2020 Durango R/T 5.7 rental review...

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Dec 8, 2006
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Tonight I had a 2020 Durango 5.7 Hemi rental with 18,000 hard hard hard miles. I had it for about two hours before I took it back, and got a different unit.

I'll just list the issues that I discovered in two hours.

Warped brake rotors.
Burnt out turn signal.
Had that classic smell of coolant leaking somewhere onto a hot engine.
One mismatched tire in the wrong size.... a Duro Frontier with all terrain tread. Of course, on an AWD vehicle.
Last oil change recorded at 6,500 miles (current mileage at 18,000)
Front bumper cover was "popped" out on both sides, near the headlights
Filthy dirty inside and out... trash inside the car from the previous renter(s), including a condom.
Average mpg reading was at 14.3... yikes. Definitely "rode hard and put away wet".

I'm headed to Branson, MO tomorrow... but not in a Durango 5.7 Hemi.

Took it back to National, and got a different vehicle. One that had more miles, but was many times cleaner, and was from the National fleet. One lesson learned for me was to not rent a car without a flashlight. But I'd never been burned this way by National before.

I was done and had decided that it was going back when I put it inside my garage and smelled the coolant... and that was before I had spotted the condom. Was told by National that the Enterprise location on the other side of town had unloaded the Durango Hemi on them yesterday, and had told them that it was clean and ready to rent. Enterprise had "swapped" it for a 15 passenger van. Was not surprised at all, that this had come from out of the Enterprise fleet, in this condition. That made sense, as it had an Enterprise key tag. I let them know that they need to figure out a way to send it back to them ASAP, as it needs to be taken out of service and sent to the Dodge dealer for repairs.

I raised heck with the corporate National corporate office for wasting my time in this way. I'm supposed to get a call back from the District Manager tomorrow.
 
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Warped brake rotors.
Burnt out turn signal.
Had that classic smell of coolant leaking somewhere onto a hot engine.
One mismatched tire in the wrong size.... a Duro Frontier with all terrain tread. Of course, on an AWD vehicle.
Last oil change recorded at 6,500 miles (current mileage at 18,000)
Front bumper cover was "popped" out on both sides, near the headlights
Filthy dirty inside and out... trash inside the car from the previous renter(s), including a condom.
Average mpg reading was at 14.3... yikes. Definitely "rode hard and put away wet".
Yep, they like to warp.
Connector gets corrosion in it and causes high resistance killing the bulb.
Supposedly they fixed the water pump issue but apparently not.
Horrific maintenance
See above
Glad to know they still have the bumper cover problem... a decade later.
I’d be livid if I found that
14.3mpg doesn’t surprise me if they’re being driven hard, worst I ever got was 9mpg in my 2011 Citadel.
 
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I’ve never seen a rental car have that many problems lol, but I mean these are known for most of the issues listed so I’m not surprised. I got offered a job as a mechanic at Enterprise once I wanted to do it but for what it involved didn’t feel it was worth it plus you would have to work next to the road if you got a road call of someone breaking down so that kinda turned me away. At the time I wasn’t allowed to work by myself either since I was under 18 so at least I would have been with someone.
 
Not surprised it was Enterprise. I had an interview with them once for a technology position, and ended up thanking them for their time and walking out halfway through. Terrible company with awful leadership.
 
The kicker was the hang tag on the rear view mirror, listing everything that was (or should have been) cleaned, and how concerned they are about cleanliness...

Hertz is already circling the drain, and it appears that National/Enterprise/Alamo might be struggling as well. Honesty, it doesn't surprise me at all.

The National fleet isn't nearly what it used to be. Last year, when renting a "Standard SUV", I'd consistently get GMC Acadia Denalis, Jeep Grand Cherokees, and once even a BMW X3. I rarely drove anything with over 10,000 miles on it.

The Durango in my driveway is a V6 unit with 24,000 miles on the odometer. I did notice out at the airport that the Budget fleet still looks fairly nice.
 
You'll find odd things on occasion when you rent a vehicle or stay at a hotel. I found a rig once in a hotel room while on vacation in NC.
 
Shame on National for not cleaning these vehicles. But rental cars are usually DOGG people double pumping the gas pedal drive over every pothole there is . It sucks because national is going to clean up that car and sell it to somebody not knowing the history smh
 
Standard practice for the vast majority of business meetings between folks in different cities was to fly in on business class, rent a car from one of the major outfits and fly home when done. It didn't take much of a reason to call for a meeting and to do the travelling.

Things have changed, zoom is now acceptable for all but the most important meetings. The shake-up to the air travel and rental car industry has been and will likely in the future remain immense.
 
The kicker was the hang tag on the rear view mirror, listing everything that was (or should have been) cleaned, and how concerned they are about cleanliness...

