When I considered doing a review of my rental car, I didn’t expect to do a review on the company their self, but rather just the car. After only a few days in to my two week rental, I absolutely have to begin writing this..
I reserved a premium class car on March 1st, to be picked up March 26th. I figured if I gave them enough notice that they would be able to find the car I wanted. So i specifically requested a Chrysler 300.
A few days before March 26th I called, to make sure everything was still on the up and up so I didn’t show up to any surprises. However they told me they had not yet found a premium car, and asked me what my second choice would be.
I went ahead and told them that I could settle for the full size car, but I would want it to be fully loaded, as my current car that’s 14 years old has many premium features that most cars on the market today do not have.
When I arrived, they gave me a 2013 Chevrolet Impala LTZ, needless to say I was happy with this car. I drove it around a little, and learned all the features of it so that I could use it to my fullest extent, however among doing all this I noticed that the keyless entry remote and remote start did not work on the vehicle. This was sort of a deal breaker for me. Considering I like to lock the car up when I am not in it, and using a key is so 1990’s
I took the vehicle back to where got it, and told the rental agent that I would be glad to keep the car, but if at all possible could we get this keyless entry fixed. I was instructed that If we ordered a new button, then it would take a week to get here. Considering my rental is for 2 weeks I asked him to go ahead and order it, and I could at least enjoy it the second part of the rental.
Later that night I got to noticing My credit card statement and seen where enterprise had taken about $30 too much for this rental, and where they had screwed me is when they downgraded me to the full class car, they didn’t bother to use my discount code for the new rate. I called to talk to the rental agent who put me in the car to see if we could get this resolved, but I got someone else instead. This lady on the phone had no idea of my situation, nor did she even know who I had talked to. She was very rude and unhelpful.
At this point, you might imagine that I have a bad taste in my mouth about enterprise, but now that I am stuck in a 2 week prepaid rental, and a non refundable vacation coming up, I can’t just say fuck It give me my money back.
I considered going to Hertz, but their non credit card policy tacks on an extra $200 for the 2 week rental. No Ty.
I filed a complaint to the enterprise twitter account, in hopes for some help with this situation, and possibly a discount for the over charge and trouble.
The next day the rental agent that got me in the car called me directly. Up until then, I had not known he was the branch manager as well. I explained to him the situation, and how rude the lady was the day before, and he deeply apologized, he offered the $30 difference that I was over charged, and a 5% discount on the entire rental. He also offered to swap the car out for a brand new 2014 if I wanted. I declined the swap. But decided to take the discounts as they were offered,
After deep thought at how inconvenient my vacation would be without the key less entry I looked in to buying one of the remotes from the Chevrolet place, and just keeping it after the rental was over however at $140 and another $45 for programming, I decided against that.
After an hour of thinking about it, I called the rental agent back and offered him that if he would fill the new car up, that I would come trade him for it. (I got the impala at 1/4 of a tank, and I had filled it up already.)
He did, so we went to trade. Looking back, I wish I had not done that..
The new car is in fact not a 2014, but it is a 2013 Nissan Altima as basic as they get, this car has features like air conditioning, and a CD player. Cloth seats.. Ew..
When I shop for a car (as I mentioned above) I try to find something equal or better to my current 14 year old car, that means leather seats. Auto headlights, moon roof, just small things like that.
This Nissan Altima was probably as basic as it gets, but without any other option, and hating to back out after putting the rental agent through all this trouble I just took it. The only thing I like about this car is the gas mileage. We managed to average 36.9 MPG the entire trip.
On Monday I plan to call the rental agent back, and see if the impala is working again, or if he has a ETA on when it will be working, as I have the rental for another week and 2 days from Monday. I am suppose to be leaving for a second trip (spring break) Sunday but at this point those plans may be postponed.
I will update this post as more information emerges.
Update:
After calling back on the Monday as planned, the Impala was not ready, and in fact still today (nearly 3 weeks later) is still not ready. Enterprise did hook me up with a $57 Customer Satisfaction credit, and made that rental overall enjoyable. I was pretty disappointed in the lack of features the Altima had. Hopefully next time they will be able to get that Premium class car as planned.
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