Back to New Jersey

Finally got to sit down and tell you about another one of our adventures. Well, actually, I wouldn’t call it an adventure so much as an experience. You all know that we have a tradition of driving on our vacation/trips, and we always use a rental to save money and the mileage on our cars at home. In fact at one point I told you guys about my sweet Jeep I got for my birthday, but that was another story. This one happened as we were on our way to New Jersey to meet with some family.

We often have miscellaneous car problems when using rental vehicles and they are usually voided when we return them as “mechanical failure” or “mechanical error.” However our recent trip was a little more exiting than squeaky brakes or an unglued rearview mirror or even a flat tire. This one was a little more exiting but surprisingly not that time consuming.

We were on our way from Florida to New Jersey in a Nissan Versa driving in the fog early in the morning. We made it all the way up to North Carolina when the check engine light came on. So we instinctively called National the ones we rented the car from to ask them what we should do. They gave us a location of the nearest National and suggested we call them. After calling them they said we could swap the car out for a new one to ensure we got there safely. If you read between the lines they were probably more concerned about their car, but they should be, repairs cost good money.

Well we were fifteen minutes away from the National destination when the car started smoking. It wasn’t like it was driving bad or careening off the road, it was just smoking. So we pulled off and gave them another phone call. They sent out a driver and had them pick us up and take us to the National Rental Car while they towed the old one. They wouldn’t even let us help unload our stuff, they did it all for us! When we got to the National location they got us into another Nissan Versa and we were on our way!

That’s the kind of performance we have come to expect from our rental car companies. This is the best we have been treated, thank you National for setting the bar!