This a really horrible story of what happened to us when we rented a moving truck from Budget / Ryder Rentals in Redmond Washington to move my daughter from there to Temecula Ca. I won't be able to tell it all, because time and space wouldn't permit it but I will tell you. "NEVER RENT ANYTHING WITH THE WORD 'BUDGET' IN THE TITLE".
We rented this truck for my daughter, her 12 month old baby, and a girl friend who would be traveling from Wash. To Cal in the biggest heat wave of the summer on July 9. We had to rent it from this end so we couldnt actually see the truck, so we told them what we needed. Number one, it had to have air-conditioning, pretty basic. (duh!). They said it did (of course). However it didnt work. I shouldve asked. The man at the counter was rude to my daughter before she even showed up to get the truck.
Accidently she called them to get a price under "Ryder Rental" and we called under the name "Budget Rentals" not knowing they were the same outfit (silly us right?)."Why are you calling me again, I already gave your parents a price!" Oopps excuse us. My husband had to call the guy up at the rental desk to ask him if he could please be a little nicer to my daughter she was under enough pressure and didn't need any more stress to deal with. Anyway when she showed up for the truck it had bucket seats (hmm!) We can't all ride in that, theres no place for the baby seat. So he walked off with disgust and about 20 mins later brought them ' THE TRUCK' (which if there was a hell, could've been from there, or, going to take you there at a slow painful pace!) Anyway shortly into the trip when they went to use the air-conditioning they found out it didn't work. Not only did it not work (which we emphatically told them it must have) they had to run the heater full blast to keep the engine from over heating! Never mind the fact that it was 112 in the desert they were going through.
All the while the heater was going there was an alarm that was ringing telling you. Let me guess. That the truck is overheating..! They went to plug the cell phone into the lighter to make a phone call and found out. You guessed it. That was dead too. Gee. I guess I should've asked ahead of time if the lighter WORKED. So their phone calls were sparse so that they their cell phone didn't go dead. The baby was our concern because it was so so hot; too hot to go anywhere with out air! We called Redmond to let the guy who rented us the truck know what was going on. His reply was, "I showed the girls the 800 number on the packet, call them!" Well WE called them to tell them the truck was pouring out oil down the side of the passenger side so that you couldnt get out from the truck without getting it all over you, (so they all exited from the driver door-how convienent! Anyway top speed was 40 miles per hour so the trip dragged on.
We called roadside assistance for them, and the Mentally challenged person said he could only help them if they were totally dead (the truck not them!) on the road and it would have to be them personally to call him! We couldnt believe the insenseability of these guys! We thought about having them turn arround and go back 50 miles to the nearest "Budget" place and exchange the truck for a good one but they were so burned out with the heat and the alarm and he baby all they could do was keep going and keeping stopping for water and more oil to put in the truck. When I called the guy Peter in Redmond again about all the trouble he told me that all the trucks go through a 10 point inspection before they are rented out. Well I gess they missed this one! Or maybe someone is telling me an untruth? Also I forgot to say that the truck was desil so it wasn't easy getting gas for it as it would be for a regular truck. (I guess it desil or bucket seats. So we got desil). When they made it home... (a miracle) We almost ran out of gas looking for a place that you could even buy desil here. We parked the truck in front of our house and it left an oil slick big enough well that you could park a "BUDGET TRUCK" over!
It was hard to unload the truck because there was hardly a place on it or under it that didnt have oil on it! When we took the truck back to Temecula RV they were so disguisted with the condition, the owner told the man helping us get that "clunker" off his driveway. What a beautiful sight that "TRUCK" was eh? Well I'm still in the middle of this mess but I'm sure not going to pay them a dime. I told my credit card (American Express) the story and so far budget has offered to knock off $84.50 from the original total of $859.00.. I dont think so. I think if I went to court I might get more if the story was heard by a judge? Anyway theres so much more to the story that, like I said, time and space won't permit me to tell. But the bottom line is.."NEVER RENT ANYTHING WITH THE WORD'BUDGET IN THE TITLE!" ~THE END~ but not yet..
Denise
Temecula, California
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