Ah yes, the good old gas dispute. I can tell you why at my branch we don't rent cars that are full when customers pick them up. I currently work at a Enterprise situated at a car dealership, as a result most of our customers are just using the car for short term vehicle replacement (drive to work than back in one day). Giving a car out at a full tank would be a disaster. I could just see it now, give the customer a car completely topped off with gas, customer returns after driving 40 miles without filling up the tank and the fuel needle is barely touching full. Then customer argues in the office how they shouldn't have to pay for gas charges since the car was returned questionably full. Since the ERAC employee is a an ESQI bitch, the employee just lets the customer go without charging for gas. After cleaning the car customer #2 gets in and drives off with a "full tank". When the customer returns another dispute occurs at the office in which the customer argues that Enterprise purposely pulled a "shady fill-up" since they drove off the lot and after 2 miles the gas needle finally fell below full. The customer is upset now that they had to put an extra gallon in the tank to compensate for customer #1 just being lazy and not filling up the gas. Once again, since the employee is just a ESQI whore a free upgrade coupon or some gas is compted for a future rental is given to the customer. The cycle will just repeat itself at that point.

Now Admin, I know that you feel Enterprise has a fuel money making scheme just to "stick it" to the customer. I hate to be the one to break it to you but its not. Right now in my area we are losing $30 dollars a car in gas, with 400 cars that comes out to $1,200 a month that we piss away from our profit. If we filled up the gas everytime it would be an even bigger number.

What I love about the gas is that customers have such a hard time returning the vehicle to the same level like 1/2 and bitch and complain, yet have no problem going through the necessary steps to pull a shady fill up by: 1) checking the gas gauge 2) squeeze some gas into the tank 3) check the gas gauge again to see if the level is barely touching full 4) repeat if necessary. This done all to save a gallon or two.

In the past I tried to explain to customers that they should reset the trip meter to record the number of miles they drove, and take that number divided by a close estimation of the MPG the vehicle gets ( and I would give them a close estimation of the MPG the vehicle got) to come to the appropriate amount of gas that should be put back in to the car. Often times though I would get a customer looking back as if I am explaining calculus. I quit doing that after a while and let people just figure it out for themselves.

The only possible solution to the problem is to have a vehicle with a highly sensitve full gague that goes below full after enough gas is used to go 5 or 10 miles. I know that for my car (2005 Altima) the fuel gauge is sensitive in that after a complete fill up with a little topping off I can only go 30 miles max until the needle drops below full. Then I would have no problem filling it up to full. But as long as car companies produce cars that still show a full tank after driving long distances (e.g. a pontiac grand am I rented went 120 miles before the needle finally dropped below full) then unforunately this is how its gonna be.