Hertz Don't It? (Northwest Adventure Part 1)

Just got back last week from a trip to Oregon & Vancouver BC to attend the wedding of my nephew Warren and his lovely bride Dena and to see my niece Paullllla off to her new adventure as a marketing major at the University of British Columbia. There is a lot to cover and I am sure you will be hanging on my every word.

Ya right.

The first issue that comes to mind is my rental car. Despite that fact that I did not have to get the car until three days into the trip, up to that point things had gone quite well. Everyone had arrived and were in good health. Nina had put on a terrific rehearsal dinner with rave reviews. We were a mere day away from Warren & Dena's nuptuals.

I had decided to rent from Hertz because they tend to have newer cars in better condition and my brother-in-law Sam had a coupon for me to borrow. I managed to rent a full size car for 8 days and the tab was about $200. Not bad eh?

I rented from an HLE (Hertz Local Edition) to avoid the added taxes that are put on rentals that are picked up at the airport. I thought this was a smart move. Save money, the place was closer to my sister-in-law's house where we were staying, I had no cares at all. At noon I had my niece Julie drive Nina and I to the HLE to pick up the car. We had a brand new Ford (who incidentally owns Hertz) Taurus waiting for us. The car had barely 2000 miles on it and I thought it would be a comfortable vehicle to transport us from Portland to Vancouver.

On the way back from the HLE I noticed that the temperature gauge was quickly moving to H. I asked myself if I wanted to take a risk driving this car on the 6 hour journey to Canada. I decided that if my car at home had the needle pointing on H I would take it to shop as soon as possible. I decided to take the car back and trade it for another one.

When I returned to the HLE I told them about the problem. They said they didn't have any more cars and would have to get one from another HLE. About a half hour later someone showed up with a Buick. While the pretty boy no brain Hertz agent did the paper work I went out to check out the car. It needed a good wash so I went back in and asked them if they could wash the car. They gave me a card for a free "Kaddie Kar Wash" which is one of those drive thru quick car wash stores. They said that they don't wash the cars.

When have you ever rented a car and it was clear when you picked it up? Was I at Hertz or Rent a Bucket of Spit? (nice image)

So I take the car back to the house and on the way I realize that this car is dirty on the inside as well as the out. They had not tried to clean it up at all since it's last return the day before (the previous renters paperwork was in the car). Pathetic. I called the Hertz 800 number and asked them if I exchanged the car at the Portland Airport would I have more cars available to choose from. Indiria the nice lady from Bangladesh asked what car I wanted. I told her I would be happy with a clean, correctly functioning Taurus, so she reserved one for me. At about 6:30 Nina and I ventured out to the airport to exchange the dirt bucket.

When we got the airport I told the attendent that I was exchanging the car. He called his manager over and the guy took down my story and said that he would file a complaint against the Hertz that I rented from. We went into terminal and waited for the next agent to become available. While we were waiting the guy behind me mentioned that people were going right up to the agents and bypassing the line to "ask questions". I told him that those people are just far better human beings than he and I and were deserving of being first. Then I told him that perhaps I was delirious because this had been the third time I had been in line at a Hertz that day. He was pretty surprised, you could tell he had high expectations from Hertz as I did.

It was finally our shot and the agent was very accomodating. Eventhough I was sick of telling the same story over and over somehow I thought I would get something back for my pain. She offered us a Ford Escape (Ford's compact SUV) for the same rate as the Taurus. After checking the car out in the lot we happily agreed. Hertz finally made the right call from a customer service standpoint. The Escape turned out to be a very smart vehicle that I am considering purchasing in the future. Paula's dad also liked it because he got to shove a bunch of the crap he bought for her to take up to University of BC.

We left the airport at 8pm (note this for future post) and went back to the house.

to be continued...