Poor Quality with Budget car hire

[Oceansplasher]

I wasn't going to post this, just contact Roger and team to advise, as most times we only post when we are not happy, but decided to mention on forum.

We hired a 7 seater SUV through Budget for 2 weeks in October from Orlando MCO. Had previously had 2 hires of same vehicle through Dollar with great quality vehicles but this time Budget were cheaper and thought I would try them (Big mistake). When at the airport, they gave me a banged up, scratched to hell Ford Explorer with 30,000 on clock and filthy inside.

Straight away said no and wanted a different vehicle. What did they do but give me another Ford Explorer with a few less miles on it and a few less scratches!! Decided to take it (with a long sigh knowing I had made a wrong decision in going with them in first place) and we all loaded up and drove off. Very quickly learned something serious wrong with the brakes and it didn't feel right, so day after drove all the way back to airport to have an argument with them. They did apologise and I left with a Dodge Caravan, still with scratches down one side and on bonnet, but it felt better. We had an elderly member of our group who struggled to get into and out of the Ford, and the 2 adults had to climb over seats to get in the back. So this is something to bear in mind if you have group of six plus luggage. Caravan took it all easily in its stride, the SUV was rubbish. (Although previously had Chrysler Aspens that were great!!)

So we spent the remainder of the trip with a Dodge Caravan, not what we had paid for but it worked well and clearly wasn't too old. Budget just run the vehicles into the ground or until the auctions tell them what vehicles they want for the auction. Dollar clearly run a newer fleet. I guess you do get what you pay for. Budget by name and by nature [msnsad]

We still had a great holiday though, even though we spent a couple of days trying to sort vehicles out.

[Lesley S]

We must be lucky then because every time we hire from Budget, the cars have been virtually brand new. The last one being in March/April and had just over 500 miles on the clock.

Dollar has been our worst for hiring...smokey cars, refused 2 before we decided on the last one, tyres bald.. Alamo charged us for something we never wanted...got money back in end.

Glad you had a good holiday though

[DISNEYDIVA]

This is what we got two weeks ago from Budget @ Old Town - could not believe our luck [msntongue]

[SteveandJan]

I have used them a few times and have never had any problems

[kitch50]

We had a catalogue of problems when we used Budget last October so we won't be using them again.

[Jill]

To be honest we have hired from Budget at Orlando and not had any problems was even given a low mileage Prius a couple of years ago when they did not have the class I had ordered.

[ellie]

Sorry to hear about that, Oceansplasher (what a great name! [msnwink])

Unfortunately, these things do happen from time to time, but thankfully it is rare. We picked up a Budget car from Tampa in June and it was brand new, so it is possible.

Glad you didn't let it spoil your holiday.
[msnsmile2]

[Katys Grandad]

I'm sure the economic situation has affected car rental companies like everything else.

I've noticed that I don't get new or almost new vehicles anything like as often as I used to irrespective of which company I go with. It also seems to me that they're holding onto them much longer before replacing them so higher mileage is common these days.

I don't use Budget anymore but that's for other reasons.

[Jill]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Katys Grandad
I'm sure the economic situation has affected car rental companies like everything else.

I've noticed that I don't get new or almost new vehicles anything like as often as I used to irrespective of which company I go with. It also seems to me that they're holding onto them much longer before replacing them so higher mileage is common these days.

[/quote]

Have noticed the same - our trip in September we saw several cars with much higher milage (into 30K+) than in the past - this also was reflected in the state of the interiors which needed an intensive valet.

[Tony G]

We had a catalogue of issues when we used Budget in 2007, including them supplying a shoddy vehicle that required servicing and flat-out lying to me when I went to get a replacement & keeping us waiting two hours before leaving the airport after a long trip (we had a young child and his granddad with us at the time).

I swore I'd never rent from them again.