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Enterprise - Defective Vehicles

Enterprise •Billing Disputes •Damage Charges •Defective Cars •Happy Customers

Duane of Wellington FL (5/31/02):
I have spent close to $7,000.00 renting cars from this location in Royal Palm Beach, Florida. Over the last three months, my relationship with Enterprise has soured. I have had such a great relationship with this company in the past. I am afraid management at this one location are failing at top notch customer service.

In the past two to three months I have gotten cars with, flat tires, roaches, defective exhaust, rattles coming from underneath, etc. The Pontiac Van I am currently renting has the "change oil light on" and a loud clunk when you go over bumps. The previous Dodge Van I rented had the exhaust fumes coming in through the ventilation. I exchanged the Van for a Ford Windstar that was dirty inside and had roaches in it. Then they exchanged the Van a third time and it turned out to be the same van with the exhaust fume leakage coming through the ventilation system.

I was told by the rep on duty that this was not the same van from before, and in fact they did find out it was tampered with or was the seal was rotting around the manifold. He assured me that it was not the same Van as before. In fact he went on to say that the Van with exhaust coming through the A/C was sent to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Well It turns out, he lied, it's the same van with the same problem.

I am scared to drive any of their cars. I feel they are unsafe. I was having headaches in the other car with the exhaust problems. This current rental car I am driving scares me and the passengers, because you hear a loud clunk everytime you go over a bump. I thought I wasn't going to make it home safely.

Alice of San Jose CA (5/28/02):
I called on 5/21/02 to reserve a Ford Taurus or similar size car for 5/23/02. I was told there were some available but when I went to pick it up they showed me a Suzuki Vitara and a PT Cruiser which we did not want. Maureen then stated that the blossom hill branch had a Mercury Sable would we be interested. We took off to the branch, and got the key to the car after a brief inspection. As I drove it seemed like it took pressure to press the brake but assumed that it was due to the fact that I was short and needed to get used to the car. We drove it to Union City later that day thru alot of traffic and the brakes seemed to act the same.

My friend sitting in the back said that there was a noise from the back brakes. I called the branch from where I rented the car from and they said "it is probably nothing but bring it in to look at it." We told them we were in Union City and they gave us the nearest address. By this time it was already 535pm and they asked me to call that branch prior to going there. I called on my cell phone but no one answered the phone. The traffic was very heavy and I could not have made it to the branch before 6pm. I then asked my nephew to try out the car but he said that lots of cars make noise it is not necessarily the brakes. We took off at 6am and drove to LA/Vegas since I had guests from England visiting. The car seemed unstable and somewhat noisy but we were able to drive thru Salinas. There were no Enterprise branches open that early in the morning so we continued on to San Luis Obispo.

When we reached the gradient the car shook, the brakes did not hold there was a loud grinding sound coming from the back tires. The driver had to let go of the steering wheel since it was shaking too hard, tried to go to a lower gear but was not able to control the car. Fortunately there was not too much traffic but there was a big truck hauling fuel in front of us. As the road leveled off the car slowed down and we drove to San Luis Obispo to find an enterprise branch. We got to the branch approximately 1215pm and told them what had happened.

They sent us to their garage, in the same car, and said quote, "If the brake job takes more than 20 minutes I will give you another car" unquote. We took it to Wayne Tyres and Bill Huffman had the mechanic drive it. He returned and raised it up and took the tires off. When he saw the rotors he called the other guys to take a look. There was brown dust coming out it was brown and rusty no brake shoes at all. The comment he made to the manager was "it is metal to metal and it will take on hour to repair."

The front brake shoes were changed too. That means we had metal to metal in the back, NO brakes in front either. To add insult to injury the cigarrette lighter was not working therefore we would have been unable to call for help on our cell phone had we survived the crash. When we called the other branch they said there were no cars available. We waited 3 hours not knowing whether it would be fixed that day or not.

If we were not astute enough to notice that something was wrong we could have driven the car thru all those hills and ended up dead. First of all the passangers in the car were in shock as we drove down the gradient. Two of them are visiting from England here on vacation and were sure that their bodies would be sent in body bags. They had to take some extra prozac to calm their nerves. Were unable to eat and were very anxious to get back into the car again even after it was fixed. It was very frightening going thru all those montains on HWY 101 after the incident. We missed the family wedding, a visit to Vegas and had to stay an extra day in LA which cost $81 a day.

