My Rental Truck Nightmare – Only Me!

For today, I’d like to take you on a journey in the move of a lifetime that turned out to be sort of a train wreck. I’ve read articles here at CC about rental cars, but I don’t recall any fun stories about rental trucks, so here you are. So grab your favorite beverage and be ready to laugh and maybe have compassion on my family! I will add I’ve told this story to several people and the same response is given every time: “Only you, Chip!”

First, the backstory. After my dad passed away, my youngest sister, Cathy, had gone through a divorce and was raising three children. We were all living in Fort Lauderdale and my mom decided to move in with Cathy, in Charlotte, to give her a hand with the children.

However, we got a phone call from Cathy in May 1999, telling us that my mom had liver cancer and only had six weeks to live. Mom requested that all of us kids come to see her at least once before she passed. My mom and I were very close and could talk about anything; I’m the youngest of five and the only boy, I loved her dearly and always tried my best to respect her. During one of our visits, she shared with me that Cathy had decided to move back to the Ohio Columbus area where we were all born and raised. A place where Cathy felt she would have some extra support with the family that was up there.

Mom was feeling guilty she would not be there to help with the kids any longer and asked if Cindy (my wife) and I would consider moving from Fort Lauderdale back to Ohio. Not a big request, huh? Cindy and I had our home, I owned a hardware store and she was in her 19 years with Publix.

But Cindy and I both decided we couldn’t turn down Mom’s request. We got Cathy moved up and situated in Ohio and then got back to Florida to sell our business and our house.

I’ve always had a deep faith in God and believe that He does work in mysterious ways. To keep it brief, the very same day we decided to sell an acquaintance came to me with an interest in buying the store, this before we even had placed an ad. Then, we had only had a few offers on our home, when the same couple agreed to buy it as well. It should be noted that they offered us the selling price we were asking on both without haggle and the store still operates to this day.

 

Now it was time for the rental truck and I had a few choices. At that time, U-Haul was famous for running their equipment beyond a useful life, and they were in the news for their equipment failing; so that was a no-go. I checked Ryder and they were very expensive. So my next stop was Budget truck rental. I told them we would need a 24-foot truck and a car carrier trailer. They offered us a Ford with a Cummins in-line six-cylinder turbo diesel showing 89,000 miles and a car carrier that had been jackknifed either once or 15 times!

We loaded the truck and got on the road at about 3:30 in the afternoon. My wife and my son Jacob would be driving our brand new 1999 Sierra towing a U-Haul trailer with the last-minute things that didn’t fit in the rental truck, while my daughter Melissa would ride with me towing our ’97 Chevy Blazer. Cindy thought it would be good to have walkie-talkies to communicate easily between the two vehicles, which was a great idea and came in very handy.

Our trip route took us out of Davie up the turnpike across the state of Florida where we would pick up 75 North. We were driving along without too much issue and I found that the best way to describe driving that truck was like using a golf cart; push the accelerator to the floor to go forward and let off to stop. It was very simple. However, I got a call on the walkie-talkie asking why I kept slowing down and then speeding up. I couldn’t understand what Cindy meant so I watched the speedometer for a few minutes and sure enough; the truck would slow down to 55 and then slowly gain speed back up to 60 (which was top end).

We were nearing 75 North when I had to stop for diesel fuel and I decided to check the oil; nothing showed on the dipstick. I went inside to find out what kind of oil I would need and luckily there was a professional driver inside. He asked me how much showed on the stick and I told him “Nothing”.  He said I would need at least 1 gallon which brought the level up to the “safe” mark.

Once we got on 75 we decided to find a hotel as we were pretty beat and it was getting late. I told Cindy that evening I just wasn’t getting a good feeling with the rental truck and I was concerned that we were going to have some mechanical issues. The next morning, I went to start the truck and it bellowed blue smoke –thick enough that it looked like I was trying to control mosquitoes!

I went back into the hotel room to call Budget and told them about the problems we were having with the vehicle and how much oil it had already gone through. Their answer was to keep receipts for all the oil and that I would be reimbursed after I returned the truck. They didn’t seem to understand that there was more to this, with the deceleration acceleration issue, and didn’t seem to care.

By this point, Cindy said that as long as the truck ran, “let’s just drive it until it won’t run”.

