Budget Car Rental

This is the first negative review I have ever written about a company. One star is far too many stars for how horrible our experience with this company has been. From pick up to drop off, every minute with this car and dealing with this company has been unpleasant. Not only did they put us in a dirty, unsafe, broken car, they also have treated us with nothing but disrespect the entire time. I have never seen a company in my life make it so obvious they care so little about their customers. I am a small business owner myself and I would be ashamed if I ever allowed a paying customer to experience what my family did dealing with this company. It started when I booked the car online I requested to have it six days with a return time of 5:00pm on the sixth day. My family was taking a trip up north and wanted five nights. We picked Up the car on the morning of our trip the woman was late, so my wife had to wait for her. That was fine, we understand people are sometimes running late. But she was very impatient with my wife. She did not walk the car with my wife and she did not inspect the car with my wife. Then she told my wife the car needed to be back at 9:00am on the sixth day. My wife explained we needed a later return time so we could have five nights. But she did not care. She told us it would be an additional charge. So our trip was now cut one day short. It was fine. We are a “glass half full” kind of family so we moved on. When we got in the car the dashboard steering wheel and front console were filthy. It was very gross. But we had our own Clorox wipes so we took care of it. About 2 miles into our drive a light came on informing us that the car required service. So we called the place we got the car from and she told us it was no big deal, probably from when they did the oil change. We have a two year old and a seven month old. We had a 400 mile trip ahead of us. We did not want to risk our kids lives in a car that was “probably” safe. We got about 250 miles into our trip and we hit a spot in Michigan that is very small and in the middle of no where. We were driving through some Construction and we heard some noise under the car. We figured it was rocks or gravel. But when the construction ended the car continued to make an awful noise. We pulled over and looked. There was a big plastic piece hanging between the front tires. The car was so low to the ground we could not get under it to really look at it. I tried using the tire jack to raise the car a little but it didn’t help. So we called the number on the pamphlet we were given. The boy who answered could not have seemed more annoyed with us. He never apologized or pretended to care. He interrupted my wife several times so he could transfer us to roadside assistance as fast as possible. Roadside assistance was very patience and apologetic towards us. They tried to help us but the only option was for us to go to an airport 15 miles in the opposite direction of where we were headed. the location was closed for the day. So we could hang out in the middle of nowhere for a day and loose another night of our trip, or we could drive the final hour or so of our trip and then come back tomorrow. Both these options were unacceptable. We called budget again and they explained to us if it wasn’t sparking it was fine to drive on. So we spent the rest our trip driving a car that made an insane amount of noise. It was very frustrating. It made it very hard to have a conversation, listen to the radio, and our kids really struggled to sleep in the car. It was also embarrassing. Once we got to our destination we did our best to just put this behind us and enjoy our trip. But the car ride hone was very difficult. We felt very stressed about what else was wrong with this car and how safe our children were. Again we came home a day early because the car had to be back by 9:00 am. When we explained this to rude lady she showed no sympathy and didn’t apologize. Such a bad experience. We rent cars a lot. We travel a lot. This is our first time using budget and it was so bad.

I have used Budget car rental for a while now and it has never let me down. Easy to book online, pick up car and drop off car. The staff are helpful and easy to work with. I always recommend Budget to my friends and family when they need to rent a car.

To be honest, the employee I dealt directly with at the location was the only redeeming factor here. The only reason I went with budget instead of Enterprise like we normally do was because it said I would get 10% back in amazon gift cards - I linked my account to the reservation but nothing ever came of it. God forbid you need to speak with customer service because the chances you can get someone from corporate or the local office on the phone are very slim. I was unable to resolve issues with getting the amazon gift card and unable to link my reservation to my budget account to use the application. The website is terrible and doesn't allow you to speak to a representative either. The rental smelt like marijuana for the full week we had it, the employee at the desk acknowledged this had been an issue with the vehicle before. Unfortunately there was nothing else on the lot in the same category or I'd have asked for an exchange right away. Instead, we had to buy air fresheners so the kids wouldn't smell like a Rastafarian party. No real issues with the vehicle itself but if I had know these things I would have stuck with tried and true Enterprise.

The van we rented was never vacuumed out or wiped down. My husband and I had to spend and hour and a half cleaning it before anything else, it had expired proof of insurance in the glove box, and the tag on the plate did not have the same plate number.

Was not greated. Was not informed of the contract. The lady was on the phone the whole time. Quickly dismissed me. And over charged me