Lowe's review: Shocked and disappointed with lowes tool rental associate and overall experience.

I am taking the time to write this letter based on my rental experience with the Lowes Tool Rental Department at the Lilburn, Georgia location (Stone Mountain). I am sad to report that I am both shocked and disappointed with my experience; shocked which my over all experience and the conduct of Travis, who works in the Tool Rental department, and disappointed in the lift that was rented. On November 2th:, I reserved the lift online (Contract # R-007868) for the week of November 5th.

Saturday, November 4th: I called the store, to be sure everything was in order and changed the pickup time to 10AM. Sunday, November 5th: Got to the Lowes location and was told the unit was not available to rent due to no one being trained on the lift. I made it known that I was not happy, I had reserved the lift and had scheduled manpower out for this project. The Tool Rental personal was of little help, and neither was the assistance store manager, although they did make some calls to see if any other Lowes had a boom lift available to rent. I had already checked, and the Stone Mountain location was the only store with an available lift.

Travis from the rental department was there as well, talking to another employee about a workman’s comp claim against Lowes and how he was not happy with the doctors assessment and that it’s not over and so on…. This took place in front of me and thought at the time it was unprofessional. The flooring manager got involved, I was told by a tool rental employee that he had previously worked in the rental area. He helped search for other locations that had a towable lift and found nothing was available. After waiting for over an hour, he reached out to someone, not sure who, that approved sending the lift out. I was happy to have the lift and thanked them for their trouble.

Monday, November 6th:
We had problems with the lift going into alarm from, and thought it was the 5 degree tilt alarm, since the lift was on a gavel/soil area. We would use the manual pump, take the lift down and adjust the out rigors and go back up. It was very tedious and labor intensive as the manual pump is slow and requires a lot of energy to pump. We used the lift for a short period of time and assumed when the lift was on a more solid service the lift would not go into alarm.

Tuesday, November 7th
The lift was moved to solid ground and the alarms got more persistent. Much more manual pumping, bringing the lift down many times. Called Lowes and reported the issue. Some general suggestions were offered, but nothing that we had not already tried. Called again on Tuesday when a worker found out how to use the diagnostics panel on the lift. Nothing is noted about the operation of the panel in the manual. Diagnostics indicated it was an overweight alarm rather than a tilt alarm. The lift is rated with 475 pounds in the bucket, we had a 200 pound man and a electric pressure washer in the basket; 220 pounds maximum.

Called Lowes, informed them of the issue and asked for a tech to be dispatched. No return call. We continued the struggle with the lift, manually pumping as frequently required to move the boom into position without hydraulics. We were all getting very fatigued with all the pumping required. The pump is meant to be used in emergencies, but we found the sometimes, you would move the boom around and the alarm would stop and we could regain control of the hydraulics.

Wednesday, November 8th
We would not lift any outriggers or control the lift from the bucket or the ground. Called Lowes, and we went through several checks over the phone. It was then determined that the boom was not in full contact with the sensor – perhaps because the boom was manually pumped down. I inserted a standard screwdriver into the sensor pad and filled the gap and we were then able to control the outriggers and lift. This should not behave this way; the ground operator should always be able to control the lift hydraulics when the key in the ground operator position. It is my understanding that only the outrigger hydraulics should be disabled when the sensor is not depressed. The hydraulic pump was not activating for the outriggers or the lift until the boom sensor was totally flat. Still had overload issues with a single man in the lift and no equipment.

Thursday November 9th
Called Lowes twice. Talked to Ray who’s suggestion of jumping in bucket did seem to help reset the overload sensor when in the air, however it’s very uncomfortable jumping in the bucket when 30 to 37 feet from the ground. Apparently, all the repositioning of the boom by manual pumping was done in vain, it seems it was the human effort of pumping in the basket that was vibrating the bucket and essentially simulating a jumping up and down action that was stopping the alarm.

We asked again for a tech to be dispatched. It was suggested that we return the boom so that they could take a look. Driving the lift back would take a minimum of 3 hours round-trip during that time of day. We then did not know how long it would take for the Tool Rental team to look at it or if they had the knowledge to fix the issue. I decided against taking the time, we were already so far behind due the lift problems.

Friday, November 10th
We continued using the lift, using the “jumping up and down in the bucket” trick that was suggested by Ray. It slowed us down, but we were not losing anywhere near the time we had lost on all the previous days that required manually pumping the boom around.

Saturday, November 11th
On Saturday called Lowes, and let them know so much time was lost, I wanted an extra time with the lift. Travis agreed to allow us one extra day (although we had lost much more time that one day).

Sunday, November 12th
Sunday, the lift outriggers and lift hydrolics totally shutdown due to sensor issues. Lift was alarming on overload and tilt when the lift was totally retracted, and the bucket was empty. The lift could not be moved because the outriggers could not be lifted and it was partially blocking a neighbor’s driveway. Called Lowes when I was alerted of the issue. The guy on duty did not know how to help, I asked him to have someone call first thing in the morning.

