During a recent trip to Montana I rented a vehicle from... - NZ
During a recent trip to Montana I rented a vehicle from Bozeman Ford Lincoln. Although I had called months in advance to reserve a Ford Explorer, I was notified only a couple days before our trip (and only after I called to confirm, again, that we were all set with our rental) that they had, "double booked" the Explorer and that I would be given a comparable vehicle. Unfortunately it wasn't comparable. It was smaller and it didn't have a third row which I really needed. On top of that they charged me more than what I was originally quoted. Their lack of organization skills and their mediocre customer support should have been a sign for me to rent from somewhere else, but given the state of the rental market at the time I didn't have an alternative.
Fast forward through our trip and I end up having a minor fender bender with a tree. Upon turning in the vehicle I made them aware of the damage and over the subsequent days I was in communication with the body shop about the cost of the repairs. Because I was from out of town, and I had rented from a dealership, I had no option but to have the repairs done by their body shop. I knew the repairs would be expensive but $3,335 seemed excessive given the damage, but again, as an out of towner, I had no choice but to pay what they asked and move on. I paid for the damages and thought the issue was resolved.
Four weeks after I had paid for the damages, I received a call from the body shop saying that because they had continued to rent the vehicle out to other customers they were just now getting around to actually fixing the vehicle. They explained that upon further inspection they needed another $1,037 to fix another issue they had apparently not seen four weeks earlier when they had assessed the damages. Naturally I pressed them on how they could be certain that what they were looking at was caused by me, because, again, they had continued to rent out the vehicle for 4 weeks after I had turned it in. With no proof, they insisted it was still my problem. Again, because we are out of towners and traveling to Bozeman, hiring local legal counsel, and all the other costs associated with fighting this battle with them would have well exceeded the $1,037 they were asking from me, I begrudgingly paid the amount.
I don't know what it's like to purchase a car from Bozeman Ford Lincoln, maybe their sales team is great. However, I do have experience working with their rental department, their bodyshop and their "customer relations" team. There is a high probability you too will ultimately come to feel exploited, taken advantage of and just generally disregarded. You are not a customer, you are a transaction. No one seems to care about providing decent customer service. That, unfortunately, includes the General Manager. My wife sent a very kind email to him asking for a simple phone call. When she did not receive a response, she followed up via email and still received no response. His voicemail was full. It’s very disappointing that the GM could not be bothered to even speak with us about this situation. Please consider taking your business elsewhere.
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