Auto-Shay, the most dangerous cars for rent (אוטו שי)

I decided to open this blog, because I don’t want anybody to take the risk of renting a car with Auto-Shay (אוטו שי) in Israel.

Let’s start saying that I was looking for a good deal for car rental in Israel, and the cheapest place I found was Auto-Shay, charging me around 30% less than the competitors.

I had a lot of people visiting me in Israel and I had to take a total of three cars along a month, the total expenses were going to be high so I decided to take the risk, but it almost cost me my life, and my family’s.

I have to highlight that the attention by phone was quite good, Elad from Auto-Shay helped me arrange the reservations accurately and promised me VIP service, he was kind and diligent with all the changes I had to make during the period previous to the date I was going to take the first car.

The First Car in Auto-Shay:

The day came and I went to pick what they call a family car, it was a Chevrolet Cruzer.  The first thing I noticed in the evening that day was that the car left light was not working.  I was afraid that I could get me a fine, not to take into account the risk of making an accident being confused for a motorbike.

I went to Auto-Shay and they “took care” of the problem, but the same night the light failed again.

This wasn’t the only issue, the car key was broken and the toothy side was all the time falling, when I asked them to change it they said that was the only key and that I had to be careful not to lose it because then I would be stuck in the road with nothing to do.  It seemed to me unbelievable that I had to take the risk of being stuck in the road just because the key was broken and they were not up to change it.

The Second Car

30 minutes after I picked up the second car in Auto-Shay (a Mitsubishi car for seven people), I called them to report I was hearing a very strong noise from the back of the car and I wanted them to tell me what to do.  They said it was nothing, they told me they just fixed the brakes and it didn’t represent any danger.  I continued using the car for a few more days until the noise became unbearable and we couldn’t even talk inside the car because we were not hearing each other.

I called them very upset because the rental of this car was the most expensive one and I wanted them to change it immediately.  They refused and said they had no cars available.  If I wanted to solve the problem, I had to take the car to Auto-Shay office in Rishon Letzyon, 40 minutes drive from where I was.

The person in the other side of the line was very rude and didn’t offer any solution to the problem. When I told him I was going to return the cars the next day if they were not going to take responsibility on the car failure he said he was in the car rental business for a long time, and that I was not going to be the one who teaches him how to handle the problem.
His answer was just unbelievable, so I just called Elad from Rishon Letzyion and he “solved” the problem partially sending someone to pick the car in the evening and leaving us a smaller car in change.  The next day we were planning a long trip to the Dead Sea and we had to leave early in the morning, but the car didn’t arrive until 10 am making us change all our plans.  But that wasn’t the worst part, the person that returned the car told me that the problem with the car was that the rear brakes were broken.  I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  They just let us travel with all my family on a car with the rear brakes broken.

I didn’t know what to do, because I didn’t have the time to look for another car rental in this season (it was in the high season of Sukkot), my family was leaving soon and we had to take advantage of the time to take them to all the relevant places in Israel.  I must admit I acted irresponsibly when I decided to continue using Auto-Shay service.

Two days after getting the car back from the garage, while going out from a parking place, the spare tire just fell with no notice and while travelling.  This was already too much!!  I just thought what would have happened if it had happened while travelling faster.  It could have happened a mayor accident involving other cars.

I called Elad from Auto-Shay to request some kind of remuneration for all the troubles the cars made.  His answer was that we can get a day free on the next car we were going to take a few days later.

The Third Car

The third car I just didn’t manage to take it.  I arrived to the branch of Auto-Shay in Tel Aviv to pick the car up and the car wasn’t there.  They said that the client that has the car was late and I had to wait for 1 hour to get it.  I started to request better service after all what happened and they said it was just a matter of bad luck, that I had bad luck and that’s why I had troubles with all the cars I got.  Unbelievable!

After half an hour waiting, they found out they had a car I can get and they just brought it.  I was about to leave when I checked the lights of the car none of them were working.  I told them it was unacceptable and the branch manager called Eric told me there was nothing he can do, and then I got the worst answer I could get, something I am sure I haven’t ever heard in my life, he literally told me that I can take the hammer he had in his hands and break his head.

Then I just decided to leave, to lose the free day of car rental, the money the owed me for the gas they used when they took the other car to the garage.

When I told Eric he will regret of his words and that I will publish this story he just said he will call the police because I am threatening him.  The branch manager telling me, a client that paid more 2 thousand dollars to Auto-Shay, that he will call the police.

That’s all; this was my horrible experience with Auto-Shay.  I hope you share it with more people; my wish is that it doesn’t happen to anybody else.

By the way, they called a few days later to ask how the service was, and although I told them the story, no one else called later, not to apologize, not to say a word.  Just another prove of the worst car rental in Israel.

If you still want to rent a car in Auto-Shay, you can do it just clicking here:

Auto-Shaycar rental