Loaner Vehicles...
 

I keep reading thread after thread about how y'all are mistreated by your dealers when it comes to a rental/loaner. Am I the only one out here that has not had a problem at all when it comes to this?!? First loaner was a Pontiac Grand Prix GXP, which was quite nice and powerful. The second is attached. My car is in for service/warranty issues for "that which we don't speak of (apparently)," and I doubt I'll get it back anytime soon. Sure, I miss her, but it's really not all that bad.

Anyone have positive or negative feedback for me regarding loaners/rentals?
https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.p...chmentid=55012

as i mentioned in another thread my dealer has a fleet of loaner cars mostly mazdas. never had a complaint although some are not that clean.

Yes (negative). I usually get a Mazda3 which is fine but I've gotten a Nissan Quest before. That's just not cool. And my dealer sells Porsches too, and the guy has told me they get Mazda3's also. If I drove a Porsche every day I'd be po'd that suddenly I had to take a 3 to work.

I always ge a Taurus at my dealer. It's almost scary how it handles -- it almost feels like I imagine a SUV feels.

My dealer uses Enterprise :( So far I've gotten a Nissan Sentra and a Suzuki something that looks like the Matrix, both cars were crap. My Acura dealer was better, at least I get a RSX for my loaner.

i just dropped off my car and got a full size quad cab f-150 4x4 pick up....

wha tdo you mean "things we dont speak of"?

wow,
they gave you something that gets worse gas milage than your 8. ironic dont you think.

beers

I work for Enterprise rent-a-car. A lot of people complain about having to drive a neon or focus or whatnot. It's like, I'm handing you keys to a $15,000+ machine for $30/day and your complaining to me? I understand it, but it's not the end of the world, just for a week or two, use a car other than your own to get to work and back. We do offer much more expensive cars than the ones they get, they just choose not to fork out the extra cash for them.

-Rupes

Negative...

When one of my wheels cracked, my car was at the dealership for about 5 days (waiting for a new wheel to come in).

I asked about a loaner and the tech said that they didn’t issue loaners. He said I'd have to go out and rent a car myself, out of my own pocket, and that I'd have to send a receipt for it to Mazda and that they would reimburse me.

That’s a big inconvenience!

Did they cover the wheel under warranty? If so how do they explain the free loaner program?

Refering to this whole recall issue coming up. Another post that went on and on and on and on about it had been closed. SO... I got the impression that we were all tired of hearing everyones opinion about the recall. = "that which we don't speak of (apparently). " :D

The dealer I was going to uses Enterprise also, and my opinion is SUPER NEGATIVE.

The first car I received was a Taurus...Ok. The next car was a Neon....CRAP(And would not let me pay $10 more for a better car.) Next was a Nissan Sentra, all of the seats were stained, there was cigarette ash all over, they sprayed some armor all on the dash and console with out cleaning it first. So, there were little armor all soaked dust balls, and piles of soaked cigarette ash all over the place. The lady that got me the car drove it up to the door, so she knew what it looked like inside. I had to get to a meeting at work, so I did not have time to argue. When I called to complain about it later, I was also passed along the great news that my car would not be done, because the tech didn't show up. So, the service manager told Enterprise to give me another car. The new car was a much better Colorado pickup truck, clean and new.....the only problem? It had less that a 1/4 of a tank of gas...alot less. I drove away, made it two blocks and it started beeping LOW FUEL....and I hate trucks.

Thanks for letting me vent and rant.

I've never gotten a loaner car ever. The dealership guy said the car must be in for 24 hours before they could give a loaner. On one occasion, I came in 11:00am and they said I should've came in at 9:00am so it would've gave them enough time to fix the car. Since I came in late I don't qualify for a loaner because I didn't give them enough time to fix the car. That was before I knew that it would take 2 days to fix the problem. And then the ride home, although after speaking with the manager that I live a 5 minute drive away they had a shuttle take me to the train station and dropped me off there. This even though I repeatedly told them that it is actually further from my house and it would take me 20 minutes to walk home.
But wait, the story doesn't even end there. It seemed that soem dumbass didn't know what they were doing and messed up on the installation. I had to return to the same goddam dealership and get it fixed again. Again they didn't give me a loaner. Again they dropped me off at the train station even though it was closer to my house. And again they told me to take the train there so the shuttle can pick me up.
It's been a couple of weeks and I'm waiting for the survey thingy to come home. I can't wait to give them all zeroes. Oh yeah, the Dealership name was Quirk Mazda of Quincy Massachusetts, avoid at all costs. Seriously.

Sorry Smoke Honda, that is worse than getting a crappy one....I didn't think about it that way. However, if they are going to offer it at all...like it says on the window sticker for my car...then they should do it.

There should be a hotline for use to report bad dealerships.

Mine uses enterprise. The first time i got a liberty, but had to pay 20 extra bucks. The 2nd time they had nothign for me and i was stuck in the shittiest car i've ever been in EVER a dodge neon. How the hell do i go from driving a 30k car to a dodge frickin neon? Well i took the car figuring it would be for a day at the most, 6 1/2 days later i returned the neon and also kindly told enterprise what i think of it. No cd player, no power windows, no power locks, i stored some stuff in the back seat and to get to it i would have to reach around and unlock the fricken door. Are you kidding me? I bring in my 30k car and they give me this?

I am not happy at all. The guys at enterprise are a great bunch, but i'm never getting stuck in a neon again.

Guess I should be thankful for the Taurus!

Yeah smoke i used to live in boston, Quincy is not really a meca of mass trans, is there even a T there?

I have a Mazda Tribute right now.

well i've never gotten a loaner car either, my dealer uses enterprise...totally unfair and they took so long to get me one that my car was all ready done! so i was stuck driving my dad's denali around...which isn't too bad! at least it's not a taurus ...

