Renting a car off base and something keeps going wrong with it and the rental company is asking you to foot the bill? 

I guess not 

We had some issues with ours and called and took it back and they gave us another. When we had an incident on base (someone hit our car in the BXtra parking lot) and had to get it fixed and that company gave us one of their rental cars to use. When we took it back, they said this small less than an inch scratch wasn't there when they gave it to us and said we had to pay 500 mother frickin pounds!! We raised hell and they lowered it to 300..wtf? That car was a hunk a junk in the first place and they guy was like "oh, I really don't even want to have to charge you, but if I did that with everyone..blah blah blah..Robbers man!! It's a conspiracy! lol 

Peace- Who did you use? 

Why would you pay for a mechanical repair? Especially if its wear and tear.. i would tell them to kiss my but. But some rental companies warn about others that do this if your car breaks down you have to pay for the repairs.. Which rental company is this? i would post an "ad" in LYS warning people about this company. 

...and original poster, who are you using? 

Peace - I would contact the company and asked if they have had it repaired, if not tell them you will pay for chipsaway to repair it (cost less than £100)and expect a refund of the £300 they charged you. They may say the vehicle is currently on hire so you might have to wait until it is back to be able to get it repaired. 

Oh man..We can't remember the company name, I just asked my husband as well. This happened over a year ago after we first moved here. they are located in the Industrial Estate in Mildenhall (not the place next to Angels Cafe) I'd be willing to put money on it that they never repaired it..that car had dings and scratches all over it. We really had no clue what could be done about it at the time and didn't even know about this website then so we got screwed I'm sure. 

I would bet almost half of these rental POS that are available the company paid less than 500GBP for them 

Low Cost Car Rentals. They are just outside Mildenhall as well. I'm not happy at all. I was also given the same speech, Peace. I don't feel safe in their cars. But I've never rented cars around here so I thought they might all be like this. Quite honestly, I feel as though they are taking advantage of us and don't care whether we know it or not or get hurt. Is there any regulation for this or any where to turn to for help? 

Yeah, that's who we used as well when we first got here. While the guy was really nice, the cars were crap! Do you still have the contract? My husband said he thought there was something in there about issues with the car? 

That you have to pay for any repairs? 

No, that if anything mechanically went wrong with the car they come and get it and provide you with another. 

That sounds generous, but the problem is what if I'm driving when something else mechanical goes wrong? Who cares if we get another car when it's just as unsafe as the first except this time we don't know what will bust. It just doesn't seem right 

Okay then go somewhere else. You asked about them telling you to foot the bill. Read the contract and see what it says about mechanical car issues. 

Yea I guess I should have been a little clearer about what I wanted to know, like...

-what people did about it
-who they rented from
-if they had better luck from other car rental places
-also if there are any places to go to for help if you feel taken advantage of by businesses in the UK 

REMEMBER THESE POINTS TO GET VALUE FROM YOUR RENTAL £20 a week CAR

1 polish the chrome dome till it shines
2 drive all over uk at least 2500 miles
3 most are non smoking cars so smoke in it
4 pet free cars,no prob put your petin it ,next customer will get asthma attact
5
WARNING LIGHTS ON RENTAL CARS ARE LIKE THE ONES ON YOUR F15 AND MUST BE IGNORED AT ALL TIMES,DRIVE THE RENTAL CAR TO DESTRUCTION,ONLY STOP WHEN THE RENTAL CAR WONT DRIVE ANY MORE
RISK YOUR OWN LIFE AND THAT OF YOUR CHILDREN,BY IGNORING ALL RENTAL CAR WARNING LIGHTS
6 DRIVE YOUR RENTAL CAR INTO THE KERB AND SMASH UP THE FRONT WHHELS ,DONT WORRY ABOUT THE BRAND
NEW TYRES FITTED TO THE CAR, GET A CHEAP REPLACEMENT FROM THE LOCAL JUNK YARD,WHEEL BEARINGS ,BALL JOINTS
TRACK ROD ENDS,SHOULD ALL COME APART FOR THE NEXT CUSTOMER WHO RENTS THE CAR

7
RENT THE CHEAPEST CAR ,TELL THE RENTAL COMPANY YOUR ONLY GOIN TO STAY LOCAL
CAR BREAKS DOWN IN SCOTLAND, YOU END UP PAYING £546.77 TO RECOVER THE CAR BACK TO THE BASE AS YOU BROKE THE TERMS OF THE RENTAL AGREEMENT

8 give the rental company all the insurance info for your geico usa policy,most not valid in the uk

9 REMOVE THE TAX DISC FROM THE WINDOW TO TAKE TO PASS AND ID,WHEN YOU PUT IT BACK,DONT WORRY ABOUT
PUTTING IT BACK INTO ITS PROPER SEALED HOLDER,JUST LAY IT IN THE WINDOW,A GOOD GUST OF WIND WILL
BLOW IT OUT DOWN THE ROAD, THE RENTAL COMPANY WILL ONLY HAVE TO DRIVE TO DVLA IPSWICH AND PAY
£25 FOR A DUPLICATE DISC PLUS 4 HOURS COMPANY TIME GETTING A REPLACEMENT,YOU ONLY GET TO PAY £100
FOR OUR TROUBLE

