Just a little whinge

[woofy]

I might have said it before, but I travel a bit for work and hire a lot of cars all over the East coast. When Europcar started offering Octavias in the category normally where smaller cars where, it was awesome. I need lots of carrying capacity in the boot for work, and its been great when family visits in QLD tie in.

All that came to a crash in March when I discovered the entire fleet at Brisbane had been replaced by brand new runout Cruzes, those cars were awful, poor fuel economy, poor boot space, and really gutless.

I've been back up since and found that the Octys are well and truly gone, but there seems to be more Superb wagons around. I had someone from there ring up and ask a random survey about my rental in March and told them the lack of Octavias sucks as it was a unique offering only they had and they said they had copped a lot of flack about it. Recently I made a new booking and the guy told me all the Skodas are gone, and when I said there were heaps of Superbs he looked and changed his story. I then called later to query somethign else and that girl said that lots of people ask about teh Octavias as they had an awesome boot.

I know there are a few posts here about how people rented these and some even bought theirs based on them, so Skoda are gotta be hurting losing out to Holden, you'd think even the base model might have been worth pushing for.

My main whinge is that the e-mag in May has a Europcar ad on the back explicitly saying how Europcar have exclusive fleets of Octavias and Superbs...this was 2 mths after the Octavias were pretty much gone.....why bother?

Does any other car rental place offer them now or are they gone altogether?

[Gti Dave]

I too was curious and scratching my head as about 2 months ago, I was looking into renting one for my end of eyar holiday and was curious about car rental costs and was overjoyed by the fact they had the Octavia. Forward to about 2 days ago, I rechecked and they weren't even listed anymore and was thing I'm pretty damn sure it was europcar that offered it. Now I know the answer to my question and confirms that the Cruzes have replaced the Octy!!! Dammit!!!

[pwcar]

A friend from work was stranded in Sydney when the Icelandic ash cloud grounded aircraft. He was given a Skoda for the trip back to Melbourne and was very impressed by it. Then a few weeks later when he had his car serviced he had a VW Golf as the courtesy car for the day, his comment was that it was like a Skoda

[VAG newbie]

I recently just booked with Europcar using the Skoda's promotional code, I got good rates and there was no mention of lack of Octavia (this is for Sydney airport pick up). They say they'll put a note that Octavia is preferred but no guarantee as the Octavia may be involved in an accident!

Anyway, I'll call and double check before I fly. But most other car rental company will always give you a cheap Korean alternative! You want a Camry? Most likely a Hyundai Elantra. Want a full size 6 cylinder Falcon? most likely a Holden Epica! I booked a Corolla once and end up with Hyundai i20! Completely different class car!!

Anyway, at least it tells me how awful these Korean cars are and I'll never ever in my entire life buy one!

[VAG newbie]

I might have said it before, but I travel a bit for work and hire a lot of cars all over the East coast. When Europcar started offering Octavias in the category normally where smaller cars where, it was awesome. I need lots of carrying capacity in the boot for work, and its been great when family visits in QLD tie in.

All that came to a crash in March when I discovered the entire fleet at Brisbane had been replaced by brand new runout Cruzes, those cars were awful, poor fuel economy, poor boot space, and gutless...

Don't you see the conspiracy? That's exactly the prefect car for rental company. Poor fuel economy? Why don't you purchase the full tank of fuel at special rate of $1.20/liter? (usually only 90%full, but they claimed filly fueled). Poor boot space? You got too much luggage, you need to upgrade to the next level! For an additional $29.99/day you will get a bigger awful Korean car! (and consumes more fuel!) Engine gutless? You better take the insurance option to lower your premium as you can't make a safe overtaking!

Octavia is a car hard for rental company to make money! That's why they stick with Korean!

Remember the i20 I told you about, when I couldn't find the anchor for child seat, they showed me the centre one and told me I need to upgrade as the compact class car only comes with one child seat anchor. I told them that was B******t! No car in Aus will be legal without 3 anchors at the back. Then they finally showed me where the other 2 was. Hiding under the boot floor!

