Karen Freeman thought that she’d returned her Chrysler 200
Sedan to the Richmond airport with a full tank. She thought wrong.
“An agent noted that the tank was full,” says Freeman, an
architect from Atlanta. The gauge also registered that the tank was at
capacity, she says.
But a few days later, when she reviewed her credit card
bill, she discovered that Avis had charged her an extra $7.43 for 0.8 gallons
of gas, or about $9.29 per gallon. She called the company to complain.
“A representative told me that according to a satellite,
when I picked up my car, it had 16.9 gallons in it,” she says. “And when I
returned it, it had 16.1 gallons. I checked the ticket from pickup and there’s
no mention of the fuel quantity other than ‘G8’ — which means full.”
Avis isn’t the only car rental company measuring fuel down
to a tenth of a gallon. Hertz is installing this technology, which is referred
to by the industry term electronic fuel metering, in its fleet over the next
few months in an effort to ensure that every drop of fuel is accounted and paid
for.
Mark Frissora, Hertz’s chief executive, says that his
company loses $50 million a year in fuel. Its new system, called Zibox, is
capable of shutting off a car engine remotely and operating car locks from
afar. It relays location data, tire air pressure and fuel-level information
back to Hertz, too. In other words, it will know exactly how much fuel you have
in the car at any given time. “This is going to be good for customers,”
Frissora says.
An Avis representative said that the technology is part of
the company’s effort to be “more transparent and precise” in the fuel
measurement process.
“Our new technology automatically measures and records the
precise amount of gas in the tank at the time the customer exits the rental
facility, and measures and records the fuel level again when the vehicle is
returned,” says Avis spokeswoman Alice Pereira. “Both readings are printed on
the customer’s rental receipt when the vehicle is returned. Through this
method, customers can clearly see exactly how much fuel they are being charged
for and the amount of such charge.”
When Freeman phoned Avis to question her bill, it quickly
deleted the fuel charge. But she’s unhappy with the way the technology is being
used. “Not only do I think it’s unreasonable to hold the consumer to a data
point we have no access to,” she says, “but I am certain that there would be no
credit if I had returned the car more full than the ‘full’ I received.” (Avis
says it would have credited her for any additional fuel.)
Fuel purchasing has always been a hot topic among car rental
customers. That’s because the systems either favor the car rental company or
the renter but are never entirely fair to either.
As things stand now, if customers choose the fuel-purchase
option, prepaying for a full tank of gas, they must return the car with little
more than vapors in the tank if they want to break even. Otherwise, the car
rental company profits. On the other hand, if a renter agrees to fill the tank
before returning it, the rental company — or the next renter — can take a hit
if the gauge erroneously registers a full tank.
“It’s difficult to get customers to always return the car
with a full tank,” says Sharon Faulkner, executive director of the American Car
Rental Association. Privately, some customers have admitted to her that they
watch the gas gauge while they’re filling the tank, waiting for the needle to
reach “F” and then stopping, as opposed to waiting for the gas pump to cut off
automatically.
“A car can read ‘full’ for a number of miles, but the next
customer, who gets the car almost full, is the one who is hurt if it isn’t,”
she says.
No one knows exactly how much the car rental industry as a
whole loses — or profits — from selling fuel. But the new fuel-metering
technology is likely to tip the scales in the industry’s favor, say observers.
Chris Brown, who edits the trade publication Auto Rental
News, says he believes that the car rental industry is losing money on gas,
which is why it’s moving to electronic fuel metering. But the technology is
relatively new and little is known about it or how it would be implemented.
Freeman’s run-in with Avis didn’t look right to Brown, because once an agent
marks the tank as “full,” an agency doesn’t normally reverse course and declare
the tank to be partially empty. “Procedurally, it doesn’t make sense,” he says.
For anyone renting a car, the path forward is only slightly
clearer.
If you’re renting a high-end, low-mileage car, your chances
of having a vehicle with electronic fuel metering are good. You can either
prepay for a full tank of gas through a rental company’s fuel-purchase option
and time the return of your rental to the moment the tank reaches the “E” mark,
or you can fill the tank to the top just before you return it and hope for the
best.
It’s always a smart idea to save the gas receipt, which
should note the time and the amount of fuel you added to the tank. If there’s a
dispute, the invoice could prove to be useful.
And don’t forget to review your credit card bill after you
rent.
“You have to watch your car rental company like a hawk,”
advises Freeman.
Article Credit: www.washingtonpost.com
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