Picked up a rental car yesterday at MAN airport. They gave a Mercedes E-something - medium sized hatchback with automatic transmission.. It is a nightmare and a half. ~ 20 minutes after leaving the airport, it stalled at a stop sign - yes, folks, an automatic transmission car stalled. The engine goes completely off, but when you take your foot off the brake, it restarts and you can move forward again v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.

I thought that was just a fluke, and as we then got on the motorway it wasn't an issue for about 30 minutes. After exiting the motorway, it happened again and became progressively worse to the point where it was shutting down the engine when I slowed down, making roundabouts or pulling into the stream of traffic dangerous because I couldn't count on the accelerating.

Because of a sim card issue, I don't have a working mobile (picking up one later today). In the meantime I've contacted Hertz Gold via chat - that was US based and completely useless. I've emailed Hertz UK - no answer yet. Taking the car back to the MAN location isn't an option - first, I don't think the d@mn thing is safe to drive, and second, we are 120 miles away and swapping the car at MAN would waste a complete day of our vacation if the car was even safe to drive (of course, if it was safe to drive, we wouldn't be swapping it).

Suggestions on how to reach a live person at Hertz UK who can resolve this problem without wasting a whole day of vacation? Phone, email or...?