Drivalia UK - EDINBURGH CENTRAL Reviews 

Firstly it took us over 40 minutes to find their office in the underground parking. Apparently they have moved their office location a week ago but did not bother changing the signs in the parking. By luck we have found a car parking worker who had told us that their office is now in level -4 and not by the payment machines as was stated in the confirmation email. Once in the office the agent had been alone with a huge line of customers. He had been very rude when I told him that we are running late for an important appointment and if there is someone else available to check us in. He told me that he does not like my attitude. We’ve waited for our turn. Although I’ve had a credit card the guy said he needed to run a credit check on me. He had asked for my national insurance number and had called someone on the phone. A few minutes later he told me that I did not pass the credit check and he will not release the car! I was overwhelmed as I have a good long credit history. I’ve had to take a taxi to my appointment which was super expensive. I have then ran a credit check through my bank which came out good. I have checked Drivalia terms and conditions and found out that if I have a credit card that is sufficient for them and the credit check is not needed. It seems like the guy at the desk had just refused to rent me a car without a reason. Outrageous!

My friend and I rented an electric car from Drivalia UK. They told us to download Zapmap to find charging locations. We had a difficult time finding charging locations. Many of the charging stations didn’t work because you needed a Scotland card. Drivalia should have told us this information. On our last night in Scotland, our charging cable didn’t work. We had to call someone to come fix it. When I complained about this to the management company, they couldn’t give us a refund and only offered a 10% discount on the next rental. Never use this company to rent cars from!

We had 2 punctured tires in Schotland at 11 pm at night. Called the emergency number, lady told us she could not help us. Since we were in the middle of nowhere we had to sleep in the car. 10 days later i get a bill of 75 pounds for the phone call.. Scammers!

Terrible. Avoid.

CT135202412140 Bookings number
Dreadful the computer kept breaking down. The plane landed at one nearly 2.45 I have not even seen the car.
The bus didn't come every half hour and an other service picked us up and dropped us off, after waiting over 40 minutes We walked the depot. The telephone system won't give any information about the Bus service..

DO NOT RENT WITH DRIVALIA!! We had a terrible experience from start to finish. First, we had to spend nearly two hours on the phone trying to pick up our car. Had we been provided a check-in email in advance, much time could have been saved. However, when we arrived to pick up the car, only then we were alerted to the check in process. We had to call to receive our booking number as the correct one had not been provided to us on our confirmation emails. We were not the only travelers in this same situation at our pick up location. Another group spent even longer due to the exceedingly long and unnecessary process.

After we picked up the car, the issues continued. Almost immediately the tire pressure sensors went off. We pulled over and called the tire issues hotline as listed on the windshield. After waiting on hold for over half an hour, no one answered. We instead went to a gas station and filled up the tires to the correct setting.

After traveling for another day, the tire sensors continued to go off and we continued to refill them. We tried calling the tire issues hotline yet again and still no answer, despite being on hold for an hour this time. We then called the breakdown line and they sent a mechanic out to replace the tire. We would have done so ourselves, but the spare had been removed from the vehicle prior to our pickup. When the mechanic arrived, we found that the specialized drill attachment to remove the tire had been taken from the trunk. After searching the vehicle we eventually located it in the center console. Drivalia was clearly aware of the poor tire conditions and knew at least one had been replaced prior to our pick up, hence the moved drill attachment. I have never experienced such EXTREME NEGLIGENCE as this - what car rental service allows drivers to take off in a vehicle in poor conditions with the safety measures removed from the car???

When the mechanic came to replace our tire he let us know that Drivalia instructed him to inform us that the tire would be completely up to us financially. When we picked up the vehicle we added full insurance coverage onto our rental, which the agent assured us included tires. We immediately submitted a claim and still have heard no response.

I cannot imagine anyone having a good experience with this company. From start to finish, Drivalia has been beyond frustrating to deal with. They really know how to ruin a vacation, our honeymoon nonetheless. Save your self the time, frustration, and money and GO ANYWHERE ELSE.

I regret choosing to rent a car from Drivalia. Despite the online account indicating that all paperwork had been reviewed and approved, the staff requested additional documents just one day before I was scheduled to collect the vehicle. The company also did not respond promptly to this matter, therefore this unprofessional handling resulted in delays on the pick-up day and forced me to cancel my plans for that morning. I would advise others to avoid this company.

Absolute nightmare from start to finish. We are very disappointed by the experience that we had. It took more than 2 hours to have the car keys. The employee there was alone and told us it was his first day. He kept having to call managers and there was 6 groups of people waiting for answers because they could not get their car keys either. Once we finally got the car, instead of letting us go, they tried to sell us insurances that literally cost more than the rental itself. Finally, once we got out of the parking lot, the flat tire indicator light came on. I stopped at a petrol station to check tire pressures. It was supposed to be at 32 PSI. We had one tire at 15, one at 22, one at 32 and one at 37. I had to inflate all of them at 32 and then waited for 30 min at the petrol station to make sure that it actually kept the air and that there was no flat tire. We lost more than half of our day because of the bad service that we got and the poor condition that the vehicle was handed to us. We had to cancel activities that we planned that day because there was not enough time left after all of this. Overall, we lost a complete day of vacation fooling around because of Drivalia. Our experience really fell short of what we expected, and it was the worst day of our trip.

This was one of the worst contactless experiences I have ever had. Located in Omni Centre Edinburgh where wifi is also non-existent we met 6 other car hire victims of Drivalia - one of which had spent nearly 2 hours to resolve their issue.

Limited and far from timely instructions which required download of multiple emails and connection to links which there were more than 3 required and impossible to activate in this wifi dead zone.

