Abused Rental Cars

[andrewg]

Where I work right next door is a HUGE car rental depot. I haven't seen a sign yet to indicate what company it is but they must have hundreds of rental cars all lined up in rows with drivers constantly driving ones in and out. I assume it is a storage/depot facility of sorts. They have a huge auto car wash and a giant garage. Anyway, what I've noticed on a daily basis is that the employees driving these cars around on the lot are terribly abusing these vehicles by doing burn-outs and going full throttle from the parking lot to their car wash. You can hear the engines screaming and the tires squealing. It just ticks me off seeing this. I can only imagine some poor soul buying one of these cars and having major issues with it further down the road....all because of these IDIOT rental car employees.
I'm going to see if I can find the company name that is operating this place and make a call. It's not open to the public and no sign is visible....but I'll keep trying to find out.
Just be warned folks.....rental cars CAN BE a huge risk....especially with LOSERS like this running things.

 

[aquariuscsm]

It`d be awesome to clue the business onwer in on this and have every one of them looking for a new job.

 

[bepperb]

It's not just the employees abusing rental cars. I'm pretty hard on them as well.

If it were me, I'd be trying to drive through that carwash for free.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: bepperb
It's not just the employees abusing rental cars. I'm pretty hard on them as well.

If it were me, I'd be trying to drive through that carwash for free.

A question...why would you be intentionally hard on a rental car?

 

[bepperb]

Capricious Youth?

No, wait, I guess I'm 30 now so I can't use that.

How about catharsis though deviance?

Or what if I turned it around on you... why would you be nice to an inanimate object?

In response to Falcon_LS below, that's not really any different than how I treat my cars. And sure it's someone else's property. You should treat it like they do. In this case, that means squealing the tires through the parking lot. When in Rome...

 

[Falcon_LS]

To date, I've always treated rental cars as my own. My philosophy is it's someone else's property, even if I have paid to use it. I just don't see the "fun" in it.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: bepperb
Capricious Youth?

No, wait, I guess I'm 30 now so I can't use that.

How about catharsis though deviance?

Or what if I turned it around on you... why would you be nice to an inanimate object?

In response to Falcon_LS below, that's not really any different than how I treat my cars. And sure it's someone else's property. You should treat it like they do. In this case, that means squealing the tires through the parking lot. When in Rome...

No disrespect intended bepperb, but it's no wonder with an attitude such as yours that rental cars should be avoided. I'll never grasp why you and others find it appropriate to be destructive of others property. I would trust that NONE of your friends or family ever loan you anything of value. I believe we would all be better off as a nation if respect for others property was given importance.

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: andrewg
but it's no wonder with an attitude such as yours that rental cars should be avoided. I'll never grasp why you and others find it appropriate to be destructive of others property. I would trust that NONE of your friends or family ever loan you anything of value. I believe we would all be better off as a nation if respect for others property was given importance.

Agree 1000%

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: andrewg
Where I work right next door is a HUGE car rental depot. I haven't seen a sign yet to indicate what company it is but they must have hundreds of rental cars all lined up in rows with drivers constantly driving ones in and out. I assume it is a storage/depot facility of sorts. They have a huge auto car wash and a giant garage. Anyway, what I've noticed on a daily basis is that the employees driving these cars around on the lot are terribly abusing these vehicles by doing burn-outs and going full throttle from the parking lot to their car wash. You can hear the engines screaming and the tires squealing. It just ticks me off seeing this. I can only imagine some poor soul buying one of these cars and having major issues with it further down the road....all because of these IDIOT rental car employees.
I'm going to see if I can find the company name that is operating this place and make a call. It's not open to the public and no sign is visible....but I'll keep trying to find out.
Just be warned folks.....rental cars CAN BE a huge risk....especially with LOSERS like this running things.


Call the local TV news and tell them of what you are seeing. How its "polluting and causing damage to the earth" (they will be there within the hour).

When I was in Philly they had a story on how the rent-a-car company left the engines idling at the airport and just blindsided them by showing up.

Bill

 

[bepperb]

I think we need to take a second here to differentiate between abuse and "driving hard" which to me would be chirping tires, full acceleration starts, fast turns.

A world without those, to me, reminds me of Soviet Russia. And no, a nation without those, without a morsel of fun, isn't one that is better off. It's the automotive equivelant of a retirement community.

Sure, neutral drops and other forms of abuse, where damage to the car is likely... that's indefenseable. But operating a car as the manufacturer intended, albeit spiritedly, in my opinion is fine.

 

[MC5W20]

Cars that were rentals will show up on the carfax report and can be picked up at a discount. The discount you get them at will pay for the extended warranty. Which makes them an excellent bargain. Not all rental cars are abused, so you have some upside to getting a gently used one. In addition, most cars these days are designed to take a certain amount of these abuses.

I make no assertions as to who is right or wrong with what they do with "there leased (rental) property ( in this case cars)."

