Reader rental car woes: 'Like someone left a dead fish in the Orlando sun'

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Ask and ye shall receive.

That’s what happened when I recounted my rental car woes recently — a red Tesla Model 3 where someone must have taken the pot in potpourri a bit too literally when they were selecting air fresheners, plus the bedbug that tried to hitch a ride with me in a different rental car. I then asked for readers to share their own experiences.

Based on the feedback, things can get fairly dicey when a trip involves a stop at the car rental counter.

Dozens of you stepped up to let me know that my situation wasn’t all that unique, especially the odor part. One reader described a car that smelled “like someone exploded a dog inside.”

Charlie Colombo said he’d rather the rental companies just provide clean, nice-riding cars to begin with rather than taking care of him later when the car falls short of expectations. Oh, and that heavy marijuana smell, he knows all about that.

“I literally walk through a multitude of vehicles (five to six, sometimes more) with the representative until finally finding one that that won’t get me fired for walking into my business meeting smelling like a weed shop. … It has become expected that if you rent a car it likely … involved heavy marijuana usage. Which brings me to my next point. This is not legal. It should be enforced with fines and potentially a ban from renting another car. Yes, marijuana is legal in many states but not while driving a car! Clearly the smell is not easy to get out.”

David Tubbs, of Port Sanilac, Michigan, knows marijuana isn’t the only problem odor. He had rented a Chrysler minivan with “Stow n Go” seating in Colorado on one trip:

“Over the course of several days, we noticed an odor in the car. When we looked for the source of the odor, we opened the stow and go portion and found a dirty diaper. From then on, we called it the go and stow. We did complain and wrote the company, but no relief was given.”

The hour waiting at the airport in Orlando just to get his car wasn’t the worst part of one reader’s experience:

“The kids were about to put the luggage in the back and said the car smelled. I got to the car and discovered it didn’t just smell, it was putrid rotten. Like someone left a dead fish in the Orlando sun for the last week. We flagged down the lot attendant and when she got to the car, her knees literally buckled. I said no way are we taking that nor getting back in that line. She said take whatever car you want, which ended up being a Mustang GT. But how that car ever got cleared to be in rotation is a total shock.”

I see your bedbug and raise you fire ants

Sherwood Crump had a rough trip returning from his father-in-law’s funeral in Florida in 2002, starting with an emergency landing at the airport in Tampa after one of the plane’s engines blew during takeoff. His wife had no intention of flying back to Detroit after that.

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“We rented a car for a one-way rental from the rental car agency that we had used while in Florida for the funeral. As we began our drive up I-75 in a thunderstorm and in the dark, my wife noticed that the floor mats were covered in sand. We drove for another 20 miles or so when I noticed that the sand had tiny red dots in it. We stopped along the side of the highway, and upon close inspection, found that the floor mats weren’t just covered in sand but had fire ants. Needless to say, we drove back to the rental car agency at the Tampa airport and traded the car for one with no problems. We had to wait for about an hour for that car to be ready.”

The nightmare continued after they drove through the remnants of a hurricane and spent the night in Atlanta. When they finally returned to Detroit Metro to drop that car off, the office was closed, forcing a call to a 24-hour service line to find where to drop the car.

“Because we were (an) hour late, the rental car company charged me for another full day’s rental. I had to threaten to dispute the entire rental fee with my credit card company before the company removed the additional fee. If the rental period was adjusted to (the) time that we departed with the fire ant-free car (rather than when the original car had been picked up), we would not have been late,” Crump wrote.

Trouble in paradise

Another reader signed up for a timeshare presentation in order to get a free car rental, and used it on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

“The car was a compact four-door, nothing special, except it had a sweet smell in the car. I thought it was an air freshener, and off I went to a restaurant to get something to eat that evening. I came back to the car, opened the door, the interior light came on and I saw hundreds of cockroaches scatter under the seats.”

He unpacked his clothes outside the car and put them in plastic bags because he had to keep the car for the day.

“I didn’t see cockroaches for the rest of the drive, but I kept the interior light on,” he said.

Notably, he also didn’t tell the rental car company when he dropped it off.

A reader from Bellaire, Michigan, recalled her honeymoon in Hawaii 37 years ago:

“We stowed our luggage in our condo then went to dinner. It was dark when we got back in the car, but the dome light came on and a lot of little bugs scuttled around and hid. I sat on the edge of my seat, holding the leftovers, while my husband drove. We returned the car the next day to trade for one without bugs. The guy at the agency said the next one would probably have bugs also as we were in the tropics and it was common. I told him he would get that car back too if I found any, we didn’t. The night before we left, we packed our luggage into the car and set off a bug bomb. Didn’t want to take the critters home.”

Bugs weren't the concern for some.

One reader, who had rented a car in Springfield, Missouri, was “well on the way to Kansas City when my son placed his hand in the inside door handle only to discover a syringe. It was too late to return for a different car. I think we received a partial refund.”

Car rental issues on Hawaii crept up more than a few times.

Richard Kudrak recalled a trip there about 30 years ago when he was a drilling naval reservist. He’d reserved a car with air-conditioning but got a hassle after declining the collision damage waiver. He was told he wouldn't be able to leave the island if there was damage to the vehicle.

"Short of having me arrested, I don't know how that would have happened. After waiting over one hour for my car I was directed to my vehicle's parking space. I was stunned to see it was a Jeep with no doors. This was more appropriate for four-wheeling around the island than my intended use. When I complained to the rental agent, I was told no cars were available and I would have to wait for one to come in and be cleaned. She also said I should be extremely pleased because a Jeep was considered an upgrade. After another one-hour delay I was given the car which I had reserved and had no further issues.”

