What are your worst rental car experiences?

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

What are your worst rental car experiences? And how did the work out? Any suggestions on how we can avoid them with our rental?

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

We picked up a Hertz rental car in Phoenix several years ago. It wasn't working all that well when we got it, but it got us around town. Unfortunately, the day we decided to drive to Tucson, it died about 1/2 way between the two cities. We hiked back to Pacacho (?) and made a phone call to Hertz in the post office. About an hour and a half later, Hertz came with another car for us on a flat bed truck and took the other one away.

[Marti Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Marti]

Baltimore Washington International BWI


Enterprise - National - Alamo - Car Rental

New models have been coming in daily for the past few months here
at the Baltimore Washington International Airport Car Rental Facility

This time of year you should not have much trouble renting
a nice vehicle with low mileage and not a lot of wear and tear.
You would not believe how much trash is left in rental cars by
previous renters. It would be nice if everyone who rents a car
would take a few minutes to clean it out before they return it.

Renting a car is like getting a good timeshare unit!

[JoAnn Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JoAnn]

Our worst experience was in Savannah, headed for HHI on business. We were upgraded from a mid-size car to a Cadillac....4 dr, white, red leather interior. Headed to HH, stopped at a mall and when we got back in...it wouldn't start, and it told us to wait 5 or 10 min. After many tries, it started. Got to HH, stopped for lunch, came out...wouldn't start again. When we finally got to the hotel, we went to valet parking and left the car in the garage....let valet parking handle it. Never used it the whole week end On our way back to the airport we never turned the car off (even in the gas station). When DH turned the keys in, he told the gal about the problem and all she said was 'that happens all the time.' And we wondered why didn't they fix it, or take it off the lot?

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

Sixte at Basel-Mulhouse-Freiberg

I had a rental on the French side of the Basel airport in late November. The weather report called for snow in all three countries served by that airport, France, Germany, and Switzerland. In filling out the paperwork, I listed that I was taking the car to Germany.

I did not hit the snow until I got maybe 20 miles from the timeshare, but after that, it quickly got heavy. Going through the town on the way to the timeshare, the wheels spun with no traction on a small hill. Several locals came over to help push and one looked at the tires and exclaimed that they were ''summer tires''. That is why I was having trouble in the snow. I got going again that time but the last mile or so to the timeshare was all up a fairly steep hill and again the wheels lost traction. This time pushing by bystanders did not help and I had to leave the car and walk that mile uphill in the dark and snow with my luggage. The last 300 feet or so a car did come by and give me a ride. I learned that it was illegal to drive in Germany in the snow with summer tires and could lead to a large fine and automatic responsibility for any accident.

I left the car parked three days until the roads finally cleared of snow.

When I called Sixte, they said I should have told them if I wanted winter tires, but that would have been a substantial extra charge. They checked to see if they had a car in with winter tires but every one they had was equipped with summer tires.

The local rental office was absolutely no help, but when I complained to the head office, I got an apology and a voucher good on a future Sixte rental for about half of my rental cost.

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

I blew out two tires one Sunday in Ireland. We called the Thrifty emergancy service number and they sent out a truck to pick up the car. I had to pay for one tire as it was not an approved shop with direct billing for Thrifty and drive on the donut tire until the next day. We took the car to an approved shop for Thrifty the next day and that tire was billed direct to Thrifty.

For the first tire that I had to pay for, all I had to do was provide the receipt for the tire when we brought the car back. It took about 30 days but Thrifty put a credit on our credit card account for the amount of the tire. Other than being slightly inconvenienced everything worked out fine.

[itchyfeet Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close itchyfeet]

Our worst experience was in Kona, Hawaii. The car we rented had cockroaches! We didn't discover this until we got in it one night to go out to dinner. There were cockroaches everywhere on the floor and in the trunk. We returned the car for a different one the next day. We were told by a friend in Kona that it's not unusual for this to happen if people leave food in the car. (We hadn't).

[Ema Rich Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ema Rich]

I receved a car that had major problems - anyone who had rented it or even driven it could hear the problems. I started driving it, had to turn around, go back to airport, get back in line, ask for another car, [America tours] they wanted to hear the problem....etc. etc. etc. It took me over 2 hours to get out of the place!

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

My worse car was one from Thrifty in Orlando. Problem was the airbag failure warning light was on. I sure drove safe :-)

The worse company was Fox in San Francisco. More of a logistics problem with them and 'you sure want the insurance'. Come to think of it, I had the same issue with Enterprise in Denver recently. I think car rental agents and timeshare sales people some from the same school.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

Alamo in Tampa. Took forever to get the car, including a 20 minute discussion of insurance, which I finally took---only to get the money back from AMEX later.

[bluka Member Find all posts View Profile Close bluka]

happend to me in phoenix i had a online confirmation but when i got to the rental agency (dollar i think) they hit me for extra fees along with talking me into upgrading from my confirmed mini van to an extended mini van. when i got downstairs they looked around and said (oh you have a mini van- there over there take whatever one you want!) they had only a few vans and i ended up taking one that wasnt even close to the one i confirmed.Bottom line if you get a confirmation online stick to what you paid dont get talked into upgrades or insurance you dont need. Orlando seems to be pretty good to me about upgrading if they dont have what i confirmed and not trying to hit me for extra fees.

[1950bing Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 1950bing]

This may seem odd to some here. I have not had ANY problems in all of my car rentals. Yes, timeshares should be like car rentals.