Budget Car Rental: You Can Judge a Company By Its Name

I've been travelling a lot lately. While this serves as an excuse to my lack of postings, I can promise you I have a vault full of great DoB stories.

I rented a car from Budget recently, and I noticed an odd smell when I first drove off the lot. It took me about 15 minutes and watery eyes before I figured out that the car, despite having only 5,000 miles, had been heavily smoked in. I also noticed the large "NON-SMOKING" stickers on the windows which declared a $250 fine for smoking. Once I got to my hotel (about 30 minutes from the car rental location), I called Budget to tell them about the issue. I was neither looking for a different car nor any type of credit; rather, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to be inadvertently charged the fine. The customer service representative informed me that I had 2 options. One option was to bring the car back to the rental location and swap it out for a different car. The second option was to risk paying the $250 fine. Yeah, so thanks a lot.

Ignoring the smoke infusion issue for the time being, I went to use the car the next day and found a partially flat tire. That's when I remembered that the tire pressure warning light did indeed come on shortly after leaving the airport, but I was too busy gasping for fresh air that I didn't notice. I looked up the nearest Budget location to my hotel, and took the car there to see what they could do about the flat tire.

I pulled up front to the Budget office (it was in an urban area, so I wanted to check in before I found a parking space), I informed the agent of my situation,  and she told me I had to park first. About 20 minutes had elapsed by the time I drove to the parking garage and walked back. The agent then found it convenient to inform me that they had no vehicles available and that I had 2 options. One option was for me to replace the tire with the spare. The second option was to call roadside assistance. Again, thanks a lot.

For the sake of keeping this post short, I'll skip the parts about there not being a spare tire,  about waiting on hold for roadside assistance for 45 minutes, and about me showing the garage mechanic how to use an air compressor. In the end, I was informed that it would take between 1 and 8 hours for Budget to come and bring a new car (since there was no spare tire) and that I would have to be there when the tow truck came. I was also informed that there was no way that the 8-hour window could be reduced. Oh, and by the way, we were on vacation. So, again, thanks a lot!