To Kim and Anyone else interested,
I promised a couple of weeks ago I'd post what I thought of doing business with Americar. I've already posted it in transportation, but will copy it here. Note: it's one review, and I've personally seen acid reviews on things I found personally satisfactory. So take this for what it's worth. However....the copied review follows:
Don't do it. If you run into a few of my posts, you'll find I'm a mighty easy guy to please. I gave the Hojo ME three stars. I don't ask for much, just a product, a price on the same, and that both be as promised when I get there. I was quite happy to get a weekly rate of $62 ($87 and change with fees) for a sub compact the week of Sept. 20-26. On a funny side note, I've used Payless in the past and almost paid an extra $25 to go with the known entity. This would have been a mistake. Payless and Americar are in the same building, same cars. The contract I signed, along with the key chain and all literature, was marked "Payless/ Americar."
In truth, I paid what I was supposed to. But the hassle is not worth the price. First off, the line was enormous, which I found strange for a September. I found out over half the line was people who'd just rented their cars coming back in to complain about the condition of their car. My wait was right at 1 hour to see a service agent.
I was told I'd get a Geo Metro or equivilant. I didn't think anything could be lower on the scale than a Metro, so I accepted this. I never heard of a Sazuki Swift before, but that's what I got. Three cylinder (which I've also never heard of) plus manual steering and breaks. The driver's side seat was broken into a laying possion and I had to put a towel between me and the seat to drive upright. There were several damaged items (e.g. overhead light cover missing, shift cover missing, passenger side mirror broke).
At the counter, I received the most enormously painful and insulting pitch for insurance coverage I've ever witnessed. The car came out to ten bucks a day, the insurance they wanted to give me was $15. When I told her no several times and she wouldn't lay off, I finally said "I want the car at $62 a week and nothing else." The woman basically told me I was foolish with a hurricane coming.
I drive rentals two to three times a month. I've never seen contracts like these. I signed twelve (yes, twelve) forms basically saying the same thing, which was if anything was done to the car, I'd not only pay for it, but I'd pay the daily rental rate at the full, normal rate of $47 per day and that they had 90 days to get it into the shop. It just went on and on, with this woman making me sign things and telling me about the hurricane, etc. etc. etc.
She then gives me a mark off sheet and says "mark anything wrong with the car bigger than a quarter and bring this back if there's anything wrong." While I was gone, my wife stood off to the side. By the time I got back, the lady had my wife convinced that our insurance wouldn't cover the car if there was a hurricane. She then told us the latest projections where that Isidor would stall over Florida. While I was fighting with her, people were coming by *****ing about their cars, in a steady stream. In the end, I think I counted over a dozen folks who paid the extra fifteen a day, either just to get out of there, or because they were sufficiently scared.
As a final insult, she asked me what my deductable was. I told her $500, and she said since we wouldn't take the insurance, they were taking $500 as deposit from my card and would put it back within 30 days if nothing was done to the car. Finally, they made me sign a blank chage card.
At that point, I kept the car (why, I don't know), after sufficiently threatening the manager of Americar if he did anything out of sorts, he'd hear from me. I called my CC company (Citibank), who reassured me that Americar couldn't make me sign over certain rights. They also agreed to call Americar, speak to the manager, let them know of my unhappiness and that I'd put in a pre-emptive challenge to anything but my weekly rate and normal fees.
I've seen people review things here and disagreed. Other's may have enjoyed simple experiences with Americar. So this is only my opinion. But I'll never give them, nor Payless, another cent. I am, however, happy to give my own two cents if anyone has any further questions. The thing that really caught my eye was that almost every blasted person that rented a car in front of me came back in to complain about the condition of the car, due to the heavy warnings given about not getting insurance. I'm used to the insurance pitches, but these folks used tactics that would make a timeshare salesman proud, and they simply lied to my wife once they determined she might be easier to sway than I. The vacation was great, but these people pushed me.
