I promised to update this thread so here we go: got back last night from a lovely sunny week in Fuerteventura, and missed The Beast From The East part 2!
First thing; Purple Parking don't exist as such any more, they seem to have been absorbed in to ACE parking, who also appear to be Maple Manor, at Gatwick at least. Anyway they're all on Gatwick's "approved" list.
Drop off: all good, they use short stay orange at Gatwick South and they seemed very professional, and said they'd do a walk round video before driving off. I very much doubt they did! By the way, yes a L322 Range Rover fits under the entry barriers no problem. I made a note of the mileage.
Pick up: we called from baggage reclaim at 9.15 p.m. and they said "yes Sir, 5 minutes". Got to the pick up point to find no car. "Sorry Sir there's a road closure" they say. "That's odd, people on our flight have already got their cars, where's mine?" It's now 10 o' clock and they say "the driver took a wrong turn." Now I know bullsh*t when I hear it and this stank. Eventually the car rolls in at 10.10, one hour after we cleared passport control - "so what is the point of meet and greet?" I ask, which was met with a shrug and "call the office tomorrow if you have a complaint."
I inch round the car expecting the worst, but to be fair there's no damage. BUT, the mileage has gone up by 28 miles since drop off. I query this and they could not have cared less, but of course it's now late and we just want to get home. Still, 28 miles is easily a gallon of diesel so that's another £6 I'm down. And I wonder how carefully driven it was in those 28 miles? Oh, and they've tuned the radio to some bloody awful local station, changed all of the seat settings and altered the mirror angles too - thanks lads!

TLDR: ACE parking/ Purple Parking / Maple Manor at Gatwick are rubbish, and I'd never use them again. They didn't physically damage the car (phew!) so I suppose it could have been worse. To those of you that posted your concerns - you were right I'm afraid; but hey, we live and learn. Fortunately the car runs as sweet as a nut and cruised home in good time.

Apart from the late arrival I don't see they've done much wrong, did they say where they were gong to park it , I'd imagine anywhere cheap will be a good way from the airport, if the driver was 5ft tall I'd expect the seat and mirrors to be moved

Shame you haven't got one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KX9HFWI/ref...2&sr=2

You could track your FFRR by SMS and on a website map. As far as I know you can also query history (speed, route, etc).

Mine needs charging up every 30 days. And you need to put a cheap SIM card in it for SMS comms. Really useful bit of kit.

I said they were ok, mine also had 14 miles each way on the clock, but at a very moderate speed on the range rover app ... The seats were adjusted, but then as someone else said , he might of been a midget..

we will use them again... but then we didn't have the hour delay, it was all there waiting for us, but to be fair to you, they were fairly slow at the drop off and it was cold... but then I didn't mind that much as staying the night in the hotel. ..

car came back in one piece and as I had only had it for a few weeks, so I was delighted ! Filters are in fact so good that in certain circumstances, when the ambient air is already polluted, a diesel car will tend to extract more particles from the air than it emits. Emissions Analytics worked with........etc etc

He who dies with the most toys wins...

wack61 wrote:

Apart from the late arrival I don't see they've done much wrong, did they say where they were gong to park it , I'd imagine anywhere cheap will be a good way from the airport, if the driver was 5ft tall I'd expect the seat and mirrors to be moved

Rapidly checking for spent fingernails in front footwell !

Just sorry I said they were ok & didn’t work for u.

Bill Filters are in fact so good that in certain circumstances, when the ambient air is already polluted, a diesel car will tend to extract more particles from the air than it emits. Emissions Analytics worked with........etc etc

He who dies with the most toys wins...

wack61 wrote:

Apart from the late arrival I don't see they've done much wrong, did they say where they were gong to park it , I'd imagine anywhere cheap will be a good way from the airport, if the driver was 5ft tall I'd expect the seat and mirrors to be moved

Check for footprints on the headlining

Seat and mirror changes - good. I'd want them driving safely.
Radio - I wouldn't care, it's so easy to change back (as are memory seats).
Toenail clipping - that's a bit minging, but I'm not likely to have noticed.

Over an hour late - makes it useless.

I use meet and greet all the time, unless short stay is on offer and a fair bit cheaper. But I always use the airport's own on airport valet service. Or I stay at the Sofitel overnight and park there (annoyingly at the wrong terminal and a shuttle ride away now BA have moved). RRS MY17 SDV6 AB
Evoque MY17 TD4 AB