expiredserra | Staff posted Aug 17, 2023 05:10 PM
Item 1 of 3
Item 1 of 3
expiredserra | Staff posted Aug 17, 2023 05:10 PM
Hertz Electric Car Rentals: Reserve 2 or More Days,
(Participating Locations)Get 1 Day Free
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One tip - if you call the number on the back of any Visa credit card you have, they have pre-negotiated a flat rate of $80 for a tow up to 5 miles: https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/...enefit.pdf
The icing on the cake is how they still charged us for the entire rental period and they charged us for roadside assistance. Over $1,000 for 10 miles of driving. Plus the tow truck that ended up costing $200 out of pocket (which was a bargain)
All they offered us was a coupon for a free day on our next rental. Nothing else. Plus it was almost impossible to find an agent who would respond by voice.
* Your best bet is to blast them in tweets and they will finally get back to you and offer you, while nothing worth while unless you rent often.
However, charging at public chargers is about the same price as gas when you compare equivalent vehicles, i.e. F-150 Lightning to F-150 ecoboost. You're paying just as much and getting less convenience, and that's not an SD.
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One tip - if you call the number on the back of any Visa credit card you have, they have pre-negotiated a flat rate of $80 for a tow up to 5 miles: https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/...enefit.pdf [visa.com]
I've also had to wait multiple times recently because the car hadn't been cleaned, and then offered a car that had obviously been smoked in (my 9-year-old found a half-empty beer can and a lighter in the seat-back pocket!). Those vehicles should just be immediately retired from the fleet: there is no amount of chemical cleaners/deodorizers that will get the smell out, so I smelled like smoke and febreeze for the whole week
I was surprised that at a small in-town location they had all the Tesla's, a Chevy Bolt EUV, and even a couple Polestars.
The icing on the cake is how they still charged us for the entire rental period and they charged us for roadside assistance. Over $1,000 for 10 miles of driving. Plus the tow truck that ended up costing $200 out of pocket (which was a bargain)
All they offered us was a coupon for a free day on our next rental. Nothing else. Plus it was almost impossible to find an agent who would respond by voice.
* Your best bet is to blast them in tweets and they will finally get back to you and offer you, while nothing worth while unless you rent often.
After almost 2 hours of waiting we finally got to the counter and got our car. Expecting to be told which spot our car was in or to just go pick any car in a particular aisle, but instead was told to go to another waiting area in the garage. Once there, about 15 people waiting for their car. Some Hertz guy would show up every now and then and take our reservation ticket and sit it on an old wood table in some sort of crude manual system. We waited and waited. Every 10 minutes or so, a car would drive up and some lucky person would get their car, usually those who rented a car, not an SUV. We were told all their cars were being washed and they couldn't control which kind of cars came out. So, after another 1.5 hours of waiting in the hot, humid garage, an SUV that was WAY BIGGER than we rented drove up. It was ours. At this point, I'd have taken a horse and carriage, but it wasn't pleasant driving this large SUV around Oahu (just 2 of us, the SUV seats 8).
Once we got back after our trip, I tried contacting the main Hertz customer service, but wound up only getting the Honolulu manager who basically didn't care. While we were there, I tried renting from AVIS nextdoor, and when I told him out terrible and crowded the Hertz office was, he said it's like that every day. Keep in mind they have at least 10 counters and at most, 3 were in use (some agents finally came back from lunch).
I don't know what happened to Hertz -- they used to care. Now, they're just cheap and don't care.
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I was surprised that at a small in-town location they had all the Tesla's, a Chevy Bolt EUV, and even a couple Polestars.
They offered me a Bolt or a Polestar 2 initially. Both are nice cars, but there's no way I'm taking either of them on a road trip without doing some research. The Bolt, with its 50kW charger limit is a no-go for road trips. The Polestar 2 would have been nice, but....Electrify America. Meh.
I ended up with a Tesla Model 3 Standard Range. The back seat was smaller than I wanted, but it swallowed all the luggage without any problems, it drove great, had decent enough range (really only about 170 miles at 70mph and 100F+ temps), and came with the fantastic Tesla Supercharger network. Also, to ding Hertz again, the car didn't come with the J1772 adapter, which we almost needed at a critical moment. It did have the mobile 110V charger though.
170 miles sounds pitiful, but after 2-3 hours of driving, someone is either tired, hungry, or has to pee, so we're really not stopping any more than we would normally do. One thing that sucked was that the car was only charged to 10% when we picked it up. Really Hertz? Do you rent out ICE cars with only one gallon of gas in them? Fortunately though, I didn't have to charge it up before returning it and brought it back with 25%.
So the car was great (I'd never driven a Tesla before), but the EV rental experience was kinda sucky.
However, charging at public chargers is about the same price as gas when you compare equivalent vehicles, i.e. F-150 Lightning to F-150 ecoboost. You're paying just as much and getting less convenience, and that's not an SD.
In a gas car it's mainly what's your MPG in an EV It's what's your battery capacity AND your efficiency. At least that's what it should be. I know that's the first number I look at when looking at buying another EV.
I'd rather have an EV that's more efficient than longer range. Especially one that can charge quickly on DC charging. Usually a level 2 public charger is 6.6kW/h or 7.2kW/h. So having a more efficient EV will get you further down the road when compared to a less efficient EV when charging the same time frame.
and that's where you'll be able to recover your initial costs faster and spend less time charging at public chargers. you won't be as reliant on public charging if you have charging at home.
and it can work for someone who only has a level 1 (120v) charging at home.
However, charging at public chargers is about the same price as gas when you compare equivalent vehicles, i.e. F-150 Lightning to F-150 ecoboost. You're paying just as much and getting less convenience, and that's not an SD.
But still better than all kinds of metrics people use to justify what they buy
The icing on the cake is how they still charged us for the entire rental period and they charged us for roadside assistance. Over $1,000 for 10 miles of driving. Plus the tow truck that ended up costing $200 out of pocket (which was a bargain)
All they offered us was a coupon for a free day on our next rental. Nothing else. Plus it was almost impossible to find an agent who would respond by voice.
* Your best bet is to blast them in tweets and they will finally get back to you and offer you, while nothing worth while unless you rent often.
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