Clean Cars

[contracheck]

Originally Posted by superman123

The problem stems from Enterprise not placing a high enough priority on cleaning cars. My experience at the SLC airport proved this to me.

1) During the day we had enough car preps. During the evenings and weekends, we we always understaffed on car preps. This led to cutting corners. We rented cars with dirty interiors all the time.

2) The car wash would break down ALL THE TIME.

3) When push came to shove, management would always rent a dirty, lofr, or damaged car rather than pass the deal.

WOW !!!!!!!!!!!

[Popper1977]

Back in my Toledo days, we used to tell customers that we charge a $75.00 detailing fee if the car is brought back "trashed." This was more for the instances where the car reaked of smoke, piss, etc. Same for pet hair, bad stains, excess trash and dirt. It did help some. But it was seldom enforced, of course.

[charlie sheen]

Take your 96 esqi and shove it up your ass you brainwashed effing idiot! Have fun at ecrap!

[Frank the Tank]

Like a dry car is the customers biggest concern of customers, they should be more concerned with the safety of the cars, how long since service and how long has it had a recall on it.

[Car Prep Girl]

Originally Posted by Frank the Tank

Like a dry car is the customers biggest concern of customers, they should be more concerned with the safety of the cars, how long since service and how long has it had a recall on it.

I'm curious WHERE this kind of behaviour is tolerated, and why there isn't more of a stink brought about my employees and customers alike.
At the ERAC I work for cars are brought in constantly for service, and when a car has ANYTHING wrong with it, it is serviced immediately from the tire pressure light to a missing plastic part inside the vehicle, that doesnt affect safety at all. If it doesn't look presentable, or if it isn't safe, it is repaired before it is rented out. Even if it means canceling a reservation.

[Intern]

Originally Posted by Car Prep Girl

I'm curious WHERE this kind of behaviour is tolerated, and why there isn't more of a stink brought about my employees and customers alike.
At the ERAC I work for cars are brought in constantly for service, and when a car has ANYTHING wrong with it, it is serviced immediately from the tire pressure light to a missing plastic part inside the vehicle, that doesnt affect safety at all. If it doesn't look presentable, or if it isn't safe, it is repaired before it is rented out. Even if it means canceling a reservation.

Wow, sounds like a nice Enterprise branch to work for. Unfortunatley this is never the case at the other branches. We would rent cars with something wrong all the time. Some of the problems were not a safty hazard such as the "Check Engine" light would come on because the prior renter didn't tighten the fuel cap when they refilled the tank. In other cases though we would have people return their rentals complaining about some problem (like brakes) and then we would re-rent that vehicle within the hour, when that customer returned we would have to play ignorant to the same problems experienced by the renter. The branch was always reluctant to shop vehicle at the beginning or middle of the week. We would keep the vehicles to rent out and then shop on Friday or send those cars off when a branch or ARM needed to move cars.

The shadiest deal that was done by a fellow ERAC'er involved a Chevy Metro with an f'd up transmission, it could only go in reverse. Some walk-in customer only needed to use it for about two blocks tom move some stuff, the deal was booked at $5 for the day.

Absolutely under no circumstances were we to cancel a reservation or turn away business.

[wanky]

Originally Posted by Car Prep Girl

I'm curious WHERE this kind of behaviour is tolerated, and why there isn't more of a stink brought about my employees and customers alike.
At the ERAC I work for cars are brought in constantly for service, and when a car has ANYTHING wrong with it, it is serviced immediately from the tire pressure light to a missing plastic part inside the vehicle, that doesnt affect safety at all. If it doesn't look presentable, or if it isn't safe, it is repaired before it is rented out. Even if it means canceling a reservation.

This would be really rare throughout the rental world. Profit margins are generally way, way too tight to be constantly canceling reservations and/or holding on to cars with evident but "usually" minor maintenance issues. It was pretty common at our branch to rent out cars with various preventive maintanence holds (oil change cars that weren't THAT far past the tagged mileage) and such. Every once in a while we rented out a car that did sound/feel to really have a problem of some sort, but if it was a short-term weekend rental or we somehow gauged the customer would not drive the car very far during their possession, we'd still rent it out.

As far as the clean, dry car thing goes; we struggled with that too, but in all honesty as much as I hate ERAC, Hertz, Avis...all of them...I put a little blame on the customer as well. Yes; rental cars are being held in normal rotation longer than in the past, hence more aged cars with some stains on seats and whatnot. Yes, the customer is correct to assume they should/will step into a clean car and not have to worry about sitting in something that could pose a health hazard to them. That said, I don't understand how so many customers that were in our branch for insurance replacement would expect a spotless vehicle awaiting them that their fucking kids could lick if they so desired. You (the customer) have spent all this time driving around in your own car with dirt and shit on the mats and sometimes on/around the cupholders, etc...and you complain when a) it looks like the drivers' side mat was simply shaken and not vac'd and b) YOU AREN'T EVEN PAYING FOR THE FUCKING RENTAL; YOUR (or their) INSURANCE COMPANY IS. The kicker here is that most customers actually understand this; they merely complain because they're frustrated and want a deal, and show no sympathy for anyone else's own situation.

If a family paying for a weekend getaway or vacation, then absolutely, they should expect a car that looks damn well brand new with nary a speck. But when Geico, not you, is paying us $20 a day, well....."Today Mr. X is your lucky day! This (not so) sparkling Chevrolet Aveo with low (30,000) mileage is your brand new toy! It may have no CD player, and only picks up about 3 radio stations...but one of them is the local NPR! So what if it takes 20 minutes to get from 0-60mph....it gives you time to take in the scenery as you (unsuccessfully) merge onto the freeway!"

[Car Prep 57]

We had one insurance arsepick a few years back who returned his original rental after a couple of days (trashed, of course) because of some fictional problem with it. A few days later he did the same thing (again, trashed to the hilt). I enlighted the counter crew that what this shithead was doing was trading in each time simply to get another clean car, and I REFUSED to clean another one for this motherfucker. They made him keep this third rental until his own heap was fixed.

Being an employee doesn't mean you have to put up with being walked over.

[freeatlast]

Originally Posted by Car Prep 57

Being an employee doesn't mean you have to put up with being walked over.

Depends on who your BM is and if s/he has a spine or not.

[freeatlast]

Originally Posted by Car Prep Girl

I'm curious WHERE this kind of behaviour is tolerated, and why there isn't more of a stink brought about my employees and customers alike.
At the ERAC I work for cars are brought in constantly for service, and when a car has ANYTHING wrong with it, it is serviced immediately from the tire pressure light to a missing plastic part inside the vehicle, that doesnt affect safety at all. If it doesn't look presentable, or if it isn't safe, it is repaired before it is rented out. Even if it means canceling a reservation.

If you are being honest about the conditions at your branch then you are the exception and not the rule. Congrats on finding one of the very few good branches.

I know most cars at my branch were approx 10K miles overdue for oil changes and other routine maintenance. One car was rented with an airbag recall. From the posts on this website, I'd say more branches run like mine than yours.