Solmar Car Hire

Going on vacation to the Tips, through Barcelona. In connection with the late arrival we decided to rent a car, after studying the proposal chose SOLMAR. I wrote a letter with a question is it possible to rent a car from them at 0.30 28/07 for 4 days. A positive answer was received in the mail and we booked on the website, receiving a confirmation email. This was followed by a small correspondence with further details. On the day of departure I decided to clarify where exactly we should meet with representatives of the company to obtain a car and received an email in which he refused. Because time to search for new variants was not had to solve the problem directly at the airport of Barcelona. It is not recommended to connect with SOLMAR! They only promise, but their promises do not! If there would be an opportunity to put a rating below 1, I would put a -100!

Firstly, I can confirm that Solmar were the cheapest available hire centre for a 7 seater vehicle for my recent trip. I can also confirm that I didn't follow my own rules of never buy the cheapest!!

I was collected relatively efficiently from Murcia San Javier airport and taken to Solmar San Javier. The collection process was good in fairness to the point when it was being made clear that they expect you to take out the additional insurance.

As I have a policy covering driving abroad already, I declined.

We had a quick walk around the car and the representative marked on a check out document, any major marks on the car, making notes in Spanish. I naively believed that any of the very small, almost invisible marks were expected an therfore not recorded.

How very wrong I was on taking the car back!!

During the "check in" a representative found a very minor mark on the underside of the rear bumper behind the wheel. The mark was so small, just a small amount of dirt would have hidden it......

I am absolutely adament that the mark was there on collection, however, it cost me over €180 before I could get a shuttle to the airport.

Very unhappy with this shark practice and would advise you not to use this company (many others advise the same!)I should have checked reviews first.

Staff are clearly driven to take as much money as possible from clients, whether it be through additional insurance or claiming damage on return.

BEWARE, unless you agree to the additional insurance, you are likely to be fleeced on return. I will go back to using GoldCar where I had no issues after many hire periods. Lesson Learned!

We booked the car at the Solmar website (in Girona), with Supercover!

Great service / no problems / good price and a new car.

Dreadful-on leaving the airport we saw their mini bus reversing out to leave,had to run to catch them up! At their office were charged 40 euros as "out of hours" ???? Another customer was frantically phoning friends for help as they would not release the car he had paid for for his family without being paid an extra 280 euros-why? Because his early morning flight home was "out of hours"-when he offered to bring the car back "in hours" a day early they refused-he was still there with his children when we left! Halfway through our holiday we were forced to return to their depot and swap the car-because if we exceeded 2000 kilometres in one car we would be charged 1 euro for every extra mile!.On returning the car only one mini bus was available for travel to the airport,with only 8 seats-they were very busy and people were queuing waiting for the bus-but in spite of staff being at the office and another bus sitting idle they could not provide an extra driver-or even check the cars being returned-apparently that had to be done by the one driver-result?we waited almost an hour to be ferried to the airport and almost missed our flight! Whilst we sat in the bus desperate for him to finish checking the cars another member of their staff reversed a hire car into the bus as we sat there!! The customer service is non existent-there is absolutely no desire to help at any time-just a complete arrogance and a "not our problem" attitude-AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS!

On arrival at Valencia airport after waiting around 30 minutes for a minibus, the SOLMAR service desk person tried to bully us into taking the expensive SOL MAR rent a car "super cover" insurance. We already have annual excess buy-out insurance and we felt intimidated at being told that we were totally responsible for any damage and would need to leave considerable extra time to drop off the vehicle. By the time we were pointed to our hire car, it had got dark and it was parked in a poorly lit depot. We inspected the car as best we could and could see no damage. However, the next day when it was light, I noted some minor marks and small dents, too late to report as we had driven the car and frankly, so small that I really did not think them significant.

When we returned our car and joined the long queue at the service desk (witnessing a couple making a strong complaint about marks not being registered on their documentation) the first thing that happened when we were served eventually is that the person looked at our invoice and said out loud “OH”, as she noted that we hadn’t taken the SOLMAR insurance. She then inspected the car with a fine toothbrush, pointing first to dead fly marks (that I rubbed off with my finger) and seeking out any slight mark which they could charge us for - until eventually, she found one...of many I had seen.

They then insisted we pay nearly 250 Euro for insignificant damage that we maintain was on the car when it was rented. With their word against ours, they kept us waiting until we were getting very anxious about missing our flight home. We had no choice but to pay.

This is the second time we have used Solmar car hire. On that occasion, we gave in to the sales pressure and took their insurance, even though we had excess buy out insurance. This time, we had no absolutely no problems what so ever with the vehicle return, which does prove the point as many other reviewers have written.

Hence, I strongly recommend that you avoid SOL MAR unless you are prepared to buy their insurance and factor this onto your hire charge.

When using this company (in Alicante airport)you will learn to walk in the opposite direction.

When we arrived at their offices we had to wait 55 minutes outside in 30 degree heat, whilst their employees sat in air conditioning working at snail pace!

We had opted for pre-buying our own excess insurance in the UK rather than the exorbitant "Super Insurance" Solmar sell. When the subject was raised the guy realised I wasn't going to be sold in any way their insurance and so didn't pursue the subject. It's clear to me, the "Super Insurance" is a big profit area for them and probably they are massively incentivised to sell it.

My big complaint about this company is the price they charged for fuel. The only option was collect full, take back empty.