If you have extra money and an extended warranty isn't what you want then a used car that was a rental isn't what you should be considering for you purchase. FYI

 

[UNC197]

"Buying a used rental car is kind of like going to a house of ill repute looking for a wife. Anything that's been driven that hard by that many people, you really don't want to put your key in it" - Jeff Foxworthy

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: bepperb
I think we need to take a second here to differentiate between abuse and "driving hard" which to me would be chirping tires, full acceleration starts, fast turns.

A world without those, to me, reminds me of Soviet Russia. And no, a nation without those, without a morsel of fun, isn't one that is better off. It's the automotive equivelant of a retirement community.

Sure, neutral drops and other forms of abuse, where damage to the car is likely... that's indefenseable. But operating a car as the manufacturer intended, albeit spiritedly, in my opinion is fine.

No need to describe what abuse is... you've already admitted such. Equating taking care of anothers property as somehow representative of a communist state is really a stretch! Nobody is asking for you or others to live in a 'world without' fast, hard, driving. Just do it with your own vehicle....not somebody else's property. In my mind it's shameful.

 

[bepperb]

"In my mind it's shameful."

To be perfectly honest, that's half the reason that people do deviant things. If it were the societal norm to accelerate at full speed tires squealing through parking lots I doubt kids would find it so fun. People like you, their boss, their parents all tell them it's not appropriate to do an action, and they don't care and prove it by doing the opposite. So that's one reason they do this.

The second reason is that driving cars fast is fun.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: bepperb
"In my mind it's shameful."

To be perfectly honest, that's half the reason that people do deviant things. If it were the societal norm to accelerate at full speed tires squealing through parking lots I doubt kids would find it so fun. People like you, their boss, their parents all tell them it's not appropriate to do an action, and they don't care and prove it by doing the opposite. So that's one reason they do this.

The second reason is that driving cars fast is fun.

Like I said...it is indeed fun to drive fast. But my point is not about driving fast....or being abusive of YOUR OWN vehicle. It's about respecting what ISN'T yours. Going to a rental company and asking to rent one of THEIR cars....and then treating it WITHOUT regard to who actually owns it is just plain wrong...no matter how you dice it. There was a time when we had a much more respectful and well mannered nation where even this discussion would be unbelievable to your average person. Now it's considered funny or 'cool' to be a selfish fool.
Have a great day...later.

 

[tomcat27]

I witnessed driving like that in the service section at Al Piemonte Ford and also in the lot by a salesman at Rockenbach Chevrolet. forget the fact its harshing on a (cold engine) car, its dangerous and bad Public Relations. apparently I was wrong - when I reported it to mgt they could not have cared less. Maybe once someone is hit by a car or a car is damaged they will finally care when it hits their pocketbooks.

 

[bepperb]

Well, I guess I'm understanding a bit more of where you're coming from. And certainly these employees aren't respecting what obviously isn't theirs. This isn't uncommon, and there's probably a good chance that these are the best employees they can get at a price they are willing to pay. A bad situation perhaps, but not many people want to be automotive porters for minimum wage.

Stay away from the car rental scene in Days of Thuder.

 

[brianl703]

What's funny about that is that the behavior they're engaging in practically ensures that they'll be working for minimum wage for a long time.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: bepperb
Well, I guess I'm understanding a bit more of where you're coming from. And certainly these employees aren't respecting what obviously isn't theirs. This isn't uncommon, and there's probably a good chance that these are the best employees they can get at a price they are willing to pay. A bad situation perhaps, but not many people want to be automotive porters for minimum wage.

Stay away from the car rental scene in Days of Thuder.

It's really too bad but you're probably right.....you start out in life at minimum wage, being that you are either young and/or have little skills , so why not ruin the very property you are assigned to look after! In my opinion it has nothing to do with how much you pay somebody to do a simple job....it's the individual and the way they were raised. I've known minimum wage folks that can work like a madman....and highly paid union workers (some of my coworkers) that are so lazy and worthless you'd think they were sleep-walking.

 

[PandaBear]

I think most cars today are designed to handle "driving hard" for a short period of time (non-247 operation), and most of the time we are using only a fraction of the intended capacity.

Which one do you think is harder to the suspension:

Braking hard from 15 mph that squeal the tire? or running over a rock at 75mph?

Which one do you think is harder to the engine:

Full throttle in the parking lot from 0-15mph (1 second), or full throttle on the freeway entrance that has a traffic light from 0-75mph (3 seconds)

Which one do you think is harder to the tires:

Stopping the car and squeal the tire from 25 to 0 in the parking lot? or high speed emergency stop from 60 to 0?



Although these lunatic behaviors in the parking lot is not really appropriate, I think most of the cars today are designed to handle something way more stressful. The only concern I would have is the tire wear, and beside, if these are major issues they would have shown up with enough statistics that the manufactures would void or reduce warranty for cars that have been used for rental services by now.