Dead Battery, Worthless Car Rental Company
Alaska Travelog #15
Seward - Sun, 16 Jun 2024, 8:30pm
We got back from our day-long cruise to Kenai Fjords to an unpleasant surprise. Our car battery was dead. Well, not our car but our rental car. I'd thought the battery seemed weak the past two days when the starter motor seemed to turn sluggishly. Now it was completely dead- no lights, nothing.
If this were our car, we'd call AAA and be confident of what'd happen next. It's for situations like this that we've paid for AAA membership for over 25 years. But this was a rental car, so I called the rental company's roadside assistance hotline.
Avis was a complete waste of time. Long story short, I had to make two calls to them. Each took about 20 minutes. And at the end of nearly 45 minutes I had nothing. I'd have had to make a third call to get help.
The tow truck dispatched by AAA arrived about an hour after Hawk started her call. That's not the fastest help we've ever gotten, but it's good that AAA at least had a contract with a company in Seward, as opposed to somewhere an hour or more away. We passed the time in the car reading news and stuff on our phones. We were parked legally in a parking lot, so among all the places we've ever experienced car trouble, it was one of the least concerning overall. It was just annoying that this happened on vacation and when we were hungry to go get dinner then relax in our hotel room. And for a Sunday evening at dinnertime, an hour wait seems reasonable. The driver even pulled up with what seemed like half his family in the truck with him. 😂
The driver jumped the car. It took a few tries with the ignition to get the engine to catch. The tow driver was unfazed and kept at it. The car came to life. "Keep it running for 20-30 minutes to make sure the battery's recharged," he advised. So we drove around town figuring out where to eat. And Hawk went shopping in a gift shop while I parked outside with the engine running.
Seward - Sun, 16 Jun 2024, 8:30pm
We got back from our day-long cruise to Kenai Fjords to an unpleasant surprise. Our car battery was dead. Well, not our car but our rental car. I'd thought the battery seemed weak the past two days when the starter motor seemed to turn sluggishly. Now it was completely dead- no lights, nothing.
If this were our car, we'd call AAA and be confident of what'd happen next. It's for situations like this that we've paid for AAA membership for over 25 years. But this was a rental car, so I called the rental company's roadside assistance hotline.
Avis was a complete waste of time. Long story short, I had to make two calls to them. Each took about 20 minutes. And at the end of nearly 45 minutes I had nothing. I'd have had to make a third call to get help.
- The first agent couldn't even find our contract. I hung up on him when it was obvious he hadn't figured out, yet wouldn't admit he hadn't figured it out, and also told me there'd be a penalty fee for them sending out a truck to jump-start the battery. "You're going to charge me extra for your busted car?" I shouted. "I'm the one losing my weekend to your busted car, you should be paying me!"
- The call with the second Avis agent started better- he at least was able to find my contract in the system, recognizing that Alaska has different ID numbers than the rest of the US- but after 20 minutes realized that he wouldn't be able to dispatch a truck anywhere in Alaska. Why couldn't that have been established in the first minute, when I clearly told him this was an Alaska rental and I was in Alaska?
- Also, the second agent confirmed that if, if, he were able to dispatch a tow truck to help me, I'd still have to pay a penalty fee for their dead battery. He at least had been supportive up until that point so I politely told him how offensive I find that policy and hung up gently.
The tow truck dispatched by AAA arrived about an hour after Hawk started her call. That's not the fastest help we've ever gotten, but it's good that AAA at least had a contract with a company in Seward, as opposed to somewhere an hour or more away. We passed the time in the car reading news and stuff on our phones. We were parked legally in a parking lot, so among all the places we've ever experienced car trouble, it was one of the least concerning overall. It was just annoying that this happened on vacation and when we were hungry to go get dinner then relax in our hotel room. And for a Sunday evening at dinnertime, an hour wait seems reasonable. The driver even pulled up with what seemed like half his family in the truck with him. 😂
The driver jumped the car. It took a few tries with the ignition to get the engine to catch. The tow driver was unfazed and kept at it. The car came to life. "Keep it running for 20-30 minutes to make sure the battery's recharged," he advised. So we drove around town figuring out where to eat. And Hawk went shopping in a gift shop while I parked outside with the engine running.