When You Return Wrecked Cars to the Rental | People Stories #415

▶ Fresh AskReddit Stories: Car rental agents of Reddit, when has a vehicle returned that made you say "WTF!"? 🔥 2nd channel with exclusive Reddit stories!

[majkarun]

My dad owns a rental car company and once some guys decided to have a bbq, but it was raining so they lit up the grill in the trunk of the car, they burned the whole car down.

[Nckolas]

Some of the these people should be paying for the cost of cleaning and damage to those vehicles. Un-freaking-believable

[Mechknight]

I'm a former Avis detailer. The commercial vehicles in the fleet are often rented to mining contractors. If you understand the mining industry, you'll know that few people that work at the mine give a proverbial about vehicles in general, especially rental vehicles. Here's a few that come to mind:
1. A Land Cruiser troop carrier (think of the flatbed ute, but with a body that can carry 8 people legally) returns to us with a horrible grinding noise from under it. In the workshop, we saw the problem immediately- a fist sized hole in the front of the transfer case (the piece at the back of the gearbox that feeds both front and rear drive shafts) Moronic grunt had hit a rock with it at speed.
2. Another Land Cruiser troop carrier. Folks, when you're in a four wheel drive and offroad, and you encounter a body of water, stop and try to figure out how deep it is before attempting to cross it. This moron tried to cross at 110 km/h (70 MPH) Panel damage to the front panels. Damage to the radiator, engine, gearbox, transfer case, both differentials. $26, 000 later, it's back to work
3. 5 tonne moving van. It comes back, and as usual, I sweep the floor in the van body, fold up the rugs, coil up the ropes. It was then I noticed a pot pipe in the back. Great, Harry Pothead has been driving our truck!"
4. The three tonne moving vans are legal to drive on a car licence. First rule of truck driving: know your truck, know your load, ESPECIALLY width and height clearances. Idiot took out half the front of the moving van body
5. Although they did make an effort to try to clean the back, one of the clients would rent the 5 tonner to carry kangaroo carcasses. To clean it out, I would have a rag tied under my nose, a spray bottle of disinfectant in one hand, and a high pressure water sprayer in the other.

Some years after leaving, I hired a Statesman (second from the top of the line Holden sedan) from Avis to drive from Tullamarine airport in Melbourne, Victoria to Perth, Western Australia. I drove for three days across Australia, but unlike many customers, I made sure it would be an easy prep to get ready for the next customer.

[AmbertheLunarWolf]

One time my mom rented a car so we could go see family in Missouri. According to her, the car had a pull and kept wanting to go left. Well, on the way home we found Old Plum Road because our GPS took us there to avoid a toll on the highway. We don't know how the f--- it led us to an old narrow (as in there was 3 feet between the car and a long way down) dirt and extremely bumpy road on the side of a mountain, but by the time we got back onto the highway it was fixed. We paid for the tolls because Old Plum Road was not fun. It was rather hilarious that the pull was fixed because of that, though.

[jonneywwilliamson]

“For 19.95 you can rent this m*tha f*%ker!!”
Best Uhaul ad ever.

[DoctorRobertNeville]

I had a friend who worked for Enterprise, and he showed me some pictures of a car that had been t-boned by a Semi.

[Sly]

Bro the dude who rented the car to break up was clearly playing 4d chess

[CuriousGoodsJessica]

I just worried that they could smell cigarette smoke, I treated the 1 rental I ever had better than I treat my own car 🤣😅

[PintoPopProductions]

Found out during the course of a rental once that a 2013 Buick LaCrosse has an electronically limited top speed of 131 mph, and a suction cup CB antenna falls off the roof at about the same speed.

[mikedawolf]

5:09 let’s a 2rd party take care of her and he can sit back and relax

[alichamay]

Not my damage, but sort of someone else in a round about way.

I was picking up and waiting for them to clean my rental when this lady came in for her own. She was getting scanned and the desk guy informed her they could not give her a rental. She was at first mildly annoyed as she 'booked it three weeks in advance, ' but got more livid as according to their notes, the last car she had she let a friend with a non-valid license drive and they damaged it. She grew more and more angry because that was a lie.

A more senior guy came in and looked at her, then at the screen, then asked if her name was this person on the screen. Fuming, she said and shouted, 'Thats not my name!'

Turns out the machine scanned her license wrong and a black listed customer popped up instead. Safe to say, they got her an upgrade and out asap.

[debshaw]

Used to rent UHaul trucks. Got one back with a mattress that smelled of cat pee that had been left after hours before a full day off on the 4th of July so it sat in the sun a full day. We had to have someone professional come clean it. Same with another that was crawling with roaches. Had to have the exterminator out because nothing we did cleaned the roaches.

[JadeCaro]

I once rented a car to drive to a different city for the weekend and then drive it back. The first day I went to have dinner with friends and then went to a friend's place to stay the night. I parked the car on the street. The next day it was gone. After investigating, someone had crashed into my rental car and then ran away on foot, leaving both crashed cars at the scene, so both cars were towed away. I went to get my rental car after finding out where it was towed to, but when I got there, I found out it wasn't drivable anymore, so I had to call the rental place and tell them about it. They wouldn't pick up. So I just went home by bus. Then on the last day, I went to the office, dropped the GPS and told the guy what happened and gave him the police report and left. Guy must have been like WTF

[WintersHarmony]

I'm an Enterprise detailer. Can confirm this is all true.

[GreenAppelPie]

I rented a car in Iceland, it was a diesel. In America the green handled pump are typically diesel and black is glass. Over their it’s the opposite, I was dog tired and filled it up with gas. It sucked, but I noticed my mistake before I started the car. Called hertz and they arranged to come tow it and fix it, this was after hours on a Sunday. Three hours and $450 later we were back on the road.

[BlueEyedAuthor]

Somehow I’m not surprised one of the cars came back with a body in the trunk.

[MalWave]

This is why I treat rental cars like my own. These poor employees have to deal with enough crap as it is

[michaelv]

Had a family that rented a van. The spare tire was accessible from the inside of the van. Evidently the kids decided it would be fun to stick their used gum on the spare. It was covered in gum when it came in.

[agent_w.]

i once wrecked my car in a game of Mario Kart and still returned it back to Nitendo

[RealJasonBehrens]

I just found this and immediately I started thinking of the beginning of the jackass movie 😂😂