[woofy]

They know they were popular and they probably brought business in as they had something unique. The Cruzes were seriously cheap though, and in the top ten selling cars. God knows why though, it was the worst car I have ever driven....I don't think I have been that disappointed in a long while. Pretty much every Europcar employee has always commented how good and how popular the Skodas were, I think some F-wit looking after finances got given too cheap a deal with the Cruzes and didn't think about the consequences...then again why are they in the top 10 cars, are people in Australia that naive or ignorant that they think they are a good car?

[K1W1]

I can't believe you guys. Rental cars are rental cars. Who, except three or four people in this thread gives a s*#t? You rock up at the counter, pay your money take the car for a day, a week or however long you need it and give it back. It's not like you own the thing or anything. Most people I know wouldn't even know much less care what the brand or model of the rental is all they are concerned about is whether it starts and stops and that they can remember where they parked it.

[rayray086]

Take it easy mate. To be honest I wouldn't want to be caught dead in a Cruz or a Kia/Hyundai/Daewoo/whatever South Korea is pushing out nowadays.


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[woofy]

If you don't give a s#%t what compelled you to post .

[aware]

Interesting to see that Europcar doesn't use Skodas anymore. Dad and I had to go to Melbourne in late August and needed a rental car (only went for 2.5 days, not enough time to drive) and needed a rental car. I went straight to Europcar and saw that they had Octavias listed - but if there was no Octavia it would be a Cruze or Lancer (probably even a Hyundai of some sort) - because there was no guarantee of an Octavia we ended up hiring a full size from Avis - got a Falcon XR6, which was quite a surprising car. Of course, because I didn't try for the Octavia, there were 2 Octavias in Europcar's space when we left (but they may have already been booked)

Normally I don't care about rentals, but I certainly would have liked an Octavia.

[pologti18t]

Probably a pretty obvious reason why the Octavia is off the books. They are all turbocharged now. This could have implications, in certain states, as to who could rent them and other issues with refueling. Far easier to stock cars that run a normally aspirated engine, a torque converter auto and run on 91RON.

I get a corp discount through work for rental cars. XR6/SV6 for the same money as a povo Corolla/Lancer.

[VRS147]

Europcar OZ & NZ

We had the similar experience with Europcar back in March. Booked Octavia but got a Cruze. I was pretty happy at first since the car had only 18Km on the clock, we are the first customer. After we arrived at Gold Coast from Brisbane Airport, I went to their local branch and made complaint about this powerless car with strong plastic smell (headache). They didn't have anything to swap and offered me some allowance for compensation.Lucky we didn't use the car much over three days, otherwise I will be so pissed off.

I used Europcar rental in NZ twice before, they have Suzuki Kizashi now. Definitely my next pick if they still got it.

aware: we had a XR6 in NZ for 14 days, traveled about 3000Km. Its a comfortable car for log-drive, fuel economy is about 10L though.

[woofy]

After putting in a pref for the superb today, I got the sv6. I've been curious to drive one, but there are odd things with it, on being no height adjustment on th seatbelt. Have commodores always had that, our mid 90s falcon even had that. The other ie that the car seat loop, there is only one that you move between spots. Again I've only seen that in a Honda integra and my parents maxima. For a family car it's odd it's not very baby friendly, maybe the wagon has more?

I didn't see any superbs there today nor on the roads, maybe they are gone now? I saw quite a few in early Aug though....

[woofy]

I should add the big deal was in March, I expected a Skoda, and almost couldn't fit my work boxes in the Cruzes tiny boot. Had the same issue in July and struggled to fit two adult bags and a slim foldup stroller, even our 323 could fit that. I have to park a lot of painful places when working interstate. I don't mind the hyundais, just need more boot space. A falcon or commodore is always harder to get into some spots. There really is nothing like a Skoda in the market with the interior room in that size with a hatch either. Noone rents mondeos or 6s which would also work.

[BlackSuperb]

Followed a white Superb station wagon along the M5 from SYD airport and it had a Europcar sticker on the back.