Scary Experience Last Night! long post

[LBrown59]

I agree with Pat. I would also pursue legal actions against the company - not for monetary compensation but because they refuse to acknowledge their responsibility for maintaining the most rudimentary and basic safety mechanism on their equipment.
.

Could be some OSHA violations here.

 

[gemini5362]

Bummer this happened and like others glad yoiu are ok. Lot of gutts to make that jump. In the heat of the battle little things like drag the hoe or drop the bucket don't always hit the brain pan.

But I would have called them and left a message the moment it happened. That and on tractors and such the hour meter would be the tell-tale on how much you used it and what you should pay. Around here a daily rental is actually 8 hours on the meter, not 24 hours on the meter. Sorry I'm one of those you saw what you were renting, they delivered, and you used some, sort of like the plumber you call out and he says your dishwasher is wasted, you still own him for the call even though you will buy and install one from the local HD.

But we've all used or heard the term "it's a rental!!". And people beat that stuff to no end. If you are lucky you get or wait for a new piece of equiptment. If not you take what's there. Like dfkrug mentioned, sometimes it's cheaper to rent the old stuff. If this was $200 a day would you have paid $400 a day for a new L35? Probably not me because I'm cheap.

If was me I'd just say I'm glad to be ok, never rent from them, if I only used it for 4 hours then try and get half my money back, and move on. Because someone else is going to rent that POS, and use it all week without any problems.

Normally I might agree with your post. However, There is the issue of it breaking while he was using it. If it is like my rental company we also rent by the 4 hours or the 8 hours on the time meter. If he has rented it with the idea that he would be able to finish the job with the amount of time he paid for then he has some issues. If he only had half of the job finished when it broke then he is going to have to rent another unit. They are not going to let him pay half the price because he only has half the job left to do. He should get his entire money refunded because he was not able to finish the job he hired it for.

 

[gemini5362]

If you pay a cent you are even dumber than I am. They should count themselves lucky to not be paying for a medical exam, treatment, a funeral, or responding to a wrongful death filing from your grieving widow's legal team.

There is an implied suitability/fitness issue. If someone rents a piece of equipment it is supposed to do what it is supposed to do. If you don't go outside the bounds of reasonableness you have the right to expect the equipment to not fall apart and risk your life.

On the other side of the coin...You noticed there was no seatbelt and accepted the use of the machine making you partly responsible at least but of course you couldn't anticipate the seat falling off and that falls on their side of the fence.

Hopefully we all learned something from this.

Pat

implied suitability/fitness issue ? Would you quit using these lawyer terms I have to wake my wife up to ask her what you are talking about

 

[LBrown59]

Neutral on a car or truck doesn't even work like park??? MikeD74t

? I'm confused by your confusion?

 

[RobJ]

Normally I might agree with your post. However, There is the issue of it breaking while he was using it. If it is like my rental company we also rent by the 4 hours or the 8 hours on the time meter. If he has rented it with the idea that he would be able to finish the job with the amount of time he paid for then he has some issues. If he only had half of the job finished when it broke then he is going to have to rent another unit. They are not going to let him pay half the price because he only has half the job left to do. He should get his entire money refunded because he was not able to finish the job he hired it for.

I think the person doing the renting determines when the job is finished, not the rental company. There could be a lot of factors that makes the renter dertermine that the job is finished, or at least done for now. Renting a POS machine is one IMO.

I may not be making much sense, but you pay for the time you use. If the contract has an 8 hour minimum and the tractor breaks at 6, I agree they should only charge you for 6. Remember you got 6 out of it. If it was that bad then don't put any on it and tell them to come pick it up, wait for a better one.

Every week I rent a car for 2 days while I work out of state. I sort of have a special deal and rent a German car, but most don't know that these cars wear out the tires every 15k. I've taken 4 back recently minutes after I picked them up, one evening I took 2 back before I got one that drove well. See the rental fleet is getting around 22k and they don't change out the tires like they should. If I keep the car for my 400 mile trip I only have myself to blame. These days I hope they have something else because of this. BTW the Mazda 6 gets the best mileage of them all, mid 30's on the highway.