10 to follow 

Generally there are the local small companies that rent older vehicles cheap (check LYS) then there are the international companies that only have vehicles under three years of age which you pay the premium for.
The larger companies WILL charge top £s for repairs as they usually repair vehicles before selling them. You can always pay more £'s for their insurance and the excess waiver for piece of mind.
If you opt to 'rent a wreck' and are concerned about the safety of the vehicle you can always put it in for an MOT (at your cost) for piece of mind. Just because a vehicle has a current MOT doesn't mean it will pass another straight through by the time you get it. I speak from experience having spun out and rolled a friends newly bought wreck off the A11 due to 'mechanical failure', an item which would have no doubt failed MOT. 

I have been using Steve's Car Hire (located in Lakenheath village) for several months now (our PCS date has been changed several times and when our other car died it wasnt worth the cost to fix vs. just rent til we leave) and haven't had any issues. He did a walk through with me when I first rented the car so we both saw what dings and scratches were there. He's very friendly, has reasonable prices, and his cars run very well. We have been fortunate to not have had any problems with the car in the months we've had it (save a blown headlight which we fixed ourselves... no biggie obviously) so I can't say how it would be if we did have a big problem- but so far I have been very pleased with Steve. 

We're currently renting from that 49 pound a week car place in Kenny Hill. The car is nice, and the people are very professional and kind. When we did the walk through they were like ok, this is normal wear and tear so don't worry bout it etc.
So far we haven't had any issues and once our month is up I'm sure we'd recommend them to our friends. 

We used both reliable rentals and low cost car rentals.

My husband went through LCCR and the car was falling apart on us.

I went through reliable rentals, there was on issue with the car, i called they took it back, gave me a new one and didn't charge us for it. We also did a walk through with them (we didn't with LCCR), they wrote down anything wrong, and they do it when you turn it in as well. 

Hey Guys, I think this comes down to the old addage of you get what you pay for, or buyer beware. I have had it on the other foot, been stationed out at Creech for the RAF and found no real option but to buy a car for the 2 years i was there and passed it on to another Airman when i returned to the UK, however i am not sure how safe i would feel driving my family in a £20 a week junker. I know it's very hard when you first PCS into the UK, but ot would be worth speaking to your sponsor to look at other options such as a personal lease - which is what i have arranged for returning to the states in october. 

We've used Steves before as well. Everything was great for the most part, but my husband scratched the car, and we were told from Steve it would be 400GBP to fix, so we got a few quote from other places that said 100-150, and told him, but he wanted to go with "his" guy, to make sure the paint matched and everything, so we ended up giving him 300 so we didn't have to deal with anything or go through insurance....we were pretty upset 

Christina- Wow, that seems pretty shady. I don't like the sound of that one bit. I sincerely hope he doesn't pull something like that with us... Makes me a bit nervous to be honest... I would hate to think we would be caught up in some "battle" with him while trying to PCS out of here... Last thing we'd need... 

Yea it was kindda messed up, so we won't use him again. The funny thing was all the places we went to get a quote said the car we had probably wasn't even worth more than 600GBP! Oh well, we didn't want to get in a "battle" so we just paid him his money/. I really hope he doesn't pull anything like this with you. I haven't heard of him doing it ever besides with us. 

Yea our rental car company is used for short durations by people in our group. However, I think if the car is used for more than a week the real dangers emerge. And the amount of time spent to go in and deal with the issues is just not worth it, the stress, or the fear of an accident.

We've had to rent for a couple months now and have already gone through 3 of their cars. The first had spark plug/cylinder misfiring issues. Very scary when you're in a new country and don't know what you would do if the "ish" hits the fan.

The second car had a tire blow out which, upon my own untrained inspection looked as though the tire itself was old (it was crumbling). The maintenance paperwork in the car said the tires were worn as well and the police man who happened to be driving by and helped me out also noticed that the tires wouldn't have passed inspection. Yet the rental company wanted me to not only pay for someone to come out and fix it (£25+ - which was fine with me) but to pay for a new tire (£50+ - which they never even put on the car).

After a heated conversation we agreed to go halves but only so as to not keep arguing on my part but also, I trusted that there is some slight chance I could have caused it and since I'm no professional, I went with it.

Then the check engine light turned on and THAT car started misfiring with spark plug issues etc... Funny thing was they got it be checked at a local shop where apparently it passed THEIR inspection but even the mechanic said he could feel the misfiring and we should get yet another car.

Finally the last car they gave us (I don't know why we kept going with these guys), while driving home the front indicator light went flying off!! At that point, we just went to a salvage, ended up having to buy NEW indicators (the rental car company came up ahead on this one) and just dumped the car with them, cancelled our next month's contract and left.

Sad to say, that car we drove was meant to be sold to the public but since they had no other car to rent to us, they let us use that one. I really would be fearful of buying anything from them (and definitely do not rent) unless saving a buck is worth more than your life.

SIDENOTE: The latter mentioned car was being sold at almost the same price that they bought it for 7 YEARS AGO! If that's not shady, I don't know what is.