Other Car Rental Programs/Partners (ie. Alamo, Enterprise, Sixt) - Enterprise stinks!

Yesterday we had a household emergency and we needed a car, so I called the local enterprise office and oh yeah we have cars hurry as I have 8 others coming in too. Well they had several compacts, a sienna, and a saturn Full Size.
I got stuck with the Prius. I have driven them before so I didn't care, well all that went out the window the moment I did a walk around. Many dents, LF tire looks crooked. Get in car 28,000 miles on the clock and reeks in smoke! I barked at the yuppie rental manager and drove off. 20 mins later the AC quits working, so looking for the ERS number on contract there is none. I called the location that I rented, and the manager was unavailable and will be returning my call on Monday!:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

So I called the local MSP post and they were able to get me a number to the hotline, I called and since I was driving near Detroit Metro I could do an exchange... Make sure I keep my pink copy as they will need it in order to do the exchange.

Well upon arrival to DTWAP rental arse wipe says well we have to call Toledo to get permission to do a switch. Oh and yeah since your out of state we have to give you an econ size as its Enterprise's policy to give BASIC TRANSPORTATION..... I was about ready to jump over the counter and knock the person out. Another dude comes out and HE appears to think I know what the heck they are trying to pull, as those jerks provide cars and whatever else to the toledo market, so it's not like it is a different country! And besides the crappy car with bad wheel and no AC had Florida tags.

SO after about 20 mins I got a Chevy Impala with 8000 miles, and yes I checked I did have the SRS air bags, but it didn't have ABS... Oh well, it was the LT1 model....

After this rental from the rocks, no more enterprise for me. As for this rental, I am disputing it.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience but is name calling really necessary?

Just so you know, I worked at the PHX Enterprise location and doing switch outs is not an easy task. There's the issue of getting the vehicle back to its "owned" branch, the fact that often the airport has more customers/reservations than cars and many other factors. Often basic transportation is all that can be provided.

I had my reservations with the company which led to my quitting but I really don't think they did anything wrong here. Better luck next time.

I barked at the yuppie rental manager and drove off.

[SNIP

I called the location that I rented, and the manager was unavailable

:rolleyes:

Does this sequence of events really surprise you? You chew out a manager then expect him to jump through hoops for you 20 minutes later. Frankly, if you are as pleasant in person as you come across in this post, I'm not at all surprised you received poor customer service.

If this really was a "household emergency", why was it so bloody important that your AC works anyhow? Seems like that would be pretty low on my priority list in an emergency, unless I was in Arizona in July...as opposed to Michigan in September.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience but is name calling really necessary?

Just so you know, I worked at the PHX Enterprise location and doing switch outs is not an easy task. There's the issue of getting the vehicle back to its "owned" branch, the fact that often the airport has more customers/reservations than cars and many other factors. Often basic transportation is all that can be provided.

I had my reservations with the company which led to my quitting but I really don't think they did anything wrong here. Better luck next time.

My local Enterprise agent said they're now using an integrated fleet, and he's even seen a few cars recently from Pennsylvania. That's also why they were able to do a one-way FL driveout deal last summer similar to sister company Alamo's. I'm guessing perhaps switchouts will be easier now?

P.S. Alamo and National have already started the FL driveIN, seemingly earlier this year. They're usually a little earlier than the others, but no one else has started it yet. Hertz has special rates for cars in FL, so I doubt they want to add more inventory at this time. As usual, to drive out of NY costs more than out of FL. And as usual, Alamo's rates tend to be a little higher than the other companies when they do it. Dollar tends to be the lowest price, but they tend to only offer this promo for about a week and then between a limited number of locations. Avis and Budget tend to now do only deep south to FL.

SO after about 20 mins I got a Chevy Impala with 8000 miles, and yes I checked I did have the SRS air bags, but it didn't have ABS...

I think you’ll have a hard time these finding a car without airbags these days.

the fact that often the airport has more customers/reservations than cars and many other factors. Often basic transportation is all that can be provided.

