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By Rick Garcia
I stopped using Enterprise Rent-a-Car years ago because of a case we had that showed they made a practice of renting out cars with balding tires. If I needed a second reason, now I have one.
Enterprise also makes it a practice of renting out unfixed cars that have been recalled for safety reasons. In a story published in the New York Times, the company said it only carried out recalls that it considered “major” safety issues.
Tell that to the parents of Jacqueline, 24, and Raechel Houk, 20, sisters who were killed in 2004 when their rented PT Cruiser caught fire under the hood from an oil leak and they crashed into an 18-wheeler. Just four months earlier, some 438,000 of these Chrysler-made cars had been subject to a recall because power steering fluid could leak, causing a fire in the engine compartment.
The parents sued, and in May, a jury awarded them $15 million for not responding to the recall and fixing the cars.
You’d think that would be the end of it. But no, two consumer groups this month petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to require that Enterprise agree to start fixing every car with a safety recall before renting it out to consumers.
They were responding to the company’s public statement that it still intended to pick and choose which recalls to respond to.
As it stands right now, the law only requires that auto dealers fix new cars subject to a recall before selling it to a customer. Join me in registering a complaint with the FTC urging the agency to require that all car rental companies take vehicles subject to recall back to the manufacturer to be repaired before they are rented out.
As the mother of the two girls who joined in the consumer group request so eloquently put it, “It’s not rocket science.”
Garcia & Karam won the lawsuit against Enterprise for the tire issue, but they apparently are slow learners. Let’s hope the FTC requires Enterprise – and all car rental companies – to put customer safety first, and last.
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