When I arrived to pick up my reserved SUV, it turned out it wasn’t available. Instead, I was offered an electric Opel Mokka (automatic) or a small manual Hyundai. Neither of these were the car I had booked. Despite insisting, no proper solution was provided.
I specifically asked about the range of the Opel Mokka and was told it was 300 km. I also asked whether charging would be an issue, since no charging card was supplied with the car. I was assured that this would not be a problem and that I could “just pay by credit card” at most charging stations. Based on this information – and assuming I would not drive more than 300 km – I accepted the car. I also mentioned that if charging did not work, I would call and they would have to pick us up (without actually expecting that to be necessary).
Once on the road, I noticed the car had not even been fully charged at pickup. The displayed range was only 174 km. We decided to make the best of it and continued our trip to Marbella. In the mountains, however, the range dropped much faster than expected.
On the day of our return, everything went wrong. We ended up wasting our last half day of holiday trying to charge the car:
Two petrol stations without any charging facilities.
At Lidl, all charging spots were occupied and charging was only possible with a specific charge card.
At McDonald’s, the charging spots were free, but it was not possible to pay by credit card.
The suggested app did not work properly, was entirely in Spanish, and did not accept our details.
Several other charging points we tried were also unusable.
In short: the information provided by Goldcar about “easy charging” and a 300 km range was simply false.
We finally called Goldcar and told them they should pick up the car where we had stopped for lunch. We were told they could not arrange a taxi until the car had been towed. When the tow truck arrived, we even helped, assuming a taxi would follow shortly. Again, no. We were then informed the taxi would arrive an hour later, meaning we would likely miss our flight. The advice from Goldcar: arrange your own taxi and claim the costs at the airport desk.
Because of all the delays and poor handling, we arrived at the airport just in time — only a few minutes before check-in closed — and barely made our flight. There was no real service, no sense of responsibility, no compensation. Just being left to sort everything out ourselves.
Goldcar managed to turn what should have been a relaxing trip into a stressful experience dominated by problems with the rental car. For us: never again.
