CO-PLAT

Is there any car class I can reserve where I'll be guaranteed a built-in sat nav?

at4behe1

Good question. I'm pretty sure that when I booked my car at the end of April the description of each car category also showed if the cars in that class do have GPS. Now this doesn't show any more. If you start the booking process and look at the details of the car classes GPS is only mentioned for the British Collection cars.
From my own experience I can only say that a car usually has a built-in GPS when you book Premium or above.

CO-PLAT

Booked Premium and got MBZ C220d convertible with built-in sat nav.

herzmeh

L3/SGAR was cheapest for dates that I need... what to expect?

Bjam99

I had a pretty dire experience renting from LHR over the Christmas vacation. I was assigned a Peugeot 3008 on a (D) Skoda Octavia or Similar booking. The car in the spot was very dirty and had just under 17,000 miles on it (I thought they got rid of them at 15k?) so I went back inside to politely ask if I could take something from Gold Choice instead. I was given a variety of different excuses about why I couldn’t do that…

1. Gold Choice isn't set up LHR yet.
2. Gold Choice isn't actually a choice, it's just a benefit to add a second driver
3. I can't take a car that's an automatic.
4. I can't take a car that's got built in sat nav
5. I can't take a different class to the car I'd booked.

After attempting to clarify all the above, I gave up and just asked to have a car that had been cleaned and was ideally a bit newer. They gave me a brand spanking new Kia Sportage and kept going on and on about how amazing an 'upgrade' this was. I don't consider a base model Kia Sportage an upgrade but whatever.

Unfortunately, the brand new Kia developed both a mechanical fault AND a puncture. Hertz CS were completely and utterly helpless and kept trying to put me through to LHR who in 6 calls over 20 mins each, simply never answered the phone. I had no way of returning the car as I was on a spacesaver wheel, over 400 miles away from LHR. I ended up just paying to have the tire patched myself. No biggy, but just a startling lack of service. I'll never rent from this location again.

rcspeirs

At Heathrow, There is a gulf between hertz marketing department and hertz operational staff. Gold choice used to be offered at Heathrow but it rarely worked, and now I think they've given up any pretence. The signage for what we the gold choice bays has been blanked out. Upgrades for Gold are supposed to happen but often don't.
That said. A couple of points on expectation management.
Picking an Automatic? If you've paid for a group that is manual you can't expect to get an automatic. Automatic cars cost substantially more to reserve.
The puncture. What a nuisance. But you were always going to pay. Unless you took every additional optional insurance, you are responsible for the cost of tyre damage / repair. Getting the tyre fixed yourself will have been far cheaper than having Hertz arrange it. (Cost comparison, I had tyre damage on my most recent Avis rental - they charged £171 for a tyre for a Ford Focus - luckily my Amex coverage reimbursed me quickly)

Dave Noble

The Peugeot 3008 is higher category of vehicle than you booked. Group D to a group N is an upgrade

If you want an automatic vehicle , then you need to book an automatic - Hertz offers an automatic version of the Skoda at a higher price. The Kia Sportage I am fairly sure is a higher category than the Group D vehicle

Getting a puncture culd have happened in any car

Bjam99

I'm not going to get into the upgrade issue, I wasn't pushing for anything, I didn't want an SUV or an automatic (I greatly prefer manual's when i'm home in the UK) - I would have gladly taken whatever was offered providing it was clean and within the category I had booked. The car I was assigned was neither.

Of course a puncture could have happened in any car and I dealt with it in the same way I would with any car. I put the space saver wheel on until I could get it to a repair shop. I don't have an issue with that or really the mechanical fault. This happens. Especially on brand new cars that have been sitting on the lot for a long time as the Kia had.

The point is, Hertz offered no assistance. The breakdown number they provide, goes to the AA. The AA re-directed me to Kia Support. Kia Support re-directed me to the RAC. The RAC redirected me to a local breakdown service who was able to re-set the error codes but advised me to take it to a local Kia garage or better yet, back to Hertz to swap it out. Had I been much closer to a Hertz location, I would have gladly done so.

Hertz Breakdown couldn't offer any other solutions as they said they were only authorized to offer breakdown assistance. Obviously. They said I had to speak to Hertz LHR to advise. Many hours of calls with Hertz Customer Service - the lovely folk in the Dublin office resulted in nothing. LHR just never answered the phone and the CS Agent told me that LHR is notoriously terrible at picking up the phone. It's just the lack of support that I find really disturbing and contrasts enormously with my experience of Hertz in the US.

colmc

Booked C
Received K

Peugeot 3008, 1.5 diesel. Allure trim, so navigation and parking sensors/cam included. Nice enough upgrade - but I didn't like the gear shifter and Hertz removed the manual so I had to figure out how to switch it into reverse, which was annoying. Good on the open road but a bit of a growler at low speed as with most diesels. 17k on the clock.

MattBTU

Has anyone rented at LHR or in the UK in the last couple of weeks? I typically refuel myself but I figure I will prepay the fuel on my upcoming rental to avoid the long lines at the petrol stations. Is Hertz providing full fuel tanks at the time of rental or are they sending cars out at 3/4 or less?

MattBTU

PC Member and booked using Amex Platinum CDP

Booked: Manual Medium Hatch (C)
Received: Seat Arona FR TSI (C)

I don’t believe this is an upgrade unless Hertz classifies the Arona as a Manual Compact SUV. Car is fine though and has 5000 miles on the odometer.

One thing to note: Everyone, regardless of status, has to go into the office to receive the contract. I tried to exit without a paper contract because I had already received a carfirmation and emailed inspection report from hertz. Not a big deal though and was easy to drive back to office and have them hand me the papers.

Also, car was received full and the prepay fuel option was £48. About £1.21 per liter which is lower than many petrol stations. I haven’t seen any long lines at stations so it seems supply chain issues have improved over the last week or so.

Skyline

Looking to reserve at LHR this August; seems a very limited choice of vehicles - intermediate SUV (K), 2 door Corsa (B) and an Astra (C) and that’s it! Am I missing something, or is the inventory non-existant?

rtom

We've booked a manual transmission economy car ("Vauxhall Corsa or similar") from Hertz at LHR for 14 days (late June - mid-July).

(Obviously we are not car buffs -- we drive small cheap cars in the US.)

I imagine there's not a huge chance for GPS/nav on whatever we get, right?

I am happy with doing nav on my phone, but the dear wife prefers built-in nav and she will be driving!

highlanderfil

Good chance your car will have CarPlay/Android Auto. So if you have a British SIM card, you should be good.

rtom

Ah yes, any car that can do Android Auto would definitely be good enough.

Most people posting in this thread don't comment on the economy cars at LHR -- I wonder what models other than the Corsa are used lately? Our trip is coming up in about a month. Perhaps all of the late model economy cars have a touchscreen display.