Dollar Rent A Car Review

I've rented from Dollar Rent a Car many times, mainly because they are WAY cheaper than other rental agencies.  I suppose it is true that you get what you pay for...and you need to be on your game when dealing with the agents sometimes.

There is no rhyme or reason to the car you're going to get.  It's a crapshoot, so don't go in there with your heart set on a particular car, because you probably won't get it.

After several uneventful rentals with Dollar, I recently rented a mid-sized vehicle for a long weekend trip to Tennessee.  The reservation indicated a "Chrysler Sebring or similar".  When I got there, I asked if they had any Hyundai Sonatas available.  I had received one when renting from Dollar the year before and drove it from Cincinnati to Houston, TX and it was a DREAM.  They didn't. :-(  They said that the ONLY car they had for me with either a PT Cruiser (hate them) or a Subaru something-or-other.  I wasn't jazzed about either.  I asked about other cars they had listed at the counter, in this same class, and was told that they were out of all of them.  I seriously doubted that, because the last time I rented from Dollar at the Cincinnati airport, a gal checked me out...and when I asked about a Sonata then, she told me that they didn't have any.  She tried her hardest to have me upgrade, telling me that the only vehicle in the class I had reserved was a Kia Optima that "didn't have cruise control or a CD player."  Since I wasn't about to spend an additional $150 for the week to rent a car, I decided to suck it up and take the "stripped down" Optima. 

As I was walking out to get my car, I passed probably 4-5 Sonatas on the lot...just sitting there waiting for a renter.  Huh?  Well guess what...turns out that the Optima was a very nice car - much like the Sonata and it DID have both a CD player AND cruise control.  She lied to my face to try and get me to upgrade!!!!!

But I digress...back to the story.....

Finally the agent walked the lot with me to pick out a car.  There were lots of Chargers, but I don't care for those, and they were more anyway.  He tried to talk me into a Chrysler 300 for "only a little more" per day (which turned out to be almost $30 more!).  I said no thanks.  Finally I spied a Dodge Avenger tucked in the lot and he said that that did qualify as a mid-sized car.  Fine.

The car had obviously been smoked in - and you could tell as soon as you opened the door.  It was so bad the smell got into my clothes.  I had to go out and buy three different air fresheners, plus put dryer sheets under the seats just to get the smell out.

Aside from the smell, when I was on my way home, a yellow light on the dash came on.  I didn't know what it was and once I got home, I dug the manual out of the glove box and discovered that it was the "low tire pressure" light.  I certainly didn't want to drive 5 hours on low tires, so I had to BUY a tire gauge and check/fill the tires (one was dangerously low).  After that was done, I was greeted the next morning with a chime and flashing message on the dash that read "Change Oil Soon!".  Great.  Well, I certainly wasn't going to oil change a rental...that would just have to wait.

I also noticed that this car (while sporty and fun to drive) was rather abused for being less than a year old.  Both sides of the rear bumper was scratched - and even had a small hole in the drivers side bumper.  There was a perfect square scratched into the drivers side door, a dent just over the passenger side door, as if someone had pounded it with the heel of their hand, and the interior had cigarette ash remnants stuck in the crevices around the gear shift.  There were also marks on the headliner, especially around the visor - as if someone was eating Cheetos and then reached up to flip the visor down.  On top of it all, the car had OVER 43,000 miles on it.  That's a year old car folks!  Too bad, because I'm sure at one time it was a nice little car.

Throughout the trip (we drove through the mountains), the transmission felt like it was slipping - you could feel it jerk hard when shifting from 3rd to 4th gear and the incessant "change oil" warning came on every time you started the car.  Other than that, the car was fun to drive.  When I took the car back, I told the agent about the change oil warning light, and he was quick to say "Oh that's OK, our maintenance is on a different schedule than the cars".  Yeah...obviously!

Dollar has never pressured me to buy the insurance and always got me in and out pretty quick.  At the Cincinnati airport, you just drop the car off and take the keys inside - nobody is ever out there to receive the car.  At the Ft. Myers Airport, you don't have to go inside at all.  You drop the car off in the garage, someone comes out to get the keys, checks the fuel, mileage and sends you on your way.

I'll continue to use Dollar because I just need a cheap rental car - not a showstopper.