Supercar hire - recommendations?
Discussion
I'd like to hire a McLaren, probably a 570, for a weekend or a couple of weekdays. I'm hoping to get a feel for the car, what it would be like to live with, and how it feels on a good road or two.
I appreciate it won't be cheap, that's ok, however there are a few things I want to avoid:
1) Quite a few places seem to make their profit out of "damage" charges when the car's returned. Obviously one wants to feel fairly treated in this regard.
2) At least one such place fits black boxes to their fleet, which alerts them if you are driving "too fast", and they then terminate your hire. I wouldn't expect to drive it much faster than I drive my own cars, but being constantly monitored would take all the fun away.
3) I'd probably ideally like to make a short break of it and find a hire place near some good roads, so I could do the mileage I'm paying for on fun roads, rather than either paying for boring motorway miles or long-distance delivery charges.
Has anyone hired a supercar? How did it work out? Any places to avoid or seek out?
I appreciate it won't be cheap, that's ok, however there are a few things I want to avoid:
1) Quite a few places seem to make their profit out of "damage" charges when the car's returned. Obviously one wants to feel fairly treated in this regard.
2) At least one such place fits black boxes to their fleet, which alerts them if you are driving "too fast", and they then terminate your hire. I wouldn't expect to drive it much faster than I drive my own cars, but being constantly monitored would take all the fun away.
3) I'd probably ideally like to make a short break of it and find a hire place near some good roads, so I could do the mileage I'm paying for on fun roads, rather than either paying for boring motorway miles or long-distance delivery charges.
Has anyone hired a supercar? How did it work out? Any places to avoid or seek out?
I hired a 458 spider from bespokes in London before I bought my own 458 spider as I wanted to figure out if I would want one or not.
To answer your questions:
Black boxes are pretty much a given for supercar hire for insurance reasons, would you lend a stranger a 100k moveable asset without some ability to monitor if they were keeping to their contract?
They were very clear that ‘enjoying’ the car within reasonable tolerances is not going to ping them, but if you are driving like an utter tool or doing something that is likely to get you arrested then you are breaching your contract in any case so expect your fun to be short lived, what is reasonable is obvious - anything that would get you banned or observed by the police or leave the car parked in pieces.
They were very good on the excess front - only thing they deducted was my excess miles which I was fine with.
They do delivery.
Car was fine but don’t expect a showroom pristine example, they are rentals.
Overall experience was good but I didn’t enjoy it as much as my own car simply being aware that I was in the hook for someone else’s 14 0k asset - but I would do it again for a car I didn’t want to own, most;y I was just paranoid about other people damaging it and me getting the bill.
They do have a nice 570s spider on their fleet.
To answer your questions:
Black boxes are pretty much a given for supercar hire for insurance reasons, would you lend a stranger a 100k moveable asset without some ability to monitor if they were keeping to their contract?
They were very clear that ‘enjoying’ the car within reasonable tolerances is not going to ping them, but if you are driving like an utter tool or doing something that is likely to get you arrested then you are breaching your contract in any case so expect your fun to be short lived, what is reasonable is obvious - anything that would get you banned or observed by the police or leave the car parked in pieces.
They were very good on the excess front - only thing they deducted was my excess miles which I was fine with.
They do delivery.
Car was fine but don’t expect a showroom pristine example, they are rentals.
Overall experience was good but I didn’t enjoy it as much as my own car simply being aware that I was in the hook for someone else’s 14 0k asset - but I would do it again for a car I didn’t want to own, most;y I was just paranoid about other people damaging it and me getting the bill.
They do have a nice 570s spider on their fleet.
andrew said:
make sure every single piece of damage before you drive is noted on the signed hire form
atb
So you need to go over the car with a tooth comb and hope you haven’t missed anything. Then you’ll be worrying about picking up a stone chip, minor scrapes or exceeding the mile allowance.atb
Sucks the fun out of it for me.
bad company said:
andrew said:
make sure every single piece of damage before you drive is noted on the signed hire form
atb
So you need to go over the car with a tooth comb and hope you haven’t missed anything. Then you’ll be worrying about picking up a stone chip, minor scrapes or exceeding the mile allowance.atb
Sucks the fun out of it for me.
it's the previous renters' damage that's avoidable
Many thanks for the report, good to hear that there are fair places out there.
While I might personally think a straightforward tracker was adequate if they were my cars, I can understand that if you're doing this as a business, the benefits of being able to enforce limits on speed etc may outweigh the drawbacks in terms of reducing customer appeal, speaking purely commercially. It's also interesting that this isn't necessarily stated on the website.
Point taken, probably worth videoing and inspecting the car on collection to save issues later.
While I might personally think a straightforward tracker was adequate if they were my cars, I can understand that if you're doing this as a business, the benefits of being able to enforce limits on speed etc may outweigh the drawbacks in terms of reducing customer appeal, speaking purely commercially. It's also interesting that this isn't necessarily stated on the website.
Point taken, probably worth videoing and inspecting the car on collection to save issues later.
bad company said:
So you need to go over the car with a tooth comb and hope you haven’t missed anything. Then you’ll be worrying about picking up a stone chip, minor scrapes or exceeding the mile allowance.
Sucks the fun out of it for me.
My wife hired a GTS for us whilst we where in Monte Carlo as a surprise for my 30th, the car looked immaculate but clearly we missed a long almost key mark scratch in the middle of the front bumper. We got hit for a 500 eur bumper respray bill, luckily whilst the guy was taking me over the interior controls my wife randomly took a picture of the car. If you zoom right in you can see the mark, needless to say they quickly back tracked! As mentioned the anxiety over someone else damaging the car kind of weighs on you, abit of fun can cost a fair chunk very quickly! Sucks the fun out of it for me.
As mentioned go over everything and take your time.
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