I don't like renting crap either, but if I have to take a pos or wait, I'd wait.

 

[RobJ]

There is a big difference between being cheap and being frugal. You may
be cheap if you deny yourself something despite having the discretionary
funds to buy it. You are frugal if you spend your money, but do your
best to get a good deal. But don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish....

I might be a little of both! Since I use to be a mechanic, I've fixed some rental stuff just to keep using it. Stuff as little as a garden tiller to a Ford 555 backhoe.

 

[JCS_in_KY]

I filed a complaint with the KY. Attorney General so we will see what happens.

I ended up putting about 2 1/2 hours on the backhoe. If I'd have known that the seat was going to break or that I was supposed to use a hammer to adjust it the total time on it would have been 0 hours. This is how the rental went:

1. I called on Friday afternoon to inquire about renting the backhoe. The manager of the rental location told me it was available and I told him I'd like to rent it. He went onto tell me how much I'd like this L35 because it was just a good backhoe. I'd seen it before but it had been a while. I asked him what the latest was I could pick it up because I had some things to do that afternoon. He told me they close at 5:00 PM so anytime up until 5:00 is fine.

2. I left my home about 4:15 to go pick the backhoe up. It's a 30 minute drive pulling a trailer so I called the rental place when I was about halfway there to let him know I was coming because lots of businesses in this area tend to close early, especially on Fridays. It was about 4:30 when I called him and he told me he decided to go home early and was going out the door in 5 minutes. I asked him if he'd stay since they'd agreed to rent me the backhoe for the weekend and I was already halfway there. He told me if I had a credit card he'd take that over the phone, then pull the backhoe up into their parking lot and leave the key under rubber mat. If I didn't want to do that he said he was going home and I'd have to wait until one day this week to rent it. That probably should have told me something right there about their service but I needed the backhoe so I gave him my credit card number, he took down my name and and I kept driving that way.

3. I got there to pick the backhoe up and everyone was gone just as he said they would be. I looked at the backhoe and it looked rough. I noticed the missing seat belt, knobs broken off the controls, etc. Of course at that time I didn't know about the parking brake or the seat issue. I loaded the backhoe on my trailer and when I got it up there I set the parking brake. The brake set like normal and I should have tested it at the time to see how well it held but unfortunately I didn't. I chained the backhoe up and came home. It was late when I got home so I didn't unload it until the next day.

4. I used it for about 2 1/2 hours prior to the accident taking place. I moved it numerous times and the seat appeared to be locking in place ok but it probably wasn't every time. After I had the problem with it I looked at the seat mechanism in detail and it would lock into a detent every time I adjusted it but the mechanism was so worn that by rocking it around at least 50% of the time i could make it come lose and slide completely off the base.

When I came home from renting the backhoe I checked my credit card website and found that the rental had already been charged. They told me they were going to hold the card and charge it upon return of the backhoe. I didn't really have too much of a problem with that at the time because I still anticipated getting 8 hours of use out of it. So at this point I'd already paid in full and to this date I still haven't signed a contract / rental agreement or even received a copy of one like they promised when they came to get the backhoe. I think under the circumstances they should probably refund all of the money but at the very least they should at least credit me for the 5 1/2 hours of time I didn't get to use because I was injured as a result of the backhoe and obviously afraid to use it after I found out about the seat the hard way. I've got about 35 - 40 hours worth of backhoe work to do total here right now so I'd planned to use it for that day, then rent the backhoe 3 or 4 more times over the next month or so until I was done with the job.

 

[gemini5362]

I think the person doing the renting determines when the job is finished, not the rental company. There could be a lot of factors that makes the renter dertermine that the job is finished, or at least done for now. Renting a POS machine is one IMO.

I may not be making much sense, but you pay for the time you use. If the contract has an 8 hour minimum and the tractor breaks at 6, I agree they should only charge you for 6. Remember you got 6 out of it. If it was that bad then don't put any on it and tell them to come pick it up, wait for a better one.

