Jaunted

Lesson #1: Rental car companies in the 'burbs always jack up the prices.

Basically our options were a tiny flimsy red car aka the Death-Mobile for $69.95 a day; a Saab for $119 a day or a Nissan Pathfinder for $99.95 a day. Ridiculous. When we inquired about renting from Newark Airport to see if prices were cheaper, the Enterprise employee said only "deplaning passengers" can rent a car at that location. WTF?

Nevertheless, realizing work would be paying for the car and he had already saved them an airfare to the East Coast, hubby booked the Pathfinder.

The car looked alright and the Enterprise employee assured us there would be no problems as it was a brand-new car. But later when we tried to lower the passenger-side window, we found it to be stuck. Which really wasn't that big of a deal since it was cold as hell and raining non-stop.

Lesson #2: Whatever problem, big or small, return your rental car.

What happened next was totally not our fault and there is no way we could have foreseen this happening but it did. When husband arrived in bumblefuck PA (aka York), he tried to make the window go down again and to his, surprise it worked! But the problem was now it wouldn't go back up. No matter how many times he restarted the car and pushed on the up button, the window was stuck. Totally and utterly stuck. Then he had to drive three hours back to New Jersey in the rain with the window open. Can we say misery?

Lesson #3: Sometimes it pays to be nice.

When we returned the car to Enterprise, we were ready to complain with guns-a-blazing, not willing to take nothing but a refund. Maybe it was the rain which was still coming down non-stop but we were sorta tired when we got to the store. We simply said, the window was broken and we had to drive home three hours from Pennsylvania in the rain with a window open.

The employee checked it out and said she would talk to her branch manager about a full day's refund. Unfortunately, their computers were down (thanks to the rain) but they would call us later. And about an hour later, a manager called us back and took off an entire day's rental from our bill.

It doesn't change what happened but good to know that even in the 'burbs of Northern Jersey, people aren't going to stick it to you. At least not this time.

Tags: Car Rentals / Rental Car Hell / Enterprise

by juliana