Postby cat3126 » Thu Sep 01, 2011 8:51 am
Here's the scoop on Budget. I've been renting from budget for the better part of a decade as a mover, and up until last year they where great. The trucks where ALMOST as clean as penskes, but a bit cheaper. I have a great relationship with one of the local agents, and things have been great. However, this past year their trucks have not been maintained. In the past 6 I've rented I've had the following problems:
broken ramp (unsafe to use)
broken lift-gate (unsafe to use)
one truck did not have reverse (it worked on dead level ground, but couldn't hop a curb or go up a slight in cline)
I got in one and the check-oil light came on, so I mentioned it to the agent, they topped it off. It was a CAT diesel in a GMC, and it took 7-8 quarts of oil. which is pretty much a whole oilchange.
So I talked to someone I know that is in the know about such things at budget and apparently they've stopped paying their maintenance locations to work on the trucks (they don't do maintenance in-house but use some agents who also have garages to do the work). So none of them are getting the attention they used to.
The speculation is that they're running their fleet down and paying out dividends to the shareholders or something. Perhaps this is due to the economy or perhaps some sort of accounting trick with a parent company, who knows, but their trucks have been crap, that's for sure.
