Rent-A-Wreck review: Car Rental

In the spring of 2015 I reserved a minivan from Rent-A-Wreck. Soon after making the reservation I was contacted by a customer service rep. telling me that if I didn’t want to get one of their old cars I would have to pay an additional $200. I declined. A little while later the rep called me back and said she would have to cancel the reservation because I was not willing to pay the extra $200. She said this was a policy dictated by the head office. I told her I expected to get the best car available at the price quoted in the reservation. I checked the Rent-A-Wreck website at that time and could not find any mention of different pricing for different aged vehicles and the same vehicle for the same time was still available for the same price.

True to her word, the vehicle we received was in horrible shape – The car had over 200, 000 miles on it with major dents on all sides of the vehicle and duct tape on the side window. The tires were so bald that at one point while driving up a straight not-very-steep hill on a major highway the tires started to skid out.

The dirtiness and smell of the interior was truly disgusting. We had to air out the car before we could even get in. The car had not been vacuumed or cleaned and had less than half a tank of gas. We also had to pay a parking fee to a third party when we picked up the car.

While using the car it died and we had to call for road-side assistance to get a jump start. The battery had not been installed properly and we spent a day of our trip finding a mechanic and getting the electrical system looked at as well as one of the tires repaired. This resulted in us having to book an additional hotel since we could not make it to the hotel we had planned to stay in.

While we were dealing with getting the vehicle repaired the customer service rep at the Rent-A-Wreck head office insisted he would take care of us. When the repairs were complete and I asked for compensation for costs associated with dealing the repair of the vehicle he said he wouldn’t be able to help us and immediately his phone started cutting out and went dead and I never heard from him again. I tried emailing him the receipts for costs but never received a response. I also emailed my request for compensation to the office I rented the vehicle from and never received a response.