Europcar

We picked up the car on Wednesday, October 21st, 2020. We talked to the male Europcar employee that was working on that day. The two following things happened: 1. Toll Box Selling Trick Our plan was to not use the toll roads when driving through Portugal, because it can get quite expensive. So we asked the Europcar employee that checked us in, if that was possible. He told us that it was ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to drive to Faro Airport without using the toll roads. He pushed that we had to buy the Europcar toll box for € 18,50 which allowed you to use the electronically-paid toll roads (you pay the total toll amount when you return the car). We didn’t want to have any misunderstandings, so we asked him for the second time more, just to be clear: “Can you drive to Faro Airport without toll?” He said: “No, you cannot.” So we had to let him activate this Europcar toll box and pay the money. Well, we successfully drove to Faro Airport without using the toll roads. This was just a nasty selling trick, unfortunately we fell for it. Actually, the Europcar employee just lied to us. 2. Half Filled Tank The same employee walked us through the rental conditions. He explained that when you rent a car at Europcar, you get a car with a full tank and you have to return the vehicle with a full tank. When we left after picking up the car, we saw that we didn’t get a full tank, the tank was only filled for about 80%. We didn’t want to go back to him, so we just let it go. At the end of our holiday we returned the car with a 90% filled tank, which was apparently not enough. The employee at Europcar complained that we didn’t fill up the tank and that we had to pay the difference. We told her that our tank was also not full when we received the car, she asked for proof (a photo), but we didn’t have that unfortunately. Here another way of Europcar for earning some more money. We will never rent a car at Europcar again! Bad service, bad communication, no transparency.

Dude asked me to input my credit card pin after I paid online ( without the pin he said he could t do it). After a little magically he managed to do without Also, I rented a twingo and got a fiat 500 with literally no space. The concept of "similar" can span as they please.

A best place to hire a car if you’re in Porto.

While staff was friendly, the car they gave us was in a terrible condition. Scratches everywhere, as well as extensive bodywork damage. This was duly noted during the delivery inspection, but we only discovered the most serious issue after sunset: the headlights weren't working properly! They were stuck focused downwards and the electronic focus adjustment didn't work. We felt unsafe driving at night as our sight was severely impaired. This was our first time renting with Europcar - and it definitely was the last. Sent them a written complaint and they didn't bother to reply.

Only dropped our car here, but it was reasonably efficient.