THEY'RE STILL TRYING TO KILL US # 2

I rented a car on the weekend to travel to Birmingham to a wine fair.
I normally travel by train but the timing and the venue location of this made it logistically difficult so a car was going to be easier.

Or so I thought.

I checked out possible rental car companies on-line. They all seemed to have the same deals on cars, mileage, insurance etc. When it came to fuel they all had a full-out full back policy meaning that you returned the car full of petrol.

When I say all, one of them had nothing on the website about this but I assumed that it was a standard policy. It was this company I used as it was the closest to where we live.

When I picked up the car on Friday morning I asked the sales person where the nearest petrol station was so I could fill the car up when returning it. The sales person, a trainee, pointed out a station along the road.

I climbed in and drove off to find the motorway South.

Not long down the motorway - the M6, while in lane 3 the fast lane the car started to cough and stall. I was unable to manouvre over three lanes to the hard shoulder and had to coast the car as close as I could to the centre barrier while still in the fast lane. I immediately put the hazard lights on.
Trucks and cars raced past at 70 mph. It was a life-threatening situation.

Soon after a police car came up behind and I explained that the car had stopped and seemed like it was out of petrol. On close inspection the gauge said just that. With a new and strange car with so many dials and dashboard lights I didn't notice this when I drove off. To be honest I wasn't looking for it as :

1. I assumed that the car was full of petrol and
2. I asked the sales trainee where I should fill the car up again on returning it to which he showed me thereby implying that I was taking out a car full of petrol. 

WRONG! This company (the only one) sends out cars with just a bit of petrol in it. The customer has to fill it up.
I looked this up later on the internet and it is apparently a rental car company scam. The customer takes out an empty car and fills it up. Ideally, when the customer returns the car he should do so empty but who does that? Most cars get returned with at least half a tank (as tourists don't want to run the risk of running out), The rental car company takes the car and DOESN'T give a credit for the petrol in it. In the UK petrol is very expensive with a tank being about £60  which is about NZD 150.

So here I am stuck in the fast lane of a very busy motorway. A second police car arrived and the two of them blocked off the motorway - all 3 lanes - with their cars and they pushed me across to the hard shoulder. They arranged for a recovery vehicle to come and hoist the car up and drive a few miles down the road to a service centre. when there I had to go to a petrol station, buy a petrol can and petrol and put 5 litres into the car.



It wouldn't start.

Apparently these Ford Focus cars throw a bit of a wobbly after running dry and won't start for a while. I had to ring AA to come out which fortunately happened within half an hour. The AA guy got the car going and I drove to the petrol station, filled up and continued on my way.

I arrived at the venue late but in one piece.
At the end of the first day of the show I headed off, at about 7PM for my accommodation which was about 25 minutes away. It rained and rained and was very dark. I had ordered a sat-nav from the car company but when I picked the car up they didn't have one. Now driving in the UK is a bit different from driving in New Zealand. THERE ARE TOO MANY FUCKING PEOPLE HERE! The road systems mostly consist of motorways and sub-motorways with numbers prefaced by 'A's and 'B's. You cannot stop on these to consult a map or google a location on your phone. I had to continually get off the motorways to find country roads to do this. Even on the country roads, when trying to find some street or otherwise there is always some cars up your arse no matter what day or time it is. As I shouted before TOO MANY FUCKING PEOPLE HERE!
It took me over 4 hours to find my accommodation and I arrived about 11.30pm tired and irritable (and hungry).
It was too late to eat or have a wine so I had a bath and went to bed.

The next day I worked all day at the wine event - bloody exhausting- and headed off north to Cheshire for another event I was to work at on Sunday. As my accommodation was a farm-stay I knew that I'd be in troble in the rain and dark so I borrowed a sat -nav from one of the people I was working with.

All seemed OK to begin with. The drive was to be about 2 hours and I was hoping to arrive about 8PM.

• The sat-nav wouldn't sit on the dashboard. It fell off so I had to put it in my lap
• The voice control was set really low with no obvious way to increase the volume
• When the voice instructions came I had to hold it up to my ear (while driving at 70mph in the rain)
• Occasionally it would cut out.
• It would cut out at vital moments like : ....at the next intersection turn xxxx####????.and then take the third exit to the xxxxx?????~#### ...........

It took me over 4 hours to find my accommodation, arriving 2 hours after I said I would.

The farm-stay accommodation was superb. Clean and comfortable room with a big bathroom with both bath and shower cubicle and a wonderful breakfast next morning.

With instructions from the farm owners I set off to find the wine venue which was very plush. I was presenting wines (with other brand owners and marketers) to the select customers of the merchant we deal with. The select customers are all very well heeled from the old money industrialists through to the millionaire footballers with their WAGs. I was there all day pouring wine samples, talking up our wine and generally chatting for about 8 hours. I was hard work but enjoyable.

At one stage I was to pour some wine for an attractive woman, aged about mid 40's and asked her what she wanted. She said a red wine as she couldn't drink white wines. Normally it's the other way around for people with allergies so I asked her if she got headaches with white wine. She sidled around the end of the table and whispered in my ear "It's because white wine makes me easy".

Well!

If it had been 28 years ago before I met the Old Girl I would have said:

"Have a nice big glass of white wine my dear"

As it was I sort of said "Ummm, OK, we have a nice Pinot Noir here"

The event was a success and I headed off back to York in the dark, the rain and 80km winds with the sat-nav pressed to my ear at vital junctions.
Generally I just headed north knowing that once I found York I'd be OK.

On Monday morning I returned the car to the rental car agency and proceeded to have an argument with them.
They said that they didn't have a full out full in policy but couldn't explain why they don't put this on their website. They had no explanation why the sales person didn't properly explain that I'd be heading out with a virtually empty petrol tank.
I did get a refund for half a tank of petrol though (against company policy) - I think they just wanted to get rid of me. Bastards!