.

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