Car Problems!!

[BennyCake]

A bit of squealing from the engine when steering wheel at full turn. Steering feels a bit heavy whilst doing so too.

Any ideas?

[Don Johnson]

Anyone ever damage a rental car? What sort of charges?

[johnneycool]

A bit of squealing from the engine when steering wheel at full turn. Steering feels a bit heavy whilst doing so too.

Any ideas?

Power steering fluid levels ok I  presume?

[TabClear]

Anyone ever damage a rental car? What sort of charges?

That is not a good space to be in. I know a guy had an absolute nightmare with a hire car company. They started out looking £400 for a scraped bumper (should have been maybe £150 tops to fix?)and withheld an excess of over £1000 on his credit card for months until it was sorted. How much damage is it, i.e. a minor scrape or fully fledged crash?

Probably not much good to you now DJ but you can buy an annual insurance policy to supplement the minimum cover the car hire company provides that covers your excess  for about £40 per year. Means you can just walk away when you leave the car back with no comeback for the excess.  I think to buy the same cover at the desk when you get the airport is up to £20 per day.

[armaghniac]

Probably not much good to you now DJ but you can buy an annual insurance policy to supplement the minimum cover the car hire company provides that covers your excess  for about £40 per year. Means you can just walk away when you leave the car back with no comeback for the excess.  I think to buy the same cover at the desk when you get the airport is up to £20 per day.

Such policies generally refund you, so the rental people would still hold your car and the third part insurer would refund you in time. Some people would not regard having a hold on their car as "just walking away", although of course it is what cards are for.

[GJL]

A bit of squealing from the engine when steering wheel at full turn. Steering feels a bit heavy whilst doing so too.

Any ideas?

Power steering fluid levels ok I  presume?

A new auxiliary belt should cure it.

[TabClear]

Probably not much good to you now DJ but you can buy an annual insurance policy to supplement the minimum cover the car hire company provides that covers your excess  for about £40 per year. Means you can just walk away when you leave the car back with no comeback for the excess.  I think to buy the same cover at the desk when you get the airport is up to £20 per day.

Such policies generally refund you, so the rental people would still hold your car and the third part insurer would refund you in time. Some people would not regard having a hold on their car as "just walking away", although of course it is what cards are for.

I know what you mean as you have enough limit on the card to put a hold on the entire excess, ususally over a grand for up to a month.  Still definitely preferable to paying £100 plus to a hire company in my opinion for their insurance. 

With the amount of competition out there I find car hire really good value, as long as you do your homework in terms of insurance, child seats, sat nav,"upgrades" etc.  If you have to buy anything at the desk they will screw you

[BennyCake]

A bit of squealing from the engine when steering wheel at full turn. Steering feels a bit heavy whilst doing so too.

Any ideas?

Power steering fluid levels ok I  presume?

Yeah they're ok.

[BennyCake]

A bit of squealing from the engine when steering wheel at full turn. Steering feels a bit heavy whilst doing so too.

Any ideas?

Power steering fluid levels ok I  presume?

A new auxiliary belt should cure it.

Is that a timing belt or a fan belt?

[GJL]

A bit of squealing from the engine when steering wheel at full turn. Steering feels a bit heavy whilst doing so too.

Any ideas?

Power steering fluid levels ok I  presume?

A new auxiliary belt should cure it.

Is that a timing belt or a fan belt?

Known as the fan belt but no longer runs the fan. Runs the water pump and sometimes the aircon. Some cars have a separate belt for power steering. Definitely not the timing belt. 

[Don Johnson]

Anyone ever damage a rental car? What sort of charges?

That is not a good space to be in. I know a guy had an absolute nightmare with a hire car company. They started out looking £400 for a scraped bumper (should have been maybe £150 tops to fix?)and withheld an excess of over £1000 on his credit card for months until it was sorted. How much damage is it, i.e. a minor scrape or fully fledged crash?

Probably not much good to you now DJ but you can buy an annual insurance policy to supplement the minimum cover the car hire company provides that covers your excess  for about £40 per year. Means you can just walk away when you leave the car back with no comeback for the excess.  I think to buy the same cover at the desk when you get the airport is up to £20 per day.

It was a scractch on teh back left, maybe about 8 inches long. Then when I was dropping the car off I said to her 'I scratched it' and she pointed to the front saying 'is this it?' so there was another scratch/dent on the front left bumper. I honestly couldn't even think of when that might have happened.

