Never again will I rent a car...

Okay so my car, my peppy little Honda Civic, it's been having some aches and pains lately. Namely the AC has been having troubles, and more importantly the "SRS" light came on, those of you who don't know "SRS" is the restraint system.

So I take it in to have looked at.

But rather then be an imposition to friends as far as rides and getting around, I thought it wouldn't be so bad to rent a car for a day.

Man was that a bad idea.

I normally never had a problem with Enterprise, I guess I always have been fortunate to get really, well, really "real" people. And oddly enough, in the case of the rental car industry, by "real" turns out to be "the ladies".

Sadly this time I got a dude, and it was a really slimy dude at that.

This dude, Greg, is by far your stereotypical Machismo Used Car Salesman, ooozing with overconfidence and testosterone, trying really hard to "get" me in that greek system "dude/networking" way.

I wanted to puke.

I kept telling this guy that all I wanted was a economy or compact car. Small and cheap was the name of the game. We get out into the lot, and he's all, "Allright bro, take your pic man, we got these Intermediates in stock..."

After the 10 billionth time I ask, "What you don't have any economy or compact in stock?"

"Oh no..." And as he is about to tell me a lie, a car pulls away to reveal a compact car, "...oh, I guess I do have one, my bad man." And after a moment, he continues, "...but bro, these guys, they are only a dollar more a day!"

Seriously, if it was going to shut this guy up, I relented to the Intermediate upgrade.

But it gets only better.

We get inside to finalize things, and he tells me, "Oh dude, those Intermediates are reserved, but I got a Dodge Caliber in stock, give you 10% off."

After he assures me it will be the same price, I agree to the Caliber. But now comes to the billing...

"Dude, I'm going to preauth $225 bro, cool?"

$225??? I was all, "FUCK YOU, ALL I NEED IS A DAY MAYBE TWO???" But he did a really lame job of getting my confidence that the excess cash in the preauth was a deposit of sorts, especially since any other time renting I always paid a $25 deposit. Again, this dude was slimmmmmmmyyyy.

But after looking over the papers, and I was confident it was a pre-autherization/deposit, not an actual charge, I get my car. Now, not too familiar with Dodge cars, just assumed he'd listened to me when I said "small and cheap". But appearently in the world of Dodge, "Caliber" means "Battletank":



I don't know if this picture does it justice. But the one I got was grey. Grey like a bullet. The dash was all heavy duty and shit. And when I sat in this thing I was so high from everything, I really felt like I was going into battle.

I really hated driving this thing, I kept calling the Body Shop hoping my car was done. Driving the tank was so nerve racking, I realy hated the car, and the guy that rented it to me. I couldn't get it back to Enterprise fast enough. It bothered me so much, it was so hard to get through the workday as the thought of renting this horrible abomination to the auto industry made my heart hurt.

But thankfully I got my car back. Nothing major as far as the SRS, the AC is fixed, and I couldn't be happier.

Never again will I rent a car, well, not unless insurance is going to pay for it.

Bleh.