My arrival at LAX was met with a huge rainstorm. I took the rental car shuttle for Avis and found my name on the board with a “See Preferred Counter Staff” note next to it. I walk inside and I am quickly greeted. The gentleman informs me that he has a number of different SUVs. I ask for a car, to which he replies, “well, the only available car I have for you is on the other side of the lot”. It is pouring outside and LAX rental car locations don’t have covered parking. Why should they, they don’t get enough rain to warrant it, but it’s 11:30pm and I just want to get to the hotel and get some sleep before a 4am wake-up.

I take the SUV, a Hyundai Tuscon. 28,000 miles on it but the Tuscon drives alright. Like most rentals, the windshield is filthy with a film on the inside making it difficult to see in the pouring rain. Rental companies, if you are reading this, clean the inside of the windshields! It’s important!

I end up driving the Tuscon for a few days all around Los Angeles. It guzzles gas like it is going out of style. I do not have to pay for the gas, but the client does and I think having to fill up once a week is a bit excessive, especially since I am only driving 40 miles a day. So, I place a phone call to an Avis location near the office and ask if they will swap out the Tuscon for a car. Nope, only SUVs left. I call another location, same response. I find a place that does have a car but it’s a Hyundai Elantra with 45,000 miles on it. No thanks.

Eventually, I call the Avis counter at Burbank airport and explain that I would like a car. They have some! It is a bit further of a drive but I make it there and inform the counter agent that I had called and requested a car. He thanks me for being an Avis First member, one of the “elite” levels in their program, then informs me that he has a Ford Mustang or a Nissan Altima. I ask if he has a Prius available, I saw three of them when I was walking to the counter. “Nope, they’re reserved”.

This is where I have to speak up. On Avis’s website, I had reserved an intermediate car, instead, they auto-assigned me a SUV as an upgrade. Yet, there is no way for me to specify that I want a hybrid vehicle or fuel efficient vehicle. Avis even touts their Prius rentals, yet there is no way to specifically reserve one.

Then there is the counter experience. If you have a lot full of cars and especially 3 or 4 Priuses yet when I ask to grab one of them and the answer is “they’re reserved”, how is that even possible? How is someone reserving that specific car? And, if they didn’t reserve it but it was assigned to them, why can’t you assign them something else.

I tried to have a little bit of this discussion with the person helping me but he was insistent that the only options he had were an Altima or a Ford Mustang. I took the Altima and it’s better to get 30mpg than the 20mpg I was getting with the Hyundai Tuscon, but the rental car experience is really abysmal. It is not just Avis, but all of the different car companies. Sure, there are “pick your own vehicle” rows with most companies but there is no guarantee those vehicles are not completely beat up inside or don’t smell like smoke. Even my Silvercar rental over the Christmas holiday was mediocre. The car had dings in it, the attendant pointed them out to me, yet he had a bunch of cars sitting around available.

There has to be a better way to do this. Let me look at your inventory and reserve a specific car or even a specific class of car. Let me state “no SUVs” in my profile and have that honored. Let me know how many miles a car has on it before I walk to it.

All of these things would make the entire experience better. I am interested to hear your thoughts on the rental car process. Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.