For some of these people trying to connect to a human was almost impossible due to language barriers.

Clearly a Drivalia contractor - an individual came along to the key collection point to grab keys - and ignored everybody in various states of distress.

Avoid this company like the plague - the saving in fees is not worth your time and stress level.

Go to one of the hire car providers with a desk in this area - who happily advise that their business is growing due to the abject failure of this contactless process.

Wayne was great, nice and quick process in and out.

Arriving at the underground car park location as required, I discovered that this location was 'unmanned' and required all the relevant documentation of licence, DVLA clearance, two address items, passport copies etc to have been pre-loaded to the Drivalia website. I moved to a restaurant with poor wifi and spent the next three hours trying to get copies of the required documentation sent to me from home so that I could upload them. Once this was done, I had my key box opened for me to collect the car. I know that one rents a vehicle or 'similar' but to go from a VW Polo, to a Vauxhall Corsa that appeared to have just completed the forest stage of the Welsh Rally championships was a touch disappointing. I took the car, and the immensely wet weather of the first 24 hours actually cleaned the car up a bit. I returned the vehicle as instructed and the following day, saw an attempted claim on my credit card for £225 for 'vehicle damage' Fortunately my credit card firm thought is was a 'doubtful' attempt and withheld payment. even though I have excess insurance cover separate to the 'Dick Turpin' premiums charged by most rental firms, I challenged the claim in that you couldn't see the car, let alone any damage due to the condition it was in when I collected it. Although I have sent numerous emails and spent hours on the telephone asking for clarification, no-one has responded so the matter is closed. There are a couple of important points from this. Firstly, having booked through Booking.com, I received no pre-notification of the admin I would need to complete prior to collection, due to it being an unmanned collection/drop-off, so can Drivalia please ensure that if you are are going to allow third party agencies to access your bookings, then make sure that the third party booking templates match your own business model. (I wasn't the only customer there that day who had the same problem with no notification of the process for this location). Lastly, if your centres in certain locations are unmanned, then the checking of the vehicle at pick-up and return is purely under the judgement presumably of a member of staff who makes a periodic visit to the location. I probably wont be the last customer to contest whether the vehicle was returned with the correct fuel and in an undamaged condition. Your cost saving for staff is passing a lot of extra work and responsibility on to the customer, i.e. in addition, I had to take note of the exact fuel level on collection of the vehicle (it was about 3/4 full) and ensure that I returned it with the same level. Your customers shouldn't have to be doing sums at fuel stations to figure out how much to spend to get it right. The real shame of this is that I also used Drivalia at Leeds Bradford Airport a couple of months before and it was great value, a great car, and highly professional and polite staff on collection and return. Having staff at the location makes a difference.

This is a SCAM!
An unauthorised amount of £55 admin fee left my bank account for a parking ticket which never existed. Got in touch with Fife council who were superb and looked into the issue for me. Turns out there was a missing digit due to human error and cancelled the parking ticket therefore did not charge me. I passed on all the information to drivalia however they still proceeded to take the money. Did not respond for a long time then proceeded to tell me that the letter headed from Fife council was not good enough.
Updated to Drivalia’s response-
I have already opened a dispute and was in direct contact with your colleague via email which was an absolute waste of time. If you had taken the time to read the review properly you can see that I’ve already been in contact. The online portal is nothing but a complete waste of time as the car was rented out in January.. therefore I am no longer able to ‘amend my booking’ like I said. Complete scam.

Stuart (might've misspelled that) was very helpful when I picked up the car from the Edinburgh location. Everything was seamless, simple, and straightforward pricing. They even shuttled from drop-off to the airport. Thank you!

Edinburgh City Drivalia! SASKIA made the whole experience of renting a van soo simple she was soo patient, soo helpful, understanding, & knowledgeable thank you to an amazing lady Drivalia this lady is a CREDIT to you company!! Thank you Saskia for everything not once but twice we were lucky enough to have you answer our calls 😊

This morning, I rented a car from Dravalia to travel to another city for a personal matter. While on the highway, I encountered a serious issue with the windshield washer fluid. The windshield became covered in a white film, severely impairing visibility, and I had to pull over to the emergency lane for safety reasons.

After managing to clean the windshield, I stopped at the nearest town and contacted Dravalia for assistance. Despite explaining the dangerous situation, the representative advised me to attempt fixing the issue at a petrol station, which was not feasible due to distance and time constraints.

Feeling stranded and at risk, I reluctantly drove back to my city at night, hoping to avoid another hazardous situation on the highway. Throughout this ordeal, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated and disappointed by the lack of proactive measures from Dravalia.

Furthermore, upon returning the car, I encountered another inconvenience as there were no available parking spots in the designated Dravalia area, despite being instructed to return the car there to avoid penalties. This forced me to document the situation and leave the car at the closest available spot, fearing additional penalties.

As a frequent customer who has rented from Dravalia multiple times in the past month, I am deeply concerned about the lack of attention to safety and customer service. While I understand that budget rentals may come with limitations, compromising customer safety is unacceptable.

I urge Dravalia to take immediate action to address these issues and ensure the safety and satisfaction of its customers. Otherwise, I will be forced to reconsider renting from Dravalia in the future. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Very helpful. Went above and beyond to help me out including Sandra.
Many thanks

I was traveling to Scotland with my partner for a long weekend and we rented a car from Drivalia. We had an awesome experience… Stuart and Don were beyond helpful and gave great recommendations to us (we were traveling from the US). Also, they were both pretty funny so we both appreciated the laughs. If we’re back in this area in the future, we’d def use this company.

Don was professional clear and helpful. Shuttle from airport to drivalia went well.