Hertz is already circling the drain, and it appears that National/Enterprise/Alamo might be struggling as well. Honesty, it doesn't surprise me at all.

The National fleet isn't nearly what it used to be. Last year, when renting a "Standard SUV", I'd consistently get GMC Acadia Denalis, Jeep Grand Cherokees, and once even a BMW X3. I rarely drove anything with over 10,000 miles on it.

The Durango in my driveway is a V6 unit with 24,000 miles on the odometer. I did notice out at the airport that the Budget fleet still looks fairly nice.

sorry you got a bad rental. I can assure you that Enterprise holdings (owns National and Alamo) is in FAR, FAR better shape than Hertz(who owns Thrifty and Dollar). There is no activity at Hertz and none at Budget who owns Avis. Enterprise is not on stock market also. Anyways, it happens but I as well as 2 other mechanics do recalls and quality mechanical repairs.
 
Tonight I had a 2020 Durango 5.7 Hemi rental with 18,000 hard hard hard miles. I had it for about two hours before I took it back, and got a different unit.

I'll just list the issues that I discovered in two hours.

Warped brake rotors.
Burnt out turn signal.
Had that classic smell of coolant leaking somewhere onto a hot engine.
One mismatched tire in the wrong size.... a Duro Frontier with all terrain tread. Of course, on an AWD vehicle.
Last oil change recorded at 6,500 miles (current mileage at 18,000)
Front bumper cover was "popped" out on both sides, near the headlights
Filthy dirty inside and out... trash inside the car from the previous renter(s), including a condom.
Average mpg reading was at 14.3... yikes. Definitely "rode hard and put away wet".

I'm headed to Branson, MO tomorrow... but not in a Durango 5.7 Hemi.

Took it back to National, and got a different vehicle. One that had more miles, but was many times cleaner, and was from the National fleet. One lesson learned for me was to not rent a car without a flashlight. But I'd never been burned this way by National before.

I was done and had decided that it was going back when I put it inside my garage and smelled the coolant... and that was before I had spotted the condom. Was told by National that the Enterprise location on the other side of town had unloaded the Durango Hemi on them yesterday, and had told them that it was clean and ready to rent. Enterprise had "swapped" it for a 15 passenger van. Was not surprised at all, that this had come from out of the Enterprise fleet, in this condition. That made sense, as it had an Enterprise key tag. I let them know that they need to figure out a way to send it back to them ASAP, as it needs to be taken out of service and sent to the Dodge dealer for repairs.

I raised heck with the corporate National corporate office for wasting my time in this way. I'm supposed to get a call back from the District Manager tomorrow.
Dodge Journey and caravan were the same way with warped rotors. We have 2 ram pro masters in our fleet at my job both have that sweet anti-freeze smell and cooling fan issues. Must be a dodge/ram thing.
 
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As I mentioned earlier, I ended up with a 2020 Durango GT AWD with the 3.6 liter V6, in Destroyer Gray I'm very familiar with this engine, as it was in a 2011 Town and Country that I had. This one now has 25,xxx miles on it. I'm in Branson, Missouri as I type this.

It is reporting 23.4 mpg average, and that is 99% interstate driving (70-80mpg), and pulling some long hills down here. It has been running with either 3 people and luggage, or 5 people and no luggage. The V6 gets a little short of breath on the hills, but still has an adequate amount of power to get the job done.

I'm not particularly fond of the steering. I don't think the steering and the 50 series 20" tires get along. It is difficult to make small adjustments out on the interstate, without moving the heads of the passengers. I'd much rather have steering that it a tad bit more dumbed down when coming out of "center". Although, maybe this is part of having all wheel drive.

The ride is acceptable for a vehicle like this, and the lack of road noise is very good. The seats seem comfortable enough. The radio is fine, unfortunately this one has the smaller display and no navigation. I don't like the automatic start/stop, especially here in Branson, but there is an override button for that on the dash. Brakes are solid and smooth.

For having 25k on it, the Bridgestone Ecopia H/L 422 Plus tires have lots of tread left, they should go 60k at this pace... although this unit probably has a lot of highway miles on it. It was put into service in March, and has 25k on it just 8 months later.

No clunks, rattles, or whistles.

Yes, I'm losing some "fun factor" with this Durango, over the 5.7 R/T that I took back, but this one is probably the better unit for what I'm using it for. The snappy steering and the lack of navigation are the biggest issues that I'm seeing.
IMG_20201105_164713345_HDR.jpg
 
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I typically get really nice rentals with National...but I haven't traveled much in the last year so I don't have much recent experience to share 😷 hopefully that will change soon.
 
Dodge will always have issues like that when you ride them hard, but I gotta be fair when I say that I've never owned a vehicle for more than 20K miles that didn't end up with warped rotors. Wild thing is, I get 100K miles or more out of brake pads.
 
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