You may have seen reports across the media about how people are getting arrested when they rent vehicles from Hertz — or even if they do not rent from Hertz — so I decided to rent a vehicle for a week from Hertz and see what happens from personal experience.
I Just Rented From Hertz. I Did Not Get Arrested.
The rental period began on Friday, January 28, 2022 at 10:00 in the morning, with returning the car at the same time on Friday, February 4, 2022 at a Hertz Local Edition facility — that is, a location which is in a neighborhood rather than an airport — within the greater Atlanta metropolitan area.
I did not have to wait too long until the friendly woman behind the desk — who let me know she was originally from Michigan — began the process for the rental.
The original type of vehicle which I was renting was a compact car — but I received an upgrade to a Ford Escape SE EcoBoost, which was equipped with four wheel drive capability.
The vehicle had almost 30,000 miles clocked on its odometer — that threshold was reached and exceeded during the rental — but the condition of the car still seemed rather new.
The vehicle was fully equipped with just about everything that I could use but did not need — but I appreciated the audio system, from which I was able to use my portable music player, which is an Apple iPod Touch which came with a computer I purchased almost 13 years ago.
Yes, the trusty iPod worked fine — although it was too old to use Apple CarPlay; but I could have used my iPhone if I really needed to use it.
For a moment, I could not figure out how to activate the rear window wiper…
…until I found the tiny switch at the end of the stalk.
The seat was reasonably comfortable; and the climate control system worked well. Universal Serial Bus ports — the Type A variety, I believe — were not only under the controls for the climate control system; but also in the console to plug in portable electronic devices.
Plenty of cup holders and compartments were available…
…and speaking of space, opening the rear hatch of the vehicle revealed plenty of storage space to put luggage — and even more space is available when folding down one or both of the rear seats forward.
The fuel tank was located on the right side, which was helpful if long lines were at gasoline stations, as more vehicles seem to have fuel tanks on the left side — and I also liked not having to fiddle with a cap with the EasyFuel system.
I check to see if rental cars are equipped with spare tires — just in case I need one — as I have always known how to change a flat tire; but that knowledge really came in handy when the rental car I was driving hit a pothole in the middle of nowhere in South Africa on my way to Lesotho. That was an adventure in and of itself.
This Ford Escape was the type of vehicle which the motor automatically shuts off whenever it comes to a complete stop — such as a traffic light — before it automatically activates again when taking the foot off of the brake…
…but what was weird was that almost every time the motor was deactivated — whether temporarily or when parked — sounds of liquid sloshing around from the engine area would persist for as long as 15 minutes or so. The area under the vehicle was dry; so the sounds were not caused by a visible leak of any kind. I pointed this out to the agent at the rental car facility when I returned the vehicle — but even though she owns a Ford Escape, she did not know to what I was referring.
Final Boarding Call
The same agent who began my rental also concluded it — and again, she was quite friendly and helpful. The entire experience was rather…
…well…
…pleasant and uneventful — as almost every rental car experience should be.
As for the aforementioned media, one of many examples is that: “A Delaware bankruptcy court judge has ruled that rental car company Hertz must make public the number of renters it accuses of stealing its cars. The ruling comes in the wake of a CBS News investigation of claims by customers who say they were falsely arrested”, according to this article by Anna Werner, who is the consumer investigator for CBS News — and she reported on Wednesday, February 9, 2022 that “one Colorado man alleges he was arrested after Hertz wrongly reported to police that he did not return a car in Georgia — a state he says he has never visited.”
I am not denying that the allegations are not true or warranted — nor am I saying that Hertz is the perfect rental car company — I am simply saying that the chances of renting a vehicle and getting falsely arrested afterwards are unlikely…
…but in case of the minuscule percentage of a chance that I do get falsely arrested, I will let you know in a future article.
All photographs ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
