Europcar - hire car stinks of smoke

[DGRossetti]

Our car has to be repaired and the insurance company organised a replacement rental from Europcar.

It was delivered yesterday when I was at work, so I only had a chance to walk round it when it was dropped off.

Come time to go home, I opened the door and immediately the unmistakable faint waft of smoke was clear.

Considering how incredibly insistent they were when signed the agreement that if you smoked in the car they'd charge you thousands of pounds (I may exaggerate the number, but not the conversation) I was already irritated, Then I called their helpline to report it (because they can get fucked if they think they're going to blame me for it). THe best they could do was say "well if you went to get the car cleaned, we'd reimburse you". Which didn't really go down like they expected. Rarely does tryng to make customers unpaid employees resolve any situation.

Today DW commented my jacket smells .... of smoke.

In an ideal world they'd swap this (curiously 3 year old) car for a decent one with zero input from me. However that isn't their way of doing things.

Just thought I'd rant here - unless anyone thinks IABU ? Also when to give them the bill for dry cleaning my suit.

Thought I'd name and shame at the top of the page I may well tweet too ....

I suspect the shittiest cars are saved for insurance hires. Years ago I had one which was four years old, over the usual mileage beyond which they normally don’t hire, and smelled unpleasantly of sweat inside. They told me it was all they had available. I had it valeted and charged them but it was hell on wheels to get them to pay it - I had to get my insurance company to intervene in the end.

Ive found europcar to be horrendous at customer service. Ask them to replace it, don't wait to be offered.

I had similar. Car in to be repaired from an accident. Hire car absolutely reeked of smoke. I called hire car company & they said it was probably the ‘smoke bomb’ that they used to sanitise it. As an ex smoker, it was definitely was stale cigarette smoke. I didn’t want to be fined for the smell so I made sure I let them know ASAP. They offered to swap but couldn’t straight away. I put an air freshener in it, opened all windows when I could but had to clean all coats etc afterwards. It was awful.

Good that you reported it.

At least they will have now a harder time trying to bill you for ‘smoking’ in the car.

Europcar are appalling! They refused to refund a fully refundable booking (over £600) until I got the Observer involved.
I will never use them again.
I’d ask for a replacement car and payment for dry cleaning your smoky clothes.

Totally unacceptable. I would be majorly pissed off too.

Wee update ...

had a flowery email from customer services telling me that because of Covid and their "deep cleaning policy", some products have been reported as "smelling of smoke".

Just leave that there if anyone who's been stung by these cowboys found themselves being charged the Kings Ransom for returning a car smelling of smoke. Happy to forward the email ...

(Yes, I call bullshit too ...)

I'd be annoyed too and expect them to change the car, valet at their expense and bill for laundrette!

I can understand giving the best cars for standard hires. If it is a rogue member of staff they are either unwilling to deal with it, or will not tell you what they are doing.

Does the provisions of H+S at work and the smoking ban extend to someone whose car is part of their work? Or trading standards? It's not as if you will be hiring from them again.

I know the cleaning product smell they are taking about, but there is a huge difference in the light smokey smell from cleaning products and the lingering sticky, sickly heavy smell of cigarette smoke.

As Wings said there is a product that leaves a smokey aroma but I doubt it could be mistaken for cigarette smell.
To me it smells more like smoked cheese than tobac but I do love a fag so my nose may be more discerning.

I'm not an idiot, I know smoke when I smell it. However if Europcar are willing to piss away their chance to rip off anyone else by trying to charge them for "smoking" in their cars then I'll play that part, knowing that if in future they try to gouge anyone else, a trivial Google will reveal this post, and I have the email securely stored.