Enterprise Rent-A-Car review: Car rental in UK this summer

From: Lynn Pickles

Date: Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 1:23 PM

Subject: Alamo/Enterprise car rental at Heathrow Airport

To:

Cc: Lynn Pickles

Dear Customer Service Team

I refer to a conversation I had with the Alamo Chat Bot reference number [protected].

Here are some details of my Alamo Contract:

Reservation number: C4 21 829 560

Confirmation number : [protected]

I rented with Alamo through my Costco membership and I rented from July 6 - August 6.

Alamo apparently has an arrangement with Enterprise at Heathrow Airport and that is with whom I had various conversations.

The car was a Vauxhall Corsa. The service at the airport rental was fast and efficient - I have absolutely no complaints about that whatsoever. Mike was the Alamo/Enterprise/National representative [protected] was the telephone number I had to use at various times during my rental). I did ask for a sheet that marked all the scratches and dings on the car, but Mike said they do not do that any more. When I returned the car on August 6, Aman was very professional and said that an email should have been sent to me with photos of the car's condition when I checked out the car...but I never did receive that email even though he had the correct email. That is not a complaint - I am just pointing out that the email with the photos was never sent.

I was in England for many different reasons and it was important that I had a reliable car - a funeral, a graduation and several reunions were on my itinerary. The car was not particularly reliable and the problems began within 120 miles of the pick up.

July 13: The tire pressure light came on and I stopped at a lorry garage to ask the men working there if I could put some air in the tire. He looked at the tires and one was clearly softer than the others so he put air in to 220 - the number indicated on the door of the car.

July 13: The engine maintenance light came on and I stopped to check what it meant. There was no handbook in the car so I was not sure if there was a huge problem or just a minor one. I drove to an information place to get to use a phone (I had not changed my American Sim card to an English one at this point) and I called the [protected] number. Mike - or "Big Mike'' told me not to worry ...the light was a spanner and it showed that the car was due for a service. I was concerned at this point and asked if I could exchange the car - not wanting to drive a car that was in need of a service so soon after renting. I was told not to worry...probably the car was fine but the service light had not been reset. I later found out that I had rented the car with 34,912 miles on the odometer and it had last been serviced at 22,000 miles.

July 17: I was staying with friends who had a tire inflating machine and so I asked if we could check the tire pressures. I have pictures to prove the pressures were very low and all different.

They were all different pressures so we pumped them up to the specified requirements of 220 and 221 ( I was the only person in the car so minimum weight).

July 18: I called the Burnley enterprise office to see if they had a car I could exchange...but they did not. They said to call back in a few days to check again. They also said I might like to try the Morecambe office which was close to where I would be later. I also asked about Blackburn and Skipton and was told it was unlikely they would have an exchange car to give me.

July 22: Tire pressure warning light came on again. I called again to ask if I could exchange the car in Burnley - a nearby town with an Enterprise office. They said they did not have a car for me.

The alarm on the car kept going off and so I called a Vauxhall garage (since there was no booklet in the car) and they said to start the car and drive it for a few minutes. This did solve that problem.

July 23 - Sunday: I was getting concerned about the tire issue and so I went to National Tire in Colne and was there waiting for them to open at 10 am. No one ever came and their website said they should be open. So I went to Kwik Fit in Burnley in the afternoon

- Enterprise/Alamo/National have an arrangement with them and they fixed the tire which apparently had a nail in it. They charged the car company - I did not have to pay. Their service was excellent...but it was another day out of my vacation.

By this time I was anxious to exchange the car and called again to ask if I could do so in Morecambe. Morecambe did not have a car either apparently.

I called Big Mike to ask that he document my complaints. He said they had been documented and he mentioned that I only had the car until August 5th - this was a concern to me as I had definitely booked it until August 6th. Only then was I told by Big Mike that I would have to call August 3rd to tell Enterprise what my mileage was. Apparently it had something to do with a certain number of days rental agreement. This was the first I had heard of this...so I was not sure what would have happened if I had not called on August 3. Clearly i should have been told this when I took the car from Heathrow on July 6th.

I told Big Mike about the tire and he said "Why did you take the car in the first place if it had low tire pressure?" I have rented cars all over the world and I have never thought to do this because the rental agreement with a car company is that they give you a car that has been checked and is in good condition. Clearly this car had not been maintained well between rentals. I was insulted. He also told me that he could not check the last service date and that it was likely that the technician just did not set the reset button. I later found out that the last service had been at 22,000 miles - 12, 912 miles before I rented it. That indicates a poor maintenance and service record, and poor customer service on Mike's part.

July 24: the oil light came on so I topped it up with oil.

July 30: The oil light came on again as I was driving, then when I stopped to check it it went off and did not come back on again.

August 3: The alarm kept going off for about 40 minutes. I was staying with friends and the noise was disturbing neighbors on their street - collectively we tried everything. It would stop for a few minutes and then start again. Finally it stopped after about 40 minutes after I had driven it around the block. During this two day stay, the car doors would not lock so I had to remove all my luggage from it for two days. This was the day that I had to call the office to tell them the mileage. Big Mike was on vacation and a female answered the call - she had excellent customer service skills and sympathised with me about the problems I had had with the car. It was she that was able to tell me the mileage on the last service.

Aman was the Enterprise/Alamo/Representative at Heathrow when I returned the car. He was efficient and excellent. He sent me the receipt straight away via email and did not know why I had not been sent an email with the car's condition when I rented the car back in July.

So my complaint is really about

*being given a car that had not been properly serviced

*the fact that it took quite a lot of my time during my trip to deal with all of the issues

*no one at any of the Enterprise offices I called would allow me to exchange the car at any point

*I had to get an English sim card on my phone and pay for two different top ups just to be able to call the Enterprise/Alamo/National office for advice and help. That was an expense I did not plan for.

*I was staying with many different friends, and they all helped me solve the different issues. It clearly would have created many more problems had I been a regular tourist renting the car.

*No email or paperwork was given to me recording the condition of the bodywork when I rented the car. This made me feel vulnerable in terms of being responsible for its condition - would I be blamed for all of the scratches that were already on the car?

*This experience clearly did not leave a good impression of Enterprise/Alamo/National customer service...seriously I was insulted about being asked why I would take a car if I knew it had poor tire pressure!

*If you check with the office in Heathrow, all of these complaints should have been recorded. I asked everyone I spoke to to make a record of the faults with the car, and was told there was a record of them.

In summary there were problems with:

-service light remained on throughout the trip

-tire pressures were all different until I fixed them

-there was a nail in the tire when I rented it

-tire pressure light kept coming on until I had the tire fixed

-the oil pressure light came on twice

-random alarm signal that was difficult to turn off and the car doors would not lock for two days. These alarms went off at several times.

-no booklet in the car to explain how anything worked. I was not aware, for example, that it had a sensor that jerked the wheels whenever I did not signal to change lanes.

-no Enterprise office was able to help me by exchanging the car

So here is my official complaint about the rental service. I have rented with Alamo and Enterprise before and have never had any problems. I will probably take this complaint to Costco Customer Service too as the rental arrangement was through their company. This was a long trip for me and I was glad that I was able to be with friends and family most of the time. If I had been alone and trying to solve these problems, it would have been very harrowing. I am actually English - I grew up there - so I knew how to navigate the towns and the system well. Every person I asked for help did so very willingly...except for the people in the Enterprise offices who could easily have solved my problems by exchanging the car.

I hope to hear from you soon, and I thank you for reading through this long list of concerns about the service.

I thank you in advance of any help/advice you can give me, and remain,

Yours faithfully, Lynn Pickles