Art Seaman, of Kittanning, Pennsylvania, had rented a car on Kauai with no windshield wipers in 2018:

“All was well on the sunny island until a rainstorm kept us immobilized for three hours in a downpour. We got a full refund. In 2021, we rented a car in Arizona and couldn’t figure out how to open the gas cap. A secret release was found on the door panel. A helpful teenager helped us find it. Why aren’t all cars standard on that detail?”

I’ve wondered that myself.

Charlie Miller, of Shady Shores, Texas, recalled only two bad experiences in 27 years of traveling all over the world, logging about 3 million air miles and renting cars in Europe, southeast Asia and North America. There was a stripped-down, but new Toyota Yaris he’d gotten about 20 years ago that was so noisy, “with rattles everywhere,” he refused multiple Yarises after that on trips.

On a work trip to Philadelphia, he’d “rented from Avis at the airport, and they had a feature on leaving the returned car in the lot, with keys in the car. An email receipt always followed. I had been traveling for three months there, and when I showed up the following week to pick up my car, they asked me where last week's rental was. I was able to get a car, and my admin straightened it out with Avis. Turns out their security cameras caught someone stealing the car, right after I got out. For the next seven years, until I retired, I never used that feature again.”

Mike Tavarozzi said, “I once had a rental from Hertz that I used to take clients on a weekend business trip from Detroit to (New York City). Halfway there, in (Pennsylvania), I got a flat and was able to pull off on an exit. I told my clients to grab a coffee while I changed the tire.

"Unfortunately, the wheels had locking lugs, and the lug key was nowhere to be found. I called Hertz and their solution was to flatbed a replacement vehicle and take my rental away.

"Five hours later, they finally showed up, and needless to say my clients weren’t very happy. I didn’t score any points with them that trip.”

Lindsay, in Oakland Township, Michigan, recalled a rental last year that cost her insurance company $1,500. She has a few suspicions about rental car company ethics.

“We received the biggest piece of crap — a small poverty spec Hyundai crossover which stunk, had a cracked windshield, felt grimy, didn’t even seem to drive straight and had 70,000 miles on it. They basically had a take-it or leave disposition, claiming their inventory was so tight, and since we thought it would be short term, we just accepted it. The alternative was finding a ride an hour each way to Flint or Detroit’s airport for more selection. … I called customer service after the rental, waited on hold for 30 minutes, and I could tell they couldn’t have cared less, so I dropped the issue.”

The waiting is the hardest part

Some of your stories were about exceedingly long waits just to get a car. That’s what happened to a reader at the airport in Atlanta.

“If you’ve never been to the rental car complex at the Atlanta airport, it is a three-story building with all of the rental car companies on different floors and a massive parking garage with all of the rental cars. There are very few amenities in the building. There are bathrooms, but very little seating and nowhere to get anything to eat.

"That initial wait of less than one hour turned into two, then three and eventually six hours before I was finally able to get a car. While I had hoped to have a midday drive down I-75 to Macon seeing the Georgia pines on the drive, I ended up making the trip in darkness and getting to my destination far later than hoped for.”

Another reader was at Detroit Metro Airport a couple of weeks ago and had made a rental reservation three weeks prior.

“On the shuttle bus from the terminal the driver warned us to have patience. At the Avis lot the line for cars reached outside. My wait in line was two hours to reach the desk. I was given a paper form and told to see the attendant outside. There was another line there and 30 minutes standing in cold and wind before I got a car.”

Jayson Goodman writes that he was in Fort Myers, Florida late on March 5 and had to wait in a long line.

“Due to exhaustion, I did not follow my simple, own car rental rules, and failed to ask for a newer vehicle with low mileage and Florida plates. What we got was a beat-up, red Hyundai Tucson that had an oily, thin film that covered all the glass and exterior while the inside was dirty (beverage holders had a sticky substance all over, it reeked of cigarette smoke, and all the windows were smudged). We should’ve returned to the rental counter but did not want to stand in another long line where there were only two attendants. We just wanted to get to our hotel due to the late hour. Once on our way to the hotel, I could barely see out of the windshield so just about emptied the fluid reservoir; we had to open the windows due to the acrid smell.”

The vehicle also pulled to the left at around 50 mph, and there was significant vibration. At the hotel, “we noticed all four tires were not aligned, and the tread was worn off all four tires.”

Goodman complained but isn’t confident of a resolution. He fears a dangerous car was likely put back in rotation.

Quite a few of you also reported what you felt were bait-and-switch tactics, bogus charges or damage that shouldn’t have been attributed to you. A couple of the situations were also quite involved or were more like requests to investigate and wouldn’t lend themselves to this format. I’m going to hold off on including any of those for now. Instead, I’ll leave you with a tale from Free Press columnist Neal Rubin about his “memorable-for-the-wrong-reasons rental experience.” It was in Florida in the early 1990s:

“I’d picked up a Ford Taurus, only to find out that it stalled at freeway speeds. But wait — that wasn’t the bad part.

"As an apology, the rental company upgraded me to a Chrysler New Yorker. Stylin’, baby. The problem was, New Yorkers of that year had a flaw that even our auto writers didn’t know about yet.

"Driving to a spring training baseball game in West Palm Beach, at a point where two freeways converge, the guy in front of me made a panic stop and I had to do the same. Good news: the brakes worked fine. Bad news: the car locked itself into the equivalent of park, and wouldn’t shift back into gear.

"Within minutes, there was a huge backup behind me. Tourists and locals were united in being furious at that guy in the white sedan who’s clogging everything and won’t get his idiot self out of the way. Horns, shrieks, middle fingers.

"I was doing all I could, which was nothing. And through the radio, which worked fine, via a helicopter hovering overhead, came the traffic report — about me. I wasn’t sure whether to run away or get out and bow.”

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.