Usually when you hire a car
you have to fill it up with fuel before you hand it back, or they charge you about £10 a litre to refuel. So most folk do the sensible thing and fill it up. But with most cars, if you brim the tank, it'll be 50 miles or so before the fuel gauge needle moves off the 'full' mark. So by filling up a while before you hand the car back, you can get extra miles for free.

Unfortunately, this doesn't stick it to the man, as all it does it give the next hirer a slightly less full tank of petrol to begin his journey. But more recently, car rental companies have come up with a scheme to make them some cash. They give you a car with a full tank at the start of the hire, then bill you (at slightly below pump price) for the whole tankful in advance. You then hand back the car empty, which saves you the bother of filling it up. How convenient, eh? And of course nobody actually runs the tank to the last drop of fuel, so the rental company makes extra cash. Well, nobody except me...

I usually avoid such deals, but on one trip to the US a few years back, the agreement included a prepaid tank of fuel. As I was out there for a while and ended up doing about 3000 miles, I knew, from careful study of the owner's manual and the amounts I needed to refill the tank, just how much was left in it when the low fuel warnings started.

So I made it my mission to run the tank as low as possible on the day I handed it back. The fuel light had been on for ages, and the annoying 'bong' noise had sounded four times. I don't know if you've ever returned a rental car to San Francisco airport but the place is quite a way up a multi storey car park. The car gave a little cough just as I got it onto the top level, meaning that it was indeed running on fumes.

That showed them!


(I also had accidentally reversed that car into a ditch during my hire of it, but there was no visible damage so I neglected to mention this at the time of return)
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 21 Jun 2010, 11:24, 2 replies)

Would be particularly satisfying...
... if they found they couldn't start the car again at the return point to take it back to storage.

Like it.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Mon 21 Jun 2010, 12:44, closed)

I was hoping for that!

( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 21 Jun 2010, 15:04, closed)