Yeah I have since read up about those alternative policies. I will definitely be using them in future. In May I took the full insurance for the week it was just over £100ish. This time the fella tried to charge me £350, I said that's far too expensive for a week (hindsight is a wonderful thing), he said I will see can I get you a discount, then told me £320. I declined it, telling him what I had paid in May, he said that was his best. Ah well, just wait on the bill now I suppose.

Just don't hope they put the hand in too much now. Though google searches reveal horror stories!

[TabClear]

Anyone ever damage a rental car? What sort of charges?

That is not a good space to be in. I know a guy had an absolute nightmare with a hire car company. They started out looking £400 for a scraped bumper (should have been maybe £150 tops to fix?)and withheld an excess of over £1000 on his credit card for months until it was sorted. How much damage is it, i.e. a minor scrape or fully fledged crash?

Probably not much good to you now DJ but you can buy an annual insurance policy to supplement the minimum cover the car hire company provides that covers your excess  for about £40 per year. Means you can just walk away when you leave the car back with no comeback for the excess.  I think to buy the same cover at the desk when you get the airport is up to £20 per day.

It was a scractch on teh back left, maybe about 8 inches long. Then when I was dropping the car off I said to her 'I scratched it' and she pointed to the front saying 'is this it?' so there was another scratch/dent on the front left bumper. I honestly couldn't even think of when that might have happened.

Yeah I have since read up about those alternative policies. I will definitely be using them in future. In May I took the full insurance for the week it was just over £100ish. This time the fella tried to charge me £350, I said that's far too expensive for a week (hindsight is a wonderful thing), he said I will see can I get you a discount, then told me £320. I declined it, telling him what I had paid in May, he said that was his best. Ah well, just wait on the bill now I suppose.

Just don't hope they put the hand in too much now. Though google searches reveal horror stories!

I think they are a bit better now than they used to be but dont accept their initial "estimate". If you have photos etc try and get a ball park quote either from a local guy at home or even better if you can speak the local lingo and get one a mechanic from the same area the car is in.  Threats of internet reviews etc can have an impact as well in getting the quote down to a more acceptable level. What firm is it by the way?

Worst of it is, it is guaranteed that if you got the same car this time next year the scrape will still be there unfixed and about 5 other people who did not notice it at the initial inspection have probably paid for it as well!

Best of luck with it.

[tyrone girl]

For the past 6 months or so i would randomly lose power in the car and couldnt get above 30/40, generally it rectified itself and it really only happened a few times so i paid no attention. Keep an eye though when you are doing higher speeds on motorway and that as i found it slower to get my speed up there.
Last week i overtook quickly going off the motorway and felt it nearly snap. Drove away at it back down the motorway until lost all power, every light flashed on and the smoke was mental. Roaring from the car was mad as well.  Turns out my turbo blew up. Point of that story was that few times i felt it lose power but go back on so maybe its a sign the turbo is going 

[Owen Brannigan]

For the past 6 months or so i would randomly lose power in the car and couldnt get above 30/40, generally it rectified itself and it really only happened a few times so i paid no attention. Keep an eye though when you are doing higher speeds on motorway and that as i found it slower to get my speed up there.
Last week i overtook quickly going off the motorway and felt it nearly snap. Drove away at it back down the motorway until lost all power, every light flashed on and the smoke was mental. Roaring from the car was mad as well.  Turns out my turbo blew up. Point of that story was that few times i felt it lose power but go back on so maybe its a sign the turbo is going 

Good notice given the increasingly high number of petrol and diesel cars with turbos.

Turbos are susceptible to damage than we are led to believe because the oil pipes to them clog up when the turbo has not been allowed to cool down gradually after high speed driving.  This causes deposits to build up in small pipes and with no oil being pushed around the turbo it will blow up.  More of a problem with older cars that do not have overrun cooling fans which attempt to cool the engine after the car is switched off.  Best to allow an engine to cool down by leaving the engine on idle for several minutes immediately after high speed driving, e.g. motorway driving and then pulling in to a service station and switching off immediately.

[Rois]

Owen - I promised you the name of a bodywork man on Antrim Rd - turns out he's closed!
I hope your son got sorted anyway.