Rental Car | The Daily Click

Five In Two

Have you ever driven five different cars in about two weeks? I have! All because of our brand new Rogue. Greg drove six cars in those two weeks!

Of course I drove my Santa Fe (car #1), that we traded in for the Rogue. Got to drive the Rogue (car #2) for about a week and then Greg dropped it off at the Nissan dealer when the car was exactly one week old, to get some scratches fixed that were on the front bumper when we bought it, and to get a rear bumper protector put on. In the week that we had it, we noticed that the outside temperature display was off by quite a bit, and the gas gauge was going a little crazy. It would show a full tank of gas one time, then I would park it in front of my house, and next time I started it up, it would show 3/4 tank and slowly move up to full. It would go back and forth, depending on which way the car was facing when it was parked in front of the house. Greg asked the mechanics to check those things out when he dropped off the car. I drove Greg’s shoebox (car #3) that day and Greg got to drive a Nissan Frontier, that he got as a rental/loaner. We picked up the Rogue that evening… you’d never know there were any scratches, and the bumper guard looked great. The temperature display? NOT fixed! On the sheet of paper they give you, it said that they had to special order the part, but nothing about when it was expected in. They never did find a problem with the gas gauge (doubtful they really checked). Our salesman said he would have the mechanic, who had already gone home, call us the next day. Did he? Nope. Greg called and left messages, never heard back, and he never called back on Monday either. Tuesday Greg was getting a little pissed, called and left another message, and then called the service manager and gave him a piece of his mind. Said that if we don’t get that car fixed, they will be replacing it for us. And wouldn’t you know it, not 30 minutes later, the mechanic calls back and tells us that we could drop the car off the next day and they would try to figure out what was wrong with the gas gauge while they waited on the part for the temperature display. Meanwhile we had driven about 85 miles since the last fill-up and the gas gauge still showed a full tank! Yeah…. wouldn’t it be nice if it got that kind of gas mileage? Something was obviously not right! So Greg dropped it off Wednesday morning before he went to work and got a piece of crap Nissan Sentra as a rental/loaner. Car #4 that I got to drive. The temperature gauge part was in Thursday, and by Friday they had the gas gauge fixed and we picked it up that evening. They even sent us home with a full tank of gas (or at least that’s what it looked like). Everything seemed fine… temperature seemed about right, and the gas gauge wasn’t going crazy either. Same on Saturday morning when we went grocery shopping. Then we put it to the real test and parked it facing the other direction (east) when we got home. A couple of hours later we had to run another errand, and… we’re at 3/4 tank! No, there’s no gas leak anywhere, and we parked it facing west, and when we left to go to Sara’s soccer game, we had a full tank of gas again… and the temperature display was off again, too! It showed 73 degrees, when it was really about 85. Greg had made some phone calls to the service department and never got a call back. Then he tried the service manager again, who told him that we would have to set it up for Monday because he didn’t have a loaner for us, but Greg told him that we would be dropping the car off that afternoon and he would just have to give us a rental. And he would have to pay for the gas, too! We went right after Sara’s game and dropped the car off. Greg made it clear that he expects the problem to be fixed this time. If they think they have it fixed, check again and make sure it’s fixed. And if we have to bring the car back a fourth time, they will be replacing it with a new one! The rental this time? A Nissan Quest (car #5). Hopefully this will be the last rental/loaner for a while!