This is actually a ZERO STAR review! We've been to St. John and rented from Cool Breeze before, and didn't have any issues. Overall, the Jeeps were definitely beat up with scratches, dings and dents, but we didn't mind. We weren't on island to win any pageants. We arrived this time, and expected another laid back experience. This time we were asked to do the usual vehicle inspection. The vehicle's surfaces still had standing water from being washed, and the staff's children were playing all over the vehicle. The close quarters of their lot, lack of direct sunlight, and children climbing on the cars made doing an inch-by-inch inspection of all of the vehicle's surfaces impossible. Having rented cars all over the U.S. and internationally, we looked for what we'd consider to be any big deals. Our vehicle looked just as beat up as all of the others on the lot, and we just decided to proceed so that we could recover from a long day of travel. This would prove to be a mistake.
We were very careful drivers, and were expecting to have an easy vehicle return. WRONG! During the vehicle return process, the clerk immediately ran to the front of the vehicle (sort of strangely not even bothering to look at any other part of the vehicle) and said that we were the first renters of their brand new 2017 Jeep, had scratched it's front bumper, and were responsible for buying a new bumper for $400-500! We were shocked!
The area with the alleged damage did have a small superficial scratch on the surface of the textured plastic bumper (see photos), but it was not humanly impossible to differentiate that from anything that may have existed on the vehicle prior to our rental during the check-in inspection. As you can see from the photos, there's no way that this type of superficial scratch merits the replacement of an entire bumper. The clerk was incredibly aggressive throughout this entire experience, and was impossible to amicably work with. She said that because of this scratch, she would have to take the vehicle out of the fleet in order to have the bumper completely replaced. We could not believe this! We pointed out that even the fleet of rental vehicles presently sitting in their lot for rent at that moment had much worse damage (see photos) and clearly were not being removed from the fleet for immediate repair. We further pointed out that we found a rental agreement stashed under the driver's seat from earlier in the previous month showing that Cool Breeze had been renting out this vehicle for months prior to our rental, and that the returned condition of the vehicle should reflect reasonable wear and tear from previous usage. Despite not hitting/scratching anything during our week of rental, we offered to pay $50 for the damage just to resolve things. The clerk refused to even provide a figure for what an appropriate fee may be for such minimal damage. Under her constant threats of calling the police, she insisted that we leave the business to go to an off site repair facility for an estimate of the repair of this tiny scratch.
Another Cool Breeze employee drove us to this "repair establishment," which was just some guy sitting outside of a trailer with a mini-junkyard of old Cool Breeze-labeled rental vehicles. He was just getting off the phone, and was already writing the estimate as we pulled into the driveway. Here, the person from the "independent" repair shop proceeded to provide an estimate of $150 (see photo) to "paint and repair" the bumper. He repeated the same nonsense that the clerk at Cool Breeze was spewing, saying that we must fix the bumper, or else pay $400-500 for a completely brand new bumper, regardless if the scratch was only superficial or not. When I asked why his quote involved painting a textured plastic bumper that was never a factory-painted surface, and why the quote wasn't for the 10-15 minutes of labor that it would take to buff out or use a heat gun to repair the scratch, he just went straight back to asking if we would rather pay for a new bumper.
So, with our credit cards held hostage to these unreasonable people, an hour or two down the drain, and a ferry/plane to catch, we paid the $150. All of that nonsense over a tiny superficial scratch that you'd never notice - unless you knew exactly where to look. Based on our experience, at best - this business's superficial vehicle damage policies are extremely excessive; or - at worst, this business has started screwing over tourists who are on a time crunch on their way out of town. I mean look at the photos of the vehicles in their fleet. If they're charging $150 or more for each of gigantic dents and scratches on their vehicles, they must be pocketing some decent money.
Do yourself a favor, and take your business elsewhere. If you must deal with Cool Breeze, be sure to document even the most superficial imperfections present on every square inch of that vehicle. read more