Monday, November 13th
I called Lowes in the morning since I had not heard back. Explained the problem to Ray. Ray called Snorkel and asked them to expect a call from me. I called in and talked to the tech, he suggested the sensor had lost power or was defective. I unconnected and reconnected the connector to the sensor with the tech on the line. The lift remained in alarm. Tech thinks sensor needs to be replaced.

Call Ray and updated him. I was hoping Lowes could have Snorkel overnight a new sensor to the job location so we can move the lift and unblock the driveway. That was apparently not an option, since it would take time to get the order provisioned and approved. He was going to reach out the Snorkel area salesperson. Ray calls me back with a workaround the territory sales person provided to lift the outriggers, which worked (Thank goodness) and allowed us to move the lift so it was not partially blocking the drive of the irate neighbor.

I brought the lift back hoping that they could fix it and I get it back for some time for the trouble and lost of productivity. At the very least I was expecting an apology and some sort of compensation for all the lost time and frustration - neither happened. There was another employee working that was polite and cordial, but Travis rushed out to the lift. I think was expecting to fire up the lift and show me it was operator error.

I handed the broken off handle to the trailer jack to the other employee, the handle on the trailer jack had broken off due to its poor design. When we were lifting the trailer to hitch height, it snapped in a weak spot when there is a bolt going through the handle. Travis, instantly said to the other employee, “oh, you missed that damage” although the other employee had just started inspecting the lift.

Travis phoned the “mechanic”, let him know he was on speaker, and he instantly said charge the customer, even before he even saw the picture that Travis has snapped. I did not say anything thing at the time because I could tell Travis was trying to provoke me. I knew the handle was either defective, or at least it should have been covered by the 15% damage protection charge; it certainly was not misused since turning the handle is its only function. Travis inspected the handle for signs of neglect or abuse and stated he did not see anything link dings of dents.

During the inspection, when the lift was just alarming and non-functional, I mentioned that Ray was helpful in finding a solution to control the outriggers with the sensors in alarm, would he like to see how. He said he had been hearing Rays name through around a lot. “Let me tell you about Ray his is a part-timer that helps us a little; Ray doesn’t know anything.”
I found it disturbing that he would verbally berate another team member in front and behind their back, especially since Ray was the only one in the Tool Rental department that was helpful during the very frustrating week. Ray made the calls to Snorkel Tech Support and Sales.

I started to lose my composure when Travis ranted with several excuses.
“I told you it was not supposed to go out since we has not been trained on the unit”. Everyone was telling you it can’t go out and yet you wanted to speak with someone higher up”. Perhaps the defective sensor would have been noticed during whatever training takes place. However, it was intermittent in the beginning so its doubtful in my opinion.
“It was working fine when it went out”
Travis lowered and raised one out rigger to show me how to control them. He ran me though the ground controls for the lift but never moved any of the booms or basket.
“That’s between you and Lowes”
He mentioned on a couple of occasions that my complaints were between me and Lowes. When I said you represent Lowes, he was quick to let me know he only represents himself.

I responded with, “you have a Lowes badge on”, he replies, “I have a hat on (it has some sort of “A” emblem on it) I don’t represent them, I have sneakers on, I don’t represent them. I only represent myself.”
It seem like a very unprofessional and odd response since he was adding up the charges on the Lowes Tool Rental Computer. It seems as if he was about to charge me for an extra day since I did not have the lift there on time (since we could not move the lift because it was stuck the outriggers extended.

He started off with the daily rate is X number of dollars per day, I think is was $364 or something like that. That is about the time I had had enough of his nonsense and started getting angry and raising my voice and told him I am not paying for an extra day for a non-functioning lift stuck in a neighboring driveway. Once I started to challenge him, he seem to back off and said he was just showing me what he “was doing for me”, and was not going to charge the extra day he told me several times during my own rant, that I was being defensive and he and was just trying to help me out. It certainly did not sound that way and I’m not sure why he would think it was a good idea to mention the daily rate if he was not intending to charge me. My blood was boiling at that point. All of the issues, lost productivity, exasperated my labor costs and frustrated everyone on the job. We had a total of 5 hours on the lift hour meter.

He was totally out of line and clearly thinking only of himself. When Travis says he only represents himself, he means it.In the end, he charged me only for the week, and I paid but told him I was paying under protest. I asked for a number and extension to call to make a formal complaint. He gave the number and extension to the store manager. I then asked to speak to the store manager, he called over the intercom. I waited for five minutes, and no one came. I had wasted enough time on this rental and needed to get back to Marietta to beat the worst of the traffic, so I left. I called the number Travis provided from my truck; the extension kept getting looped back to the store operator who kept patching me back to the extension. I finally gave up on the call.

Hoping Lowes Will Contact Me.