I was charged 125 euros for this. I've checked the tank capacity of the car and it only holds 50 euros worth - 75 euro charge (plus the remainder fuel left in tank when returned)for a monkey to previously fill the car up!

I booked this car through Autoeurope and before booking I asked them why they dealt with a company with such bad reviews. Their response was along the lines that only bad reviews get reported. Well Autoeurope here's another one!

Come to

rented in may for just over 2 weeks, waited ages at alicante airport for pick up, arranged hire through Economy car who are now called ZEST filled in the forms and was offered extra insurance refused that as i had taken extra cover in uk thats were the attitude changed lectured about what it would cost if any damage was done loaded my credit card, he brought the vehicle round at which time it was going dark looked underneath with a mirror on a stick told me fuel tank is full and must be full on return it wasnt and i returned after driving 2 hundred mtrs he said the gauge does not show full but it is, drove to cala finestrat and parked inside a gated apartment grounds,in the morning i inspected the car which was quite new i found a small chip on the passenger side mirror i took pictures all round the car including the chip, by this time i didnt want to drive the car so used it only ocasionally, when the holiday was ending i washed the car took more pictures and just before the airport filled the car which showed full on the gauge which he said never showed full, on arrival a women came marching out of the office and straight away went to the chip on the door mirror demanded the keys and told me i would be charged for the chip, i said i collected the car in the dark but took pictures the following morning inside the gated car park and the chip was there already, i followed her in to the office were she said i will let it go this time but next time take the insurance, in the past i have only ever had a similar problem 1 time so i think something changed in 2016 but i blame also the agents like Economy car who encourage customers to take extra cover in uk but dont mention the trouble customers get from the hire people and how they try to stitch you up by finding damage that was already on the vehicle

Solmar car rental at Alicante airport is off site so you need a shuttle bus to get there which we had to wait about 20 minutes for. When we arrived, the office is a portacabin in a garage and there is no air conditioning. We joined the queue and waited about and hour and a half to see someone (with our 3 small children). She was very abrupt and we soon realised that she had been highly trained in the art of "scare tactics" and "bullying" to buy their "Super Insurance." She said things like "if you have a crash, you are on your own…you will get no assistance from us and you have to arrange the tow truck and sort out the insurance companies." I had already purchased a policy from the UK to cover me for any damage or accidents but she looked at my policy and said "well, they are based in the UK….they probably won't be much help here in Spain!" I informed her we had an early departing flight on our return and she said that we would have to get there at 08:00 when they opened and queue up as all the people with "super insurance" get seen first and we would just have to wait.

Once I got the keys, she took me to the vehicle and gave me a mirror to see underneath the vehicle to look for damage. I have NEVER been given one of these mirrors and I now know that they already knew there was damage underneath the car but had not "pre-marked" it on the check in sheet. Luckily I found it myself but I have no doubt that I would have been charged for that on my return if I hadn't.

Once we returned at the end of our holiday, we got there just after 8am as one of my children was sick and we wanted a smooth, quick return so she wasn't hanging around in the sweltering office. Unfortunately, there was a few people in front of us and they were taking all the people with "super insurance" so just as we thought we had reached the front of the queue, someone else would join. I told a member of staff that I had a sick child and wanted to get her out of the heat but she was not interested. Luckily, a lovely man who had the super insurance said we could go in front of him but when we got to the desk, the staff member said that wasn't allowed and went outside shouting for anyone else to come to the front instead of us. I was absolutely incredulous at this inhumane behaviour….she knew my daughter was ill and there were no more people to see. Eventually, she came back to us and we got seen. Some of their tactics I saw going on were that they had told people to take the car back empty but when they arrived back, they were told they had to fill the car up or pay a penalty of 150 euros. Another man got charged 120 euros for a scratch that they said was new but was already on the car when he picked it up. People were just paying them because they had been waiting so long and had families waiting around in the heat. We then had to wait another 20 minutes for the shuttle bus to take us back to the airport. The result? We only just made our flight with minutes to spare. It was the most stressful journey ever…..thanks to Solmar. I will never use them again and don't say I didn't warn you if you get fooled by their lower price….it just is NOT worth it.

This is the third time I have booked with Solmar. Both the other two times were fine but after this time - never again now I know the trick.

We went to the car with the lady and was asked to look for damages. She did not point out any. It was all down to us. The car was dirty and had been bashed before with lots of scratches. The alarm bells should have started ringing then.

With some other car firms damage is already pointed out and you are asked to check for any further damage.

We left the depot and drove to our apartment. When we got out of the car my husband noticed one of the hub caps was dented. At the depot the car had been parked in a way that it wasn't noticeable. We had the feeling then we would get charged.

When we returned someone else had just been charged 550 euros for the tiniest scratch that wasn't very visible and definitely would be missed if collected when dark or in certain light.

The lady checked our car slowly and when she came to the hub cap it was like an oscar performance that had been done many times before.

This then cost us 145 euros for one hub cap. After getting home I looked on Ebay and guess what you can buy 4 new hubcaps for £19.99!

The trick is that that car will never get a new hubcap and they will hope to get the next person with the same damage.

We will never use this company again along with Dickmanns who are also bad.

having just returned from Spain I thought I would rate solmar car hire at Murcia airport....Very efficient from pick up to drop off....van awaiting to transfer us to pick up point, no hard sales....got suitable car for our needs....on return car checked over signed off and van awaiting to return us to airport....job done, would defo use solmar agagin