Car Ha Ha Ha Hire

This Summer, on so many axes, I've been hatching from the cocoon of corona-mediated sofa comfort.  Went flying and speaking French after a gap of five years in June. Rented a car in foreign two weeks ago. I've had rather a lot to say about car hire in the past. The general practice at the rental desk is to require A Lot of explanation about the extent of the customer's liability for damage to the paint-work and alloy wheels and very little about the added features on modern cars. It kind of ruins the holiday worrying that the car will get scrorched by a 20 year-old [in a] Ford Fiesta while you're having dinner at a restaurant.

We rented a car in Ireland for a few days last September to facilitate the transition from the dying Citroën Picasso aka The Grape to a new-to-us Toyota Yaris. The hire-car was a head-ache: the previous renter had set up but not cancelled a relationship with a Road Toll company that land us with charges; concerning 'failure' lights appeared on the dashboard just as The Beloved was embarked on a trip to Dublin. That trip was therefore cancelled. otoh Enterprise Car Hire bent over backwards to comp us for our troubles and sort out the problems.

That's not a very good reason to choose to rent from Enterprise in England two weeks ago but that's what I did. We were two hours delayed by Aer Lingus hassles at DUB airport but not in a tearing hurry when we landed at BRS Bristol. So we suffered through their weird obsession with dunts and scratches and £1,700 liability for such damage [and £1,700 for damage on the other side of the car!]. rather than getting cross. I didn't get really cross when the under-employed Enterprise Chap at the next desk started in about how cool our Ford Puma was. But I did invite him to "SHUT UP", so I could concentrate on the CDW excess.

Despite having an extra hand larking about, nobody from Enterprise troubled to explain how to open the petrol cap on that particular car. I've been caught on that before as well as not finding how to select reverse gear. Youngsters in the car trade know all about the latest bells and whistles and so assume [Curse of Knowledge] that An Old like me will too. Lucky I had two 30-somethings in my party to handle the SatNav, the Bluetooth and the AirCon, eh? 

You have to wonder at the adolescent mind of car designers. 

• Did I say we rented a Puma? I did [and see R]. When the car is activated by the unlock button on the fob, a light from each wing-mirror projects a pouncing puma onto the pavement beside the car. 
• More useful in theory is a bing-bong alert and a light which appeared telling us that The Driver is Sleepy, rest soon. Followed 10 minutes later by The Driver is really Sleepy, rest Now. 
• Ditto for the disconcerting periodic wobble in the steering. That is not the wheels are out of alignment and about to fall off but the lane assist feature which eases the car away from grassy verges. This can be disabled IF you know it's called the Lane Assist feature and have time to read the online onboard manual.

Enterprise customer service called me on the phone the day after we got home to re-assure me that my tab had been closed and the £200 credit card lien had been refunded. That's pretty good service. Less so the barrage of txts and emails the system sends out including "Hi Bob, please confirm your existing details or modify them to add new information for your upcoming rental return." Go away with that!