Enterprise generally has a small fleet at airports, since unlike the others, they specialize in replacement rentals and do not specialize in one-ways. However, other companies, even at busy airports, will do right by the customer and replace the defective car with one of the same size or bigger. When my Avis car broke down last year, the Newark Airport counter agent offered a pick of 3 different midsize cars to replace the midsize Sonata: another Sonata, a G6, or a Kia Amanti. I told him I'm in no mood for another Sonata, which he understood. He then said the Amanti has only 94 miles. ^ The next morning, my neighborhood Avis agent apologized for the Sonata and, upon checking in the replacement, was surprised that Newark would give away their best car.

EWR are sticklers as well, but never to the tune that I experienced at DTW, and E was sued recently because they ordered their car minus some of the safety features. I forgot to mention there was at least 5 rows of 12-16 cars in the return area. I was told they have not touched national or alamo fleet as of yet. I find that hard to believe!

There's the issue of getting the vehicle back to its "owned" branch

My local Enterprise agent said they're now using an integrated fleet, and he's even seen a few cars recently from Pennsylvania. That's also why they were able to do a one-way FL driveout deal last summer similar to sister company Alamo's. I'm guessing perhaps switchouts will be easier now?

That matches what a friend who's an Assistant at an ERAC airport branch told me.

It seems like one-way policies have been slow to change (the ERAC website still doesn't offer it as an option), but if something happens (a mechanical breakdown or whatnot necessitating a swap at another branch), the car no longer needs to be taken back to the "owning" branch. The foreign branch simply "gains" the old car and the original branch "gains" the new, switched-out car. Same with one-way drops: the branch where the car is returned simply "gains" the new car. It should, as you indicate, make things simpler, and it takes care of the problem mentioned by CMK10 above. (If you picked up in PDX and dropped off in SEA, say, they used to literally have to pay someone to drive that car back down to the PDX branch it was rented from. This is also why even same-city drops--i.e. a home city branch to an airport branch--had [and still have, strangely] such exorbitant drop fees.)

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The only exception to airport swap outs being friendly involves rentals originating in ca and corporate rented/franchisee exchanged rentals. For the former, its due to ca law that requires ca emissions for instate rentals. For the latter, some rental companies have issues in this type of scenario where the franchisee is unable to handle the swap cars. This frequently occurs between avis corp + avis local franchisees.

I'll bet Hertz would also have this switchout problem if you rented in a corporate store like Cheyenne and had a breakdown near a franchise store like Jackson Hole or vice versa. Thankfully, those franchise stores are few and far between in the rural boonies for most major rental companies.

On the other hand, this could be a problem for smaller companies even in larger markets. I'm guessing Dollar's corporate store at Newark Airport receiving a breakdown from a nearby franchise store in Jersey City would pose the same problem.

The only exception to airport swap outs being friendly involves rentals originating in ca....its due to ca law that requires ca emissions for instate rentals.

You've had a breakdown with a CA-origin rental in another state and ran into this problem? Wow, I would have thought the California emissions laws would at least be reasonable and make an exception for bringing in out of state cars due to special circumstances such as breakdowns.

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The only exception to airport swap outs being friendly involves rentals originating in ca and corporate rented/franchisee exchanged rentals. For the former, its due to ca law that requires ca emissions for instate rentals. For the latter, some rental companies have issues in this type of scenario where the franchisee is unable to handle the swap cars. This frequently occurs between avis corp + avis local franchisees.
Shouldn't be an issue with Enterprise, since Enterprise doesn't franchise.

I'm surprised it's an issue with Hertz and Avis, as I was under the impression that their franchises did not own their own cars but instead just tapped into the nationwide integrated fleet. (Avis actually doesn't even call them franchises--it calls them agencies and basically sells them a license to operate a storefront, giving the owner a percentage of the sales at his/her location.) Therefore, swaps shouldn't be an issue, since they come out of the same fleet. But I could be mistaken.

A few "Independent Licensees" still exist for Hertz and Avis, but for the most part only in remote boonie towns. Other than that, everything's corporate.

For instance, the Avis car that broke down on me had Massachusetts plates, "owning city: Boston" listed on the keychain, and was picked up from my local Avis office in the northern suburbs of NY. The car was swapped at Newark Airport in New Jersey for a Kia Amanti with Connecticut plates and a keychain that said "Owning City: NYZ." Everybody from Avis I spoke to along the way said the license plates are completely irrelevant to anything.