Budget Car & Truck Rental

I picked up the budget rental truck on the evening of January 5th I was supposed to pick it up the morning of the 6th of January but a winter storm was coming and the Budget people were not sure that the lot wouldd be plowed in time on the 6th. They started the truck and had it idling while I paid them and did the paperwork. After finishing the paperwork I returned to find the truck was no longer idling. I asked them about it, they restarted the truck and said nothing further. Knowing nothing about diesel trucks I assumed this was a normal occurrence. The professional movers we hired arrived on January 6th, they loaded our truck and we left for Florida. We made it as far as Champaign, IL that day, stayed the night and left the next morning, January 7th. We got a short distance to Tuscola, IL when 3 warning lights came on the truck dash. I pulled over into a truck stop in Tuscola and called Budget Truck Rental about what I should do. They said they would call a repairman who should be there in 37 minutes. At this point, the truck would not idle and kept turning itself off. Truckers advised me that it could potentially be that the fuel filter was icing up. They recommended that I put deicer in the fuel. I called Budget to ask permission. They advised me that I could go ahead and put deicer in the gas, that this couldn't hurt and might also help. We waited over 3 hours for the repair man to show up. This repairman spent 5 minutes looking at the truck and said, "This is a computer case, I don't do those it will have to be towed to a dealership." I spoke with Budget again, they informed me that I would need to wait till a tow truck arrived to take the truck to a dealership in Effingham, IL. This after I had been kept waiting in a freezing truck with below zero wind chills for over 3 hours. The associate at Budget told me that if there was a quick fix for the truck then I could be on my way before too long. They advised me if the fix was not so quick that they would get another truck there that night and have my load switched by morning. Turns out it was not a quick fix, the dealership thought it was a problem with fuel intake or injector and possibly a factory defect. The dealership told me that in their experience with Budget trucks there was no way they would get me back on the road that quickly. The loaders got there between 9:00 and 9:30. They refused to load the truck where it was located as it was too cold. The truck had to be moved, unfortunately the tow truck driver had disabled it according to protocol.They could not get this fixed so after much delay they coasted it a short distance and started swapping the load into the replacement truck that was sent. It is now January 8th and as they are swapping the load the replacement truck. This truck also keeps dying while it is idling. The loaders said they would not take it out of the lot until it was fixed as it was not normal for trucks to die every few minutes. So in the afternoon of January 8th I called Budget to complain that the replacement truck was also not working. They told me that they would send a roadside assistance person to come and check on the problem. I pointed out to them, that I was in the parking lot of a dealership. However, they told me that they would send someone to check it out. The roadside assistance associate was there in less than a full hour and he tinkered around with the truck for about an hour or hour an a half. He then informed me that though the truck is still idling hard he has put an additive in the fuel. He believes it will probably make it. He completed a test drive and confirms the truck did not stall on him. At this point it is after 4 pm on January 8th. I have lost 2 travel days. Loosing those two days has made it so I will be late to the closing of my new home in Florida. Budget wanted me to take a truck that had been dying all day when it idle and was not running smoothly on the road with single digit temperatures. Truth is, nothing Budget had told me to this point had any truth to it, I felt this was not safe or prudent. After much consideration for my safety for the rest of this trip, I decided to hire Broadway movers. It cost me 2600 dollars to move the load. Broadway Movers gave the truck back to Budget the morning of January 9th after they had swapped the load, all at my expense. The charges accrued during this fiasco do not stop with the fact that we had to hire another mover. We also spent 2 needless nights in Effingham IL. These nights cost 72.70 cents each. From a personal standing, my time is free as I am a retired attorney, however my wife's time is worth 150 dollars an hour. This would equate out to 2 days or 16 hours for a total of 2400 dollars of damages. We are also very fortunate that the seller did not use our no show to the closing as an excuse to back out of the real estate sale. Budget should not have rented out a defective truck. From the very beginning when we first encountered the issue with the truck dying, rather than brushing it under the rug, they should have repaired it at the very least. They should have rented me a truck that worked. The corporate Budget office should have had us towed to Champaign, IL immediately. This town was closer and larger, and after arriving there they had the truck swapped out immediately for one that actually worked. In the end, the only budget that Budget was worried about was their own, our time and safety meant nothing to them. Budget should pay us for all the above damages or at the very least give us back the $2370.12 that we paid them for a truck that should have been in good repair and suitable for the job of moving to Florida but was not.

I requested out of sarcasm that it needed to look so good when I got it back that I would want to drive it another 7 years....and it looked AMAZING!!! The cost was way less than a detailing company and they had it done in a few hours - offered me a ride back to work as well!