A US satirist, PJ O'Rourke, once said that the difference between your own car and a hire car, is that you can shift the transmission in a hire car from forward to reverse without coming to a standstill.
I have been a little brutal with hire cars mainly by hammering them in the lower gears and driving them down tracks previously used only by sheep and goats.
Anyone else want to own up to maltreating hire cars, company cars or whatever?
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sheeps and goats ....you animal
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By misuse, do you mean changing into a lower gear so the engine vastly exceeds the red line, or do you mean just generally 'thrashing' it?
In the latter case, I abuse everything, particularly my own.
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I must confess that when i am driving one of the companies vehicles i do tend to explore the upper regions of the rev counter between gearchanges much more often than i do when i am driving my own car !
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I treat other's vehicles (and anything else) as if it were my own, which means letting them warm up/cool down properly and treating the vehicle to some mechanical sympathy...usually better than they normally receive in the owners hands.
I really don't see anything clever in abusing someone else's property, it's vandalism, and driving swiftly and competently goes hand in hand with exercising restraint and using the best power available not normally available at scream revs, thats only noise power.
Thats not to say i drive like an old woman, quite the opposite, and many years ago i used to give my boss's RS1600i Escort an Italian tune up once it was warm (with his blessing), when i got in it would be sluggish and prone to misfire as he never drove the thing properly, but a good swift drive would see the car back on form till the next time.
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I don't abuse cars unless I have to. Not for their owners' sake you understand: for theirs.
Hi there gb. Same attitude I see.
Edited by Lud on 21/06/2009 at 21:36
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Never.
Even with a company or hire car I bear on mind that some poor sap is going to pay his hard earned wedge for it at some point in it's life.
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The problem with any abuse is that once you are accustomed with bad habit, you'll tend do the same thing with your own car!
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Only tyres, because I never used to pay for them, and because the company never questiond why 20,000 miles out of rear tyres on a Peugeot 306 XSi was good going......
Thrashed the car, but fluids were religiously monitored, and it was serviced on the button. Just explored the outer limits of handling a bit too much, but then the chassis was so brilliant, I'd have probably done the same if I'd owned it.
I had a Focus not long after, which was supposed to be "better", and it was a great car, but it never made me drive it the way the Pug did. I still think the old 306 had the edge.
Cheers
DP
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Hear hear DP.
Oh happy days, exploring the limits of a 306.
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No.
When I had a long term (6 months) hire car, from new, whilst waiting for a company car I looked after it as if it was my own. It went back to them looking the same as it did when delivered despite 15k miles. Nice car incidentally - an 01Y Focus 1.6LX that, dynamically, ran rings round my own 91H Mercedes 190E 1.8 of the time.
What goes around comes around as they say.
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I would think that I drive hire cars and pool cars exactly the same as my own, I normally stretch it's legs right into the upper rev range but I tend not to thrash from cold and try to keep it relatively clean.
The last time I took a pool car on a long run I washed the thing first and cleaned all the glass on my own time at my own house as it was so filthy when I got the keys. Even after the journey it was returned in better condition than I took it.
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I will probably drive them a bit harder than my own car (but not much), but I will apply the same rules as I do with my own ... driven gently until there's 5 miles or so under the wheels, drive the last half-mile gently and so on.
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No I don't, though it very rarely happens nowadays!
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I would drive a hire car (or more likely van) with exactly the same care as I would drive my own car.
It's to do with taking a pride in driving properly, which has nothing to do with who the vehicle belongs to.
Edited by Sofa Spud on 22/06/2009 at 11:53
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Abuse - no.
A little extra effort whilst driving - sometimes. I rent cars often and always return them in a very clean and tidy condition. Often cleaner than when I picked them up. I don't thrash them , but sometimes drive a little quicker and in a lower gear than usual, just to give them a good exercise.
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No.
I don't remember a huge amount about my early childhood - but I do remember Mr Doasyouwouldbedoneby.
Edited by mike hannon on 22/06/2009 at 12:55
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Well, if I'm allowed to drive a demonstrator on my own, as I was last Summer with a Honda Civic Type R and a rather fast Accord, I must admit that drove them harder than I have driven anything for a long time but still showed a degree of mechanical respect.
Other than that, it's usually hire cars abroad. To be honest, most of these are underpowered compared with UK equivalents and there seems no point in driving them hard, so I just chug along and stick to the speed limits (annoys the locals who don't know what a speed limit is).
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Mr Doasyouwouldbedoneby
That would be after his sex-change operation then mh?
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I drive with the same amount of mechanical respect I give my own car, the difference being that most hire cars seem to be low powered models and therefore tend to get driven "harder" than I would my own car due to wanting to make progress at near normal rates.
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I'm with gordonbennet on this one. I can't see the point of wasting anyone's money, private or corporate. I think we would both make good MPs.
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It was ingrained into us children that you return anything you have borrowed in a better condition than it arrived. All part of the '"when you get to the end of your life, then you should be able to look anyone you have come into contact with, straight in the eye".
Wonder what this generation of children are taught that will stick with them and influence their behaviour?
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I treat any car I drive with respect and no different to my own car.
A hire car will even have a wash before it's returned and I use the same top quality fuel as I use in my own car. I receive a clean hire car, I return it clean.
Edited by MikeTorque on 23/06/2009 at 00:08
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I was only naughty once, honest.
Took a lorry from Carmarthen to Denbigh, scheduled to return in hire car which I expected to be an Astra, Focus or something suitably bland.
Turned out to be a Tigra; this when the new shape had just come out and they were a bit of a novelty.
Remember that silly car advert where the bloke keeps getting wrong directions to Glasgow on his sat-nav and ends up on that deliciously twisty road, which looks suspiciously like the road from Denbigh to Bala................?
Need I enlarge on this or can you all guess? ;-)
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No, because somebody owns them and I'm not a Chav.
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Hire cars through company on work account:
Not really, as its not my car, and i wouldnt thrash my car either. i do "exercise" them a bit more but nothing that i would call "thrashing" that said i dont care if its covered in bird poo or squashed bugs where as if a there is the slightest bit of bird poo on my car its washed off straight away.
Becasue we have a small time frame of when they are handed back, i dont have time to wash it afterwards.
Edited by redviper on 23/06/2009 at 15:53
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I presently have an Audi A6 on loan. It appears to have a CVT so thrashing it just makes it sound like a sewing machine, albeit a very noisy sewing machine as it's a 2.0TDI. The closest I've come to any physical abuse was some frustrated fist waving at the utterly useless non-graphic navigation system which was clearly designed by a dyslexic 5 year old. It didn't make the system work but made me feel a bit better.
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Certainly not. What an extraordinary question to ask, and what a more extraordinary admission to make.
When you travel on the bus do you put your feet up on the seats? Or spit on the floor?
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