:rolleyes: ;) but the taurus handles better :p

Haha... when I got into my accident (hit a drunk driver who ran a red) I had to get a rental and I wound up with a Dodge Neon. When I was at Enterprise the guy bringing me to my car asked me "so what car of yours is in the shop?" I said "Mazda RX-8". He lets out a low whistle and goes "Wow, this is a downgrade."

I had to drive that piece of crap for 2.5 weeks too. T_T

The time I brought it in for something under warranty though, they gave me a Ford Taurus. I was hoping for a Mazda 3, but I don't think I'm ever going to get anything other than a Taurus. Sigh.

When I had my rubber window molding replaced (the inside part that sort of wraps around the window when it's down), I was given a Mazda 3 by the dealership. It actually wasn't too bad, and even though I drove it over 50 miles in mostly city traffic, I overfilled the gas tank when I put in 2 gallons!!

Just had a Mazda 2 (with 12 miles on the clock) for the day while my 8 had it's 1st service.

Every, and I mean EVERY car I have ever gotten from Enterprise was dirty to the point I didn't want to sit on the seat, smelled of cigarette smoke, and had less than 1/4 tank of gas.

It must be awful to work for a Company that cares so little about their customers. I shudder to think how they must treat their employees......... :(

my loaners are always like the ford tauras and things like that

Yea, Quincy station. They charge you two tokens to enter. SOBs

Uh, sorry pal. You're so-called "handing me the keys to a $15,000+ machine" is no reason to bow down to you given that I just handed the dealership you are affiliated with the keys to my $35,000 machine. Dealers should be required to give loaners of a comparable quality to the one being serviced. And we shouldn't have to fork over cash for the privilege. I already forked over a lot of cash for a car that shouldn't need service in the first place!

My Jag dealership uses Enterprise, but at least they are Jaguar rentals (albeit X-Types). Although I have to agree with other posters here. Generally, Enterprise cars are poorly maintained and dirty. Just MHO from my experience.

Enterprise is known to be one of the best executive training programs for a student out of college, offering a a decent paying starting wage, with fast advancement opportunities far exceeding most companies due to their not promoting outside of Enterprise employees. ALL positions within Enterprise are filled by people who start at the very bottom, including Andy Taylor, the president of the company, who went through their executive training program.. I think it's kind of a dumb and ignorant thing to say, that Enterprise doesn’t care about their employee’s or customers. Enterprise cares enough about their customers (and employees) to have gone from bottom to the top car rental company in the country (and now the world) because of that very reason.

If you have ever had the honor of renting from another company, you would prob complain about the same things. We have our cars on average from 6-8 months because of how poorly people treat them. There is nothing we can do when a person decides to smoke in the car, or has B.O, or spills food in the car, besides clean it as well as we can. With the rate we turn them over, it should generally not be a problem for too long.

As far as the car being dirty. I have NEVER once rented a dirty car to someone. We have two car preps who spend the entire day cleaning them so they generally come out looking like they have been detailed. I don't know how this changes with Enterprises in dealerships where they are prob the only person cleaning the cars/working the desk. And if you told them it was dirty i'd imagine they would clean it.

Also, we're the only rental company that handles complaints directly at the office. When you checked the car in, the question is asked, "how was our service," and "what could we do to make it better." Next time complain about the quality and watch what happens. I've voided $300+ bills to customers if it's a valid complaint. You can continue to slam them on this board, but I offer a simple solution, complain if you have a bad experience.

I guess I'm just very surprised because i don't generally hear bad stories not getting resolved. I have customers come in every day that tell me stories about how they are "lifelong" renters from us because of the positive things we've done to help them in the past.

If your dealership isn't giving you a comparable car, that's Enterprises fault? Guess who made the contract up for the cheapo cars? I'd complain to the dealership, cause Enterprise can carry any arsenal of cars if the dealership is willing to pay for them. But I’m sure you knew that from you Jag experience. The resaon why the dealership has enterprise in there is so they don't have to rent out their own cars and they pay Enterprise nearly nothing to have them rent out cheap cars. cha-ching! :p

Their is a National Car Rental behind my dealer. They have an arrangement with them and I get a rental car. I've a had many different cars, all pretty decent. I've had a Chevy pickup, a Grand Cherokee and most recently a G35 sedan. No complaints here.

I dropped off my Rx8 at the dealer in the morning for the AC TSB and to have the tires looked at (fronts scalloped badly - 7000miles). They called me in the afternoon and told me they were trying to get in touch with the Mazda Rep regarding the tires and they would provide me with a loaner. I went after work to pick up the loaner...Chevy Aveo hatchback. Oh the humiliation. Better than no car though.

The complaint is not about Enterprise.

It is about the Mazda Dealers who take your 30K car for an indefinate period for recall work, and replace it with a 15K rental. Such a rental does not perform anything like the car we just left at the dealer.

Please take the time to imagine that some of us have monthly payments. We are still paying for the rx8 the whole time, but some dealerships see fit to "substitute" a lesser car while they "hold your car until they recieve instructions from Mazda"

So I have to ask how would YOU feel if you were on the other side of that conversation?

My dealership uses Hertz and they gave me a 2005 Mustang. Not to bad :-)

I should clarify, I have NOT had a bad rental experience.

My last rental/loaner was a Mazda 6 (not too bad, but not an RX-8)

...But I can definately sympathise with those who have had bad rental experiences, ...because I can imagine how I would feel in their place.

For those who care, the dealership which has been servicing my car is Oaktree Mazda in Santa Clara CA. I have yet to have a negative experience there. As long as that trend continues, I will keep taking my RX-8 back to them.