If you’ve ever crossed over into Georgia from Florida, you know that from that point on 75 gets a little hilly. That took a toll on the truck and it was struggling hard. It would go as low as 40 going up a grade and then run up to 65 coasting down. About that time we noticed other 24-foot trucks flying past us and Cindy went ahead and called Budget. She called their roadside emergency to explain our situation and the person on the other end asked what mile marker we were at. Cindy told them that there was a Shoney’s restaurant coming up in about 5 miles, and the lady on the phone told us to pull into that parking lot and that Budget’s mechanic would meet us there later.

We made it to the Shoney’s and I told the kids and Cindy to go in and order something to eat, while I would wait for assistance.

The mechanic showed up, a very nice and knowledgeable young man named Tod. He asked me a lot of questions and thought he knew what was wrong, but he would appreciate it if I would start the truck and push the accelerator to the floor while he looked under the hood. In a few minutes, he told me to shut down the engine and explained that three of the engine’s cylinders were not firing correctly and that the fourth one was about to drop out as well. He told me that the truck wouldn’t make it another 50 miles before that engine would completely shut down.

I asked him what the next step was and he told me that Budget would put us up in a local hotel, pay for our dinner and breakfast, and that he was working to get another truck delivered there by morning. He followed us to a hotel in Byron Georgia, and helped us get checked in. He would be calling me in the morning to let us know how soon the truck would be there.

…

I got a phone call at about 10 the next morning saying the new truck should reach us between two and three in the afternoon and that Tod and another gentleman would transfer all of our possessions from the ruined rental to the new one.

The new rental had a 429 gas engine, and before loading anything into it, Tod gave it a real run to make sure that there were no issues. That done, Tod and his partner Rich were really nice and very respectful of our possessions, and I would say it was nearly 4 pm by the time we were ready to get back to our journey.

Before we left, I told Tod that I was still puzzled by how the damaged truck had even gotten us that far. In all honesty, I felt like it was not as grave a situation as he made it sound, and made a five dollar wager with him that I didn’t believe the truck was that bad. So he handed me the keys and said: “Go over there and see if it’ll start or run for you.”

I then walked back to the truck, tried to start it and it would not run. I immediately handed him a five dollar bill.

That over, Tod was kind enough to give me his cell phone number and told me that if we had any other issues, to feel free to call him. With that, we were on our way north on 75. We got maybe 70 or so miles into our trip when I looked down the gas gauge and it showed it had burned half the tank it came with. I told Cindy there was no way we could afford to keep driving it if we were going to get such a lousy mileage.

We pulled to top it off and the tank didn’t take much fuel. Cindy said: “What do you wanna do with this?”

I called Tod and soon after, he came back to help us out. He explained to me that the gas gauge wasn’t working and that I needed to figure out how to get 3 miles to the gallon and just use the odometer to keep track.

The other issue we encountered was that the new truck suffered from the same acceleration deacceleration issue, but this time I could feel the gas pedal moving under my foot. I asked Tod what to do about that and he told me that the rentals had new electronic governors they were trying out and that he had seen problems with them. “To be honest the way to override it is when you feel it pushing up against your foot, lift your foot and then push it hard down to the floor. That will override it”. I followed those instructions and by doing it that way, I could now drive that truck to about 75 miles an hour. The gas gauge never worked right, but with Cindy having experience with a trip-o-meter on her truck, she kept tabs on the fuel tank.

After we got the truck unloaded in Ohio, I called Budget. I asked how they wanted to do the reimbursement for my oil, my hotel, my meals, and I added that I wanted 50% back for all of our issues. The gentleman from Budget told me that they would issue a credit, but that it could take weeks.

I said, “That’s fine, but then I’ll return your truck when I see the amount go back on my card”. He said: “No that’ll never do… we need our truck back”, and I said, “Yes, and I want my money back”. Sure enough, I logged into my bank account as he was punching in some numbers and I saw the credit go through.

So there you have it. I may be the only person in America who can say he’s single-handedly burned up a Cummins turbo diesel six-cylinder engine!

I hope you enjoy the attached photos of me, my wife, and my kids as a much younger family. I’ll close by saying that I want to express how much I appreciate the readers of CC. I feel it’s a privilege and an honor to be able to write these pieces and get so many nice comments from all of you.