Other Car Rental Programs/Partners (ie. Alamo, Enterprise, Sixt) - Not so nice cars when oneway renting from EUROPCAR?

Hello folks: I just want to get your view on something I have experienced repeatetly with EUROPCAR (and I can only guess it is similar at SIXT): When I log in a oneway rental it appears that I get the crapiest car on the lot in the class I booked. Just today I get this banged up Italian based car just because the station I will turn the car in (MUC Airport) is further south and nearer to Italy than my home station. They gave me a huge discount, but still I run the risk to go through some major hassle with the station in MUC.

I just think if they know the car leaves their station they are trying to give you a 'bad' car (nothing major, but things that they just don't want to fix or cars that are so 'unloaded' as can be).

I know one option to avoid this is to pretend in the booking that I will return the car at the same station, knowing I won't. I wouldn't do that at my home station though.

What is your experience/ take on this?

IME with every car rental company, there's the same rule: the smaller the station the greater the chance for a not so nice car for oneway rentals, escpecially if it is a franchise station.
Unfortunately my only solution is to pretend that you bring the car back, but this wouldn't work if you rent often at a small station (what I don't do). I assume your home station is small?

Some companies have a "mis-location" charge if you bring the car to a different location than previously announced (AVIS 25 eur), but you can avoid this by calling during the rental and announcing the change.

Thanks, jarino.

You are right - my 'home station' is a midsize German town and I know the staff there for about ten years. I wouldn't do that to them and they probably would always give me the car I wanted if I asked. I tend to bring them great cars from the 'big cities' that they love in return ;-)

I guess I will need to be slidly indecicive at other locations going forward and then make up my mind as I go where I want to return the car. Way to go unfortunately. Thanks for the info on AVIS, who isn't 'trying harder' in this case I see.

I didn't experienced such things so far and I have 50+ rentals a year (most times I rent with Hertz and Sixt, I tried Europcar but stopped business with them because of other reasons). I got great cars (quite often I was upgraded as well) for oneway rentals form Sixt and Hertz at several stations (in small towns and at major airports) and I had cars which were nothing to write home about for return rentals.

Your example with the italien car makes absolutely sense to me. As you pointed out Europcar saves some transferfees and it is much likely that they find another renter at MUC who drives the car back to Italy. So it was the best they could do. But I can understand your anger in this case.

Hope you'll have some better o/w rentals in the future.

Cheers
totti