Having decided to visit Edinburgh for the New Year I checked the prices of the train from Sheffield to Edinburgh, to say they were extortionate would be an understatement. I came to the conclusion that it would be cheaper to hire a car.
Not having hired a car before I googled “cheap car hire Sheffield” and came across a few car hire companies. I checked the first few and got some comparison prices from the likes of Enterprise, Sixt, Hertz, and Avis. They were all reasonably priced but Sixt came out best and had the added benefit of being ideally located to where I lived, just a few minutes walk down the road.
I originally was looking to hire the car for four days but after playing around with the dates I realised I could hire the car for nine days for only an extra £20, a real bargain and especially useful around the Christmas and New Year period. I’d recommend having a look at the different dates and durations when booking, as its not apparent from the websites what the different costs are.
Having never hired a car before and not having a credit card, I had some questions about the booking process. I spoke to the Sixt call centre a number of times and each time the staff I spoke to were helpful and answered my questions well. They also answered the phone quickly which was helpful especially as they use an expensive 0844 number.
Using the website to make the booking was easy and quick, it was well designed and simple to use and made the whole booking process painless. I opted for the Vauxhall Crossland or similar on the website. I was especially impressed with the courtesy call the following day to confirm the details of the booking and what paperwork I’d need to bring on the day.
On the day of the collection I arrived at the Sixt office at the time I’d specified and was greeted by a cheery (way too cheery for that time in the morning if you ask me!) member of staff. The office was very bright, and I found the colour scheme to be very garish, but it may have been my morning grumpiness. Not that it really mattered as I was only in there for approximately 10 minutes while the member of staff processed all my paperwork and payment.
After everything was complete I was handed a set of keys and told the car was on the fifth floor. It took me a moment to realise he meant in the multi-storey carpark next door. I headed out to find the car, I felt the excellent service had slipped a little here, and feel that someone should have taken me out to the car as I felt a little lost when I was trying to find it.
Once I’d managed to find the car I inspected it and checked out all the marks that had been pointed out to me and took photos of the bodywork as I’d been advised after reading online.
The inside of the car was well valeted but the outside was quite dirty, but this could be forgiven given that it was January and the weather was the typical British winter kind.
While I had the car it ran well and I did over 1,200 miles in it without any problems or issues.
I’d booked the Monday morning off work as a holiday to return the car but took advantage of the out of hours return facility at the site, and was able to drop the car back on the Sunday evening. This was a simple process, just park the car in the allocated parking space and drop the keys in the safe provided, allowing me to save the holiday hours.
I’m already looking for places to visit later in the year so will be a returning and frequent customer.
Sixt can be contacted on 0844 499 3399 or via https://www.sixt.co.uk. Sixt is situated at 7 Broad Street W, Sheffield, S1 2BQ.