BA Hire Car

[GreenMachine]

Kind of a BA story, kind of a hire car abuse story.

Just returned the sorriest BA XT hire car on the face of the earth. 23,000k's on the clock, interior is absolutely trashed, didn't steer straight, knocking from the front suspension etc.

All that wasn't the biggest problem though. After I picked it up on Monday, I noticed it was running fairly hot (2/3rds up the guage). Figured this was a BA thing, although every newish Ford I've driven up to now had normal operating temp waaay down on the guage.

After a little while in traffic, this crept up slightly. Was momentarily concerned, but hey - it's a hire car and I had work to do. Did a few hundred k's a day on Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday, on the way to work, it started running like a bag of excrement, and the temp was now up to 3/4's and rising. I assume the missing and lack of power was the engine shutting down cylinders due to the overheat failsafe mode these things have. There was plenty of water in the coolant tank.

So I got on the mobile to the rental company.

"This car I've got sucks, can I have another one?"

"Sure, drop it back to our depot, fill out a breakdown form and we'll have another car for you in 24 hours."

"Oh, look, it's miraculously got better!" and hung up.

So I guess it's a testament to the toughness of the new I6 that it lasted several hundred more k's in that state.

The question is: a) Have I committed a crime against a Ford, or are hire cars exempt from any form of care and b) has anyone else experienced this in a BA?

Apart from all the faults, it was a perfectly fine car to drive. Decent power (when it was running on 6 cylinders) and good on the highway, but the interior felt a little cheap to me.