We booked an RV to travel to Colorado so we could take my elderly father who has Parkinson's along with us. (He has difficulties with getting in and out of vehicles, mobility and health conditions that make frequent trips to the bathroom a necessity.) It was not at all what I would consider affordable, but was worth the sacrifice to have our family together.
Let's start off with the one positive. The trip had to be rescheduled due to a hospitalization of one of the family members and the staff was very accommodating with rescheduling the dates of our trip. When it was time for the trip I was notified that the RV we had booked was not available due to need for repairs and that they would provide a substitute for us. We were provided a different class RV that was almost 10 feet longer, 2 feet wider and averaged a gas mileage less than 10 mpg as opposed to the 20 mpg we had anticipated. (This is a huge difference on a trip over 2000 miles!) We proceeded with the rental because we had lots of other paid arrangements depending on it.
Right away we noticed that the vehicle was so loud (odd transmission noises and many creaks and rattles) that we could not even hold a conversation while driving. Within the first few hours of the trip the table fell over into my child (due to rusted out screws that stripped from the floor board) and the "oil change required" light illuminated on the dashboard. (The sticker on the windshield indicated that an oil change age was due at 40,410 miles. The vehicle was at 49,470 miles.) As we drove through the night the generator stopped working at about 2am and was unable to restart. I called the help number as directed at about 6am the following morning and was walked through troubleshooting the issue only to find out that the generator had no oil in it at all. Clearly it had not been serviced appropriately. I did not have the time to backtrack or waste a day getting the repairs done in the panhandle of Texas so we drove out of Texas before the temperature rose. The company was to arrange to send someone out to fix the generator when we arrived in Colorado but was unable to identify a provider in their network to do so. We parked the vehicle when we arrived in Colorado and didn't use it again until we loaded up a week later to head home. With the generator being out we attempted to keep everyone cool with battery powered fans and cold drinks but had to stop during the heat of the day to seek refuge. We got back on the road in the evening and were heading through Dallas as we experienced a blowout while driving in the middle lane of five lanes of interstate traffic in a construction zone. I was driving a vehicle that was 8.5 feet wide in a lane that was 10-11 feet wide carrying the most precious cargo in the world - that should give you an understanding of my level of focus, I did not hit anything. We safely got off to the service road and pulled into a parking lot to call for assistance. I called the emergency number provided but was unable to reach anyone so I ended up calling for emergency road assistance through my own insurance company. We arrived back home much later than anticipated but safe. I thoroughly cleaned and returned the RV and was told that they were to review all the issues and would get back to me. Over two weeks later I still hadn't heard anything so I went by the store to check. I was told that they had just mailed a check out to me. We reviewed the details and I discovered that they had made additional charges of over $500 for excess mileage (which they had told me was already calculated in the rate while making the reservation and discussing the distance we were traveling) and almost $500 more for the tire repairs stating that I was at fault for the damages. They had also entered the wrong dates of rental on the contract and had overcharged two days. The reimbursement of those two days equaled just over $200. That calculation sounds a little off for a rental rate that is $330 per day! And lastly, I obviously had to eat the charge of the emergency roadside assistance because they did not reimburse that fee.
I was not asking for a profit. I simply wanted them to honor the contract and reimburse my deposit and emergency roadside fee along with $660 credit for 2 unused days. I am walking away and washing my hands of these crooks because I don't have the time or resources to fight this but I feel that hard working people should know this information so they don't get stuck in a rotten situation.
So if you want to blow $5K on a miserable experience that could be sold for movie rights to National Lampoon's, knock yourself out. Our RV days are over. read more