Every week I rent a car for 2 days while I work out of state. I sort of have a special deal and rent a German car, but most don't know that these cars wear out the tires every 15k. I've taken 4 back recently minutes after I picked them up, one evening I took 2 back before I got one that drove well. See the rental fleet is getting around 22k and they don't change out the tires like they should. If I keep the car for my 400 mile trip I only have myself to blame. These days I hope they have something else because of this. BTW the Mazda 6 gets the best mileage of them all, mid 30's on the highway.

I don't like renting crap either, but if I have to take a pos or wait, I'd wait.

I understand your position but like Patg posted there are some expection of suitability issues. When you enter into a contract to rent something for 8 hours there are some legal expectations of being able to use it for 8 hours. In normal transactions you might expect the rental company to have apologized for what happened, repair the unit and then credit you with 6 hours use of the backhoe when you recieved it repaired. They might have even tried to make some adjustment for your having to pick it up twice if they are a good company. What has happened now is that he had 8 hours of work to do. Because of what happened he is going to have to rent another backhoe to get that work done effectively paying twice for the 8 hours of work he needed done. To use your analogy of the rental car. It would be like you renting a car driving it down the road and realizing that the tires would be bad. You take the car back to the rental company, the rental companys mechanic looks at the tires and says there is nothing wrong with them. The rental company rents you another car and you make your trip but your rental company charged you a new rental fee for the second car. You made your trip but you paid twice for the rental car. That is what has happened here.

 

[RobJ]

I understand your position but like Patg posted there are some expection of suitability issues. When you enter into a contract to rent something for 8 hours there are some legal expectations of being able to use it for 8 hours. In normal transactions you might expect the rental company to have apologized for what happened, repair the unit and then credit you with 6 hours use of the backhoe when you recieved it repaired. They might have even tried to make some adjustment for your having to pick it up twice if they are a good company. What has happened now is that he had 8 hours of work to do. Because of what happened he is going to have to rent another backhoe to get that work done effectively paying twice for the 8 hours of work he needed done. To use your analogy of the rental car. It would be like you renting a car driving it down the road and realizing that the tires would be bad. You take the car back to the rental company, the rental companys mechanic looks at the tires and says there is nothing wrong with them. The rental company rents you another car and you make your trip but your rental company charged you a new rental fee for the second car. You made your trip but you paid twice for the rental car. That is what has happened here.

Well as usual more details are coming in. Dude leaves rental yard, must load by yourself, charged CC before hand, hindsight is 20/20. In the case of my car rentals and all car rentals there is a charge hold on the CC, it's replaced my the actual charge and never shows up an the bill. But because this is a corporate rental I also get all the insurance on the car, this is also an option on rental equipment. Also with my car rental and a tractor rental, if they have all gone home and I see it's a POS I can leave it and drive my car. In the case of the tractor yes it would totally screw up a work weekend but in the long run maybe it's for the best.

But we can see this rental company has many issues and should be avoided. I guess in the long run my view is WE should be more responsible for our actions because the no one else is and WE end up getting hurt. This rental company will just blame it on an inexpierenced operator, accepted the tractor by taking it, the mechanic will change the story and say it's fine, the rental owner is fishing buds with all the towns top brass...yada yada.

And I agree a reputable rental company would probably replace the unit and forget about the 2.5 hours of use. Like JCS said, a light went off when the dude said he was leaving and load it up yourself. All places I've rented from will not let you load it on a trailer on their property!! Talk about liability!!! When I bought my 2 atv's they said sorry, we have to load...insurance. But JCS needed it, maybe in a bind to get stuff done, and took it. In his case I would have probably done the same thing and cussed the tractor and the rental company all day!

I'm glad JCS got out with just a sore back!! Tractors, hills, no brakes...been there done that, your life flashes(my BIL's MF 1080 brings shivers)!! Let Momma work on that for you! And while she's giving you a rubdown, mention getting your own BH!!

 

[tjkadar]

Let Momma work on that for you! And while she's giving you a rubdown, mention getting your own BH!!

See, every bad experience has a potential bright side to it.