Sherry of Van Buren AR (10/3/00):
Credit card provided by mother in law on a weekend rental. After returning from Dallas, and having had driven a car with terrible misalignment we then returned both cars and obtained a new rental (because our vehicle had been in a flood). The young man at Enterprise had all the insurance information wrong, incorrectly began a new contract on the insurance rental with my credit card. My husband used the vehicle which incidentally had terrible alignment also. The response from the young man at Enterprise was not one for concern of safety but intent on letting us know there would be no discount on that car's rental.

The vehicle pulled hard to the right causing my husband to have several near misses with pedestrians etc. Calling the Enterprise office and informing them of the car's alignment problem again caused a "no discount" comment. My husband went off the right shoulder in the car, called Enterprise to come pick it up because he feared for his safety.

Enterprise management sent our first rental agent Michelle over to pick up the car and my husband was shocked that they would jeopordize an employee's safety. She refused to drive the car and 3 days later they sent a tow truck to pick it up. Long story short -- the credit card info from my mother in law was used for this rental without her consent and we now have a $2500. demand for repairs from Enterprise. Can you believe this?

Frederick of Dublin CA (9/21/00):
Yesterday my elderly mother and I were dropped off at the Enterprise car rental location in Turlock by the local body shop while our car was in for service. The Enterprise rental agent named "Mike"(he would not disclose his last name) proceeded to take us to a car repair shop to pick up our rental car, a Chevy Malibu that he said was in for an "oil change." The car was parked outside the repair shop. This seemed rather strange because I have never experienced this procedure from Hertz or National or any other car rental company.

After I signed off acceptance of the rental my mother and I proceeded to drive 40 mile north to town of Stockton. At first the car seemed ok. However, as I started to accelerate to 55 mph a truck was attempting to come into my lane and I immediately applied the brakes. The car steering wheel shook violently and the front end shimmed to the right into the #2 lane. Luckily the car in that lane avoided hitting us. I took my foot off the brake and regained control until I could safely slow down to 40 mph and move to the right hand lane. Even at 40 MPH the car seemed unsteady when brakes were applied.

We managed to get to our intermediate destination, Stockton and immediately called the Stockton branch of Enterprise to report a safety problem with the car and to request a replacement for our trip home some 70 miles away in San Jose. The receptionist at the Stockton Enterprise told us she did not have any cars available for us in any of the 4 locations in Stockton and that she would call me back on my cellphone.

One and a half hours later, having received no phone call, I decided to call Mike at Enterprise in Turlock to request immediate action on the safety issue with the Chevy. He put me on hold and contacted Kevin, branch manager of the Stockton Enterprise location. Mike came back on the phone and said that Enterprise had no cars available but the he would direct us to a Firestone repair shop for a "quick brake job" on our rental car and that our wait at Firestone would not take more that half an hour.

I explained that I had rented a car from Enterprise and not a brake job for the unsafe car. I demanded that immediate action be taken to avoid an accident and informed him that my elderly mother was suffering from the 106-degree temp outside and needed to be driven home ASAP to take her medication. Mike put me on hold again and spoke to Kevin. Mike informed us that "they would take care of it" at Stockton.

On the way to the Enterprise location I called Hertz and requested a rental car, which they said was available at their North Stockon location and placed it on a hold for us. My intent was to drop the car off at Enterprise and asked to be taken to Hertz. When we arrived at the Enterprise Stockton location Kevin, the branch manager, seemed unconcerned about safety issue with the car and asked if I and my elderly mother would go with him to Firestone brake shop to prove that the car was safe. This conversation was occurring outside the Enterprise office in 106 degree heat while my mother is sitting in the car with the ignition off.

When I informed Kevin that my mother was suffering in the car and that Hertz had a car available, he informed me that he had talked to Hertz and that they did not have a car available. He also stated that he could not offer my mother and me a ride to a "competitor." Noticing my mother's weakening condition I became quite angry at Kevin's delaying tactics. Kevin offered a Geo Metro and we declined the car insisting that we be taken to Hertz. Kevin had a retort for every issue I brought concerning the situation at hand. It seems that this Enterprise location had been through this before.

As he walked away from our car in 106 degree heat with the rental contract in hand Kevin stated that he would charge my credit card for the rental and that he would not take us to Hertz. Our only option was to rent the Geo Metro. I was finding it quite difficult to control my anger. Finally after 15 minutes of Kevin's abusive behavior someone at Enterprise authorized a similar mid-size replacement car to our Chevy. For my mother and me it seemed that we had finally gotten out of Kevin's prison.

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