I remain extremely disappointed with the repeated misinformation and false promises I received from this company throughout my rental. I had booked a large vehicle for my family, including space for a car seat, a bike trailer/stroller, bins, and luggage. Although I arrived about 30 minutes after my scheduled pickup, a vehicle was eventually found and released to me. I loaded up the family and began what should have been a mostly highway-based 5–6 hour drive.
Very quickly, my wife and I noticed unusually loud wind and road noise. We initially assumed it might be related to the moonroof shade, which was partly open, but when we attempted to close it, the shade caught on a loose piece of trim (hanging from the track) and would not fully shut. This wasn’t ideal at night but didn’t seem too problematic—or so we thought.
My hearing in my left ear started to feel muffled from the noise, and when I ran my hand along the driver-side door frame, I found a clear gap where the door wasn’t sealing. There was no warning light on the dash. Pulling the door inward did nothing, but lifting it slightly while pulling helped reduce the sound. Since the kids were asleep and we didn’t need gas, we continued to the hotel. Later that night, my father and I inspected the vehicle and realized the driver-side door hinges were loose. The door only sealed properly if lifted and closed with precision—and even then, the seal failed again after hitting a bump or driving over ~35 mph. This felt unsafe for highway driving.
The next day, in daylight, we still weren’t able to close the ‘moon’ roof shade completely and I did not want to force it close and be blamed for damage, so the interior got hot and the kids kept complaining about glare (in face and on iPad screens). We contacted Enterprise repeatedly and were assured many times that the issue would be resolved or the vehicle would be swapped out. However, every time I arrived at a location for the promised exchange, I heard one of three responses:
1. “We don’t see anything in our system (referring to a sort of vehicle swap reservation created by Enterprise cust. serv. personel), and we can’t help you.
2. “We don’t have any cars. Call the 1-800 number.”
3. “We can swap you into a smaller car.”
I was sent from branch to branch across multiple days of our trip, wasting vacation time and leaving my family behind each time. There was one employee (Troy I believe, at the Cincinnati airport), seemed he genuinely tried to help, but even he couldn’t resolve anything.
Meanwhile, we had to tolerate the noise and radiant heat/glare throughout our multi-state trip. The kids used headphones, and on the return drive I often had to physically pull the driver-side door upward while driving to reduce the noise so the kids could sleep. My arm reminded me the next day how strenuous that was.
When I returned the vehicle, I explained everything again, but not once did anyone from the “escalation” department contact me, despite multiple promises. I truly don’t feel the safety issues or the impact this had on our trip mattered to anyone. Nope, I’m not making this up, Conf. # 65735184. I guess we should add highway driving to the pre inspection of rental vehicles at this point and I should at least give them a 'star,' being that I was ~30min late to my reservation time.