At the end of March I rented a compact car for a week's duration just before dusk. The Nissan had a large sticker on the front windshield (8"" by 6""), blocking my vision. I asked to have it removed on the way out, and was told to go back to the office, because the sticker says ""not to be removed until sold"". Jenn was happy to remove it for me, and stuck the sticker in the back right window, so it would no longer block my vision. \r
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Because I was not familiar with the car, I accidentally squirted the windshield washer fluid on the front windshield, instead of changing gears to pull out. That's when we noticed that the right windshield wiper was not working, because it had no rubber on the blade! I went back inside to get Jenn. She offered to upgrade me for more money, rather than fix the problem, or apologize that I could have gotten caught in a thunderstorm in the next week without a wiper blade on the car! I declined the upgrade, so they brought me another compact car, a Fiat. She told me that if I didn't want the Fiat, that was all the compacts she had left, and I would have to pay for an upgrade. I took the Fiat.\r
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As I was sitting in the Fiat, getting familiar with the car, and making sure both wipers were attached, an employee came up to ask what to do with the Nissan. Jenn told him to park it. THEN he asked why, was their something wrong with it? ONLY THEN did Jenn tell him that the wiper might be broken and he should look at it. Never once did she say, ""Whatever you do, make sure we get a wiper blade on there before we rent it out again!"" She handed me my paperwork and left to help another customer. \r
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I looked at my paperwork, and it said that I was taking the blue Nissan, because she did not print out new paperwork for the Fiat. I was not about to leave the lot, for fear that someone else could wreck the Nissan this week, and I would be blamed, because the paperwork said that I was driving the Nissan. So I went back in to get Jenn, who politely changed my paperwork.\r
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Just as we left the lot, it started raining. As I was driving down I-70 for 2 hours in the dark, pouring rain, with tractor trailer trucks flying past me going 70 miles per hour, the car would intermittently shake and rumble loudly, and I could feel loud vibrations in the floorboard. Every time this happened, there was no where safe to pull over, in the dark, pouring rain, and then the vibration would stop. It was a very scary ride. \r
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I was about to return the Fiat in the morning to your Columbia Enterprise, to get a safer car. My son asked if he could look at the engine before we left for Enterprise, and we noticed that when I popped the hood, nothing happened, because the hood had been popped open the whole time! The shaking and rattling the night before had been from driving a car with the hood not latched, and the wind every once in a while catching underneath the hood. What would have happened if the hood HAD flown open while driving on I-70 on a dark, stormy night, surrounded by tractor-trailer trucks flying by at 70 miles per hour? \r
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Enterprise compromised our safety 3 times last week: the 8x6 sticker in the windshield, the missing wiper blade, and renting me a car with the hood not latched. It would be in Enterprise's best interest to place tighter safety controls and re-train its employees to avoid compromising the safety of its customers.
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