Alamo Rent A Car — Local services in San Bruno

It’s hard to overstate how terrible my family’s experience with Alamo was. We travelled to CA to visit Yosemite, King’s Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks. Because we are a family of 6, we rented a minivan and were given a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid. Right out of the gate there seemed to be some problems with the doors not opening and closing just right and the high beams not working correctly but the real trouble happened when we got to King’s Canyon. As we are driving down the mountain to one of the most remote sections of the park, a warning came up on the display that said “Stop safely, vehicle will shut off soon.” Thankfully there was a pull off just ahead because the van did just that. We could not get it back on, and because of where we were in the park, we had no cell service to call for help. After some time I was able to flag down a nice couple that got my family back up to a visitor center and let us borrow their phones to call Alamo customer service. I tried to reassure my family that everything would be fine and that Alamo would take care of us. They did not. After 4 hours on the phone, we still didn’t have a plan to get out of the park OR to get a new van. The first 3 people we spoke to just HUNG UP ON US when they couldn’t find a solution. The 4th person connected us with the roadside emergency team who then told us there was nothing they could do. I offered a few times to have the van towed with my insurance but everyone kept saying not to because they needed to schedule the tow through their system but no one ever did. They wouldn’t offer to send a car to get us, said tow trucks weren’t allowed in the park, (until the park ranger gave us a list of tow services that worked in the park daily) and just kept hanging up on us. Finally one of them said we just needed to get to Bishop, CA and they would get us a car. Guess how far Bishop is from King’s Canyon. 8 HOURS! Fresno was 1 hour away and was the location that we were scheduled to return the van to but that was unacceptable to the Alamo people. Well after watching my wife and I struggle with the Alamo people while trying to keep our kids occupied for 4 hours, the park rangers offered to get us to our airbnb. The visitor center was closing now anyway and we couldn’t stay there any longer. Once we got back to the airbnb, I got a ride to the Fresno airport which was 1 hour away, and told them the whole story. In the end, it took speaking to 9 people before we were given a new car. But you know what? After all of these phones calls and Alamo customer service people saying not to get the vehicle towed myself because they needed to do it, not a single person scheduled a tow. So you know what I got to do at the airport? I got to wait until they found somebody to tow the van! While I waited, now that I had good cell reception, I google the warning that came up and found that it is a know issue with a recall assigned to it. So now, it seemed that Alamo didn’t care to maintain their vehicles to ensure they were trustworthy, they didn’t care that ours broke down, they didn’t care that my family of 6 with four kids under 11 were stranded in a national park, they didn’t care. They didn’t care enough about their customers to not just hang up on them, and they cared more about their processes than my need to come up with my own solution when they didn’t have one. They just flat out didn’t care. Anyone that knows me will tell you that this is not the story of a belligerent customer that is so rude that no one wants to help them. It took every ounce of self control to press through kindly until I got another car for my family to continue our vacation but in the end we wasted a whole day of a very expensive, once in a lifetime kind of vacation. I travel a bit for my work and my company has an exclusive agreement with Hertz. Now I know why! This was a rock bottom customer service experience and the world needs to know. I don’t ever take time to write reviews but if this review can help someone else to not have this same experience,...

The car we were given had mechanical and electrical issues that came up in our two weeks, but....

First, it was busy so they were really pushy about moving people through line to get their cars without talking to any of the desk people. I was pressured to sign my agreement to go right to the car, which I did not really want to do without asking some questions about tolls and about the kind of car.

Second, they call a Chevrolet Equinox a standard SUV, which is a joke to me. Yes, it was big enough for our needs, but they fact that into car prices. An Equinox is seen as a crossover SUV.

Most importantly, since Alamo has asked me many times to do this review: the Equinox itself had issues that, if we were not exhausted after our trip and had a flight to catch, I would have told them--but on drop-off they don't have customer service, really, just guys there hurrying everyone out of the cars so they can get them to the next folks.

We were in Mammoth Lakes, on the other side of Yosemite and far, far from any Alamo rental agency when our Equinox's screen just went blank. The music and CarPlay just went caput. There we were, about to head off to Yosemite an hour away when, boom, the car's system just went black. I went to google, went to YouTube, and found out that this is a very common problem with Equinox (and Chevy) software. They even call it "the Chevy black screen." There were a bunch of tutorials in how to get the screen back, including trying the OnStar button. We tried that...did not work. We then saw another video that said to simply turn the car off and let it reset by not restarting for 5 minutes. We did that, waited about 10, and it didn't work. We decided to trudge on with our trip, and I prayed that getting gas and letting the car go off again may "reset" the software. That luckily did it. All together, we lost an hour of our day in Yosemite and got to panic that it would happen again--so we downloaded offline Google maps and prayed the car wouldn't malfunction.

Mechanically, the car was okay minus a very jerky shift from first to second gear. The driver lane assist also is not good. It kept pulling us into the shoulder on tighter streets. Also, the car wheel was misaligned the entire trip, as the Chevy symbol on the handlebar was slightly askew when driving. It made for some distraction when handling mountainous curves through national parks. I would urge Alamo to not use Equinox's, not price them as Standard SUVs, and to also put more into maintaining their cars between drivers.

We've done Alamo for other trips, and I have to say that the Denver airport Alamo is much more of a human to human process where they care if your experience in their cars was good. The SFO one was mostly a turnstile process that gives me pause for using Alamo for future car rentals when we do...

What a horrible experience with this location! The vehicle I rented seemed fine the first night but while driving up the coast the following day, I had warning lights that would sporadically come on, beeping sounds that said "Driver Seatbelt Off" while I WAS WEARING MY SEATBELT and other concerning error messages. I began taking pictures of the dash to document them. What should have been a relaxing drive through the Redwoods was stressful because I was by myself and had spotty cell phone service.

When I got to my B&B, I sent an email to the manager of the location so that I could include photos. No response. I waited and sent another email with MORE photos of the problem. No response. When I returned the car I told the attendant how stressful the warning lights were. He asked if I wanted to speak to the manager, but since I was already running late for my flight, I told him I didn't have time but he had my contact information and photo documentation of what I was referring to.

It's now been almost 3 months and after opening a Chat on the Alamo website at least 3 times and being told someone from upper management would contact me, I've heard nothing. I've asked for compensation and kept getting the brush off. On June 10, I was told someone from Upper Management would email me so that I could forward the photos to them. Never heard a word.

I tried again today, August 26th, and was informed repeatedly that "no issues were found with the vehicle when they checked it". In other words, it's MY PHOTO EVIDENCE against the word of whomever "checked it" and the manager, who never contacted me, has written in their notes that I am not to receive any type of refund and the case is closed. Seriously? Interestingly enough, I had to go back into my emails to find the "survey invitation" and the request to write a review on Google was dated June 2 (the day after I returned the car) and then again on June 10, the same day I was told via Chat that someone would contact me.

Avoid Alamo at the SFO location. Customer Service is nonexistent. If anyone else rented this RED JEEP RENEGADE, License #875Z46 after I did, I feel certain they had issues with the warning lights coming on OR there is a repair bill associated with it before it was rented out again.

I AM most upset about being told that there were no issues when I have proof...