Most fleets will use daily rental at some point even if it’s just as cover while a vehicle is off the road for repair or servicing.

It is often perceived as a quick and convenient way to provide drivers with a vehicle for short periods of time. Do you have any issues with daily rental, if so what are they?

Debbie Floyde, fleet manager, Bauer One of the main issues for me is the lack of paperwork. We have requested on numerous occasions that vehicles are not left or collected without a signature being obtained so any damage and fuel levels can be signed for; but we are often faced with a delivery driver saying that he does not have to obtain a signature.

We have tried to implement a policy where we will not pay any recharges levied by the provider unless there is a signed document trail.

We have had cars delivered hours after the requested time and others that have not been collected on time.

We also had a vehicle being delivered from a branch 40 miles away which was fully refuelled by our driver before going back, but we received a fuel charge because by the time the vehicle had returned to base the tank was no longer full.

Liz Hollands, fleet and facilities manager, Freight Transport Association We are fortunate in having very few issues with daily rental, but this is probably down to good management on the part of our leasing provider, who arranges hires for us.

Sometimes our requirements are quite exacting in terms of the type of vehicle required to suit the needs of our vehicle inspection engineers in particular.

But there are a couple of specific issues which crop up such as difficulty arranging hires after 4pm, or out of standard office hours and daily rental companies trying to charge us for damage not incurred by our drivers.

Gary Black, fleet manager, Inspired Gaming UK As our drivers are generally field based, rental vehicles are often dropped off and collected without our driver being available to check over the vehicle.

To make matters worse we are often presented with an invoice for damages that our driver is adamant he did not cause.

Worse still, the rental company is often unable to be precise about dropping off times. And as for collections, we can sometimes have vehicles sitting around for days.

Although we are told that the rental vehicle will be delivered with a full tank, in practice, very often they are not and this means that way we are likely to pay for fuel that we do not use as we instruct our drivers to return them with a full tank.

 

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