I hired a Fiat Punto from Motor Time in Koutouloufari and regretted it! It was an EXPENSIVE mistake! If you hire from them and the car breaks down, you may end up paying for mechanical repairs to a poorly maintained car!!

They supplied a car that was about 3-4 years old and looked OK on the surface and got us around for a while. To my mind, it had some abuse along the way as on the passenger side the door sill had a big dent in it, presumably where someone had kerbed it on one of the high kerbs that are around the island.

When I hired the car I was told that everything was included, full insurance, collision damage waiver, breakdown service, etc, etc. On driving the car it made a sort of moaning noise each time you pulled away in first gear, but I simply put that down to a dodgy clutch release bearing and didn't really think any more of it. Big mistake! The other things that I noticed about the car were that the handbrake was poor. I don't believe for a moment that it would have passed a UK MOT test and it had to be pulled up very high to hold the car on even a slight slope. Also, the tax disc for 06 was not on the windscreen, only one for 05 although I didn't notice that until the lady from the house developers pointed it out!

We were doing a lot of travelling around the island looking for a house to buy, so we travelled quite a few miles in this little car, mostly along the national highway to and from main towns and on good roads. We eventually decided on somewhere to buy in a village in the centre of the island just south of Spili. The village is on a hillside, has tarmac roads to it, but where the house will be built is an unmade road. The first visit there went well and we went with the developers in their car, a Fiat Panda. However on the second visit, I drove there. All was OK until I took a wrong turning out of the village and ended up on a steep unmade road. I realised my mistake and turned around to go back up the hill. Within a very few minutes of going back up the hill, the car stopped pulling and rolled back, it would not move. Trying to get any forward movement was impossible and there was a stench of the clutch burning.

Because the handbrake was so poor I had to roll the car backwards sideways with rocks chocking the wheels as leaving it in gear was doing no good since no gear could be engaged and it would have rolled down the hill as soon as I took my foot off the brake. I called Motor Time and spoke with the owner. He asked exactly where we were and I told him. I also advised him that it would probably need a 4x4 or a tractor to pull us up the hill as trying to tow the car on a steep slope with an ordinary car would not be easy.

2 hours later, they arrived, the owner of Motor Time and his assistant. By this time I had established that the towing eye was missing as one of the villagers had offered to help get the car to a level part of the village so that it could be looked at properly. The owner attached a tow rope around something under the car and towed it up to the village, back onto tarmac roads. He then asked if it was downhill all the way to the main road and I replied "yes". He then detached the tow rope from the 4x4 and passed it in the driver's window to his assistant who was driving the car, telling him to start the engine and use the brakes to go down the hill. We set off and went around the first very tight corner and almost immediately we stopped and he said that his assistant must have gone the wrong way as he was not behind. He was shouting and obviously annoyed. We reversed back up to find that his assistant had gone off the road into the yard of a house and had the car perched on 2 wheels plus the underside supporting it, hanging off a sheer drop and with several of the villagers looking on in utter amazement! The owner started shouting and asked his assistant what had happened. He said that he had lost all brakes and had to steer off the road to stop. The owner clearly did not believe him! I confirmed that there was no way that the handbrake would have slowed the car on the steep road. This seemed to fall on deaf ears as the owner got in the car and showed that the brakes were working after we pushed it back onto a flat surface. We left the car there and went down to the main road to collect my fiance, who had been taken by the house developers to a taverna. After a quick (soft) drink, except for the assistant who needed a double whisky to calm his nerves, we set off with all 4 of us in the 4x4 back to Koutouloufari with the owner driving! The journey was to say the least, hair raising! We travelled along the national highway, which has a speed limit of 90kph, and much less in places, at speeds of up to 140kph. My fiance was in the front seat as she is disabled and could not easily get into the back of a 4x4 pickup truck. At one point she said to him that she had her eyes closed because she didn't want to see if she was going to die - and she meant it! We overtook almost everything on the road, even on blind bends, etc.

The following morning, I went to Motor Time to see the owner, to be told that I owed him 350 euros for the repairs to the car as it was not covered by insurance. His view was that my driving had caused the clutch to burn out. I disagreed and I pointed out that I had been driving for over 32 years and had never yet had a clutch fail, even on a car that I had sold with over 180,000 miles on the clock and still the original clutch. I told him that I would not pay, but he threatened to call the police. On the basis that the police may take the side of a local in this kind of situation this was not a path that I wanted to go down as I had to leave for home later the same day. I challenged him about the car's lack of tax disc, but he pulled a load of them out of a drawer and showed me the one for the car and said that had nothing to do with the safety of the car. The only option was to negotiate, and eventually I agreed to pay 250 euros providing that he gave me a replacement car for the rest of the day as I had paid for a car up until that evening. He was reluctant, but agreed. He took me to the cash machine on the back of a moped - no crash helmet of course. I handed over the 250 euros at which point he gave me 20 back and said that was in lieu of the car for the day. Clearly he was not a man of his word as he had previously agreed that he would provide a replacement car!

The owner kept saying that it was because I had driven on an unmade road and that I should have hired a 4x4 if I wanted to drive there. I firmly believe that there is no way that you can totally burn out a clutch in a car within a few minutes driving up a slope regardless of whether it is a tarmac road or not, unless the clutch is already in a poor condition. In short, I paid 250 euros towards the repair of a car that must have had a clutch that was well worn and ready to fail when I hired it!

Caveat emptor!!!! I suggest that you DO NOT hire a car or any other type of vehicle from Motor Time unless you write across the rental form something like "Any mechanical failure of the vehicle whatsoever is the responsibility of the rental firm and not the hirer" and get them to sign their acceptance.

This is my side of the story and I have learnt an expensive lesson. No doubt Motor Time's owner will colour the story differently, telling it in his favour, and of course he has the right to reply. He kept telling me that I didn't know how to drive a manual car any more because my current car happens to be an automatic. However, since passing my test over 32 years ago, I have driven well over 1 million miles (or 1.6 million kilometres) and around 98% of that has been in manual cars! So, I guess I just forgot how to do it then - I don't think so!