I hired a Hummer H2 car from this company. I called the company on Wednesday 11 July and gave them my credit card details. They withdrew the $305 the same day. I picked the car up about 9:15 on Thursday 12 July. Everything seemed fine with the car. I picked my two kids, Tom (19) and Jess (16). We also had Tom's girlfriend Maya (18) and Jess's friend Katie (15) with us. We cruised arround I-Drive for a while and then drove to Daytona.
While driving East on I-4, I noticed the car was vibrating. Even taking into account the state of I-4 the vibration was excessive. I slowed down to about 50-55 mph and the vibration was "acceptable". I had been told that the car had been fitted with new tyres the day before so I thought they probably had not been balanced correctly and did not think too much about it at the time. My son, who has been driving for 2 years also agreed with my suggested diagnosis.
We stopped at a parking lot in Daytona where the parking assistant alerted me to a strange noise coming from the rear passenger side wheel. I pulled to the side of the road and inspected the wheel and could not see any obvious problem. There were no tools to remove the decorative panel covering the wheel nuts so I drove (slowly) to the nearest garage.
At the garage I borrowed an Allen key to remove the decorative panel covering the wheel nuts and to my horror I found a wheel nut was completely adrift from it's stud. Not only that, most of the remaining nuts on that wheel were very loose and close to falling off their studs. I then checked the other wheels and found the wheel nuts on all wheels were in a similar state.
I immediately called the office of the rental company. They agreed to me having the garage fix the problem and I said I was happy to keep the vehicle until the morning now that it was repaired. We were in Daytona and with only one day left of our holiday, we wanted to drive down to Cape Canaveral. I told them how shaken I was by what I had found.
The garage assistant said one of the wheels could easily have come off. If this had happened I hate to think what the circumstances would have been not only to us but others on I-4 that day. I could not stop thinking about what could have happened while I was travelling at 70 mph down I-4 with traffic at either side of me, if that parking lot assistant had not stopped me to inform me of the strange noise. I told the rental company I would be expecting a full refund.
When I returned the car at 9 the next morning I was told the only person who could provide a refund would not be in the office until 10:30. So I had to return later (hence wasting half a day of our holiday). When I returned I was offered a 30% refund. I told the lady in the office this was totally unacceptable. She contacted her boss, Pete Benevides, who would not increase the refund no matter how much I emphasised to him the full horror of our story. He said he was offrering nearly half as a refund. I reminded him that 30% is not nearly 50%.
I told him my son had a video of the garage attendant fixing the last wheel (which was the best of the lot with ony 4 or 5 wheel nuts completey loose). Mr Benevides accused me of loosening the wheel nuts myself! At this point I told him to shove his 30% compensation and that I would be taking the matter further.
I am not bothered about the money, it was the attitude of this company and the suggestion I had tampered with the wheels myself.
I have a copy of the receipt from the garage that fixed the car and we still have the video of the garage assistant fixing the last wheel. I hope you can help.
Ian
Scotton, Yorkshire
United Kingdom
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