Lack of maintained and serviced vehicles

Firstly thrifty, you ruined a weekend planned long in advance due to your multi passenger vehicles not being compliant with simple road rules.

On a trip to Swaziland with 7 people as passengers, the first discrepancy we noticed is that the vehicle had breaks that were completely worn and caused the entire car to shudder when applying breaks. This was dangerous and could have resulted in a serious accident. This vehicle was loaded with 7 people and luggage. A vehicle being used in such conditions could have proved fatal. It is not our responsibility as customers to identify break issues but the fact that such vehicle was given to us is complete negligence.

On arrival in Nelspruit we decided to exchange the vehicle in the morning before making our way further to Swaziland, this debarkle took almost2-3 hours off our initial estimated time of arrival and the vehicle itself was now no longer what we asked for (Diesel), it was now an old petrol Quantum that would drop speed on an uphill regardless how many gears we drop down. This was extremely time consuming and frustrating on our journey to Swaziland and back as there was nothing we could do about the vehicle not wanting to accelerate even on the lowest gear and pressing the accelerator as flat as it could go. The vehicle wouldn't move. The vehicle may have been heavy, but a vehicle that is compliant in terms of maintenance would not give such issues and would not burn this much fuel in such a short period.

We then went back to Nelspruit to exchange the vehicle for THE THIRD TIME, again more time wasted as a group of people who wanted to spend good time together. Immediately after leaving for Johannesburg we noticed that the vehicle was misfiring and switching on and off while on the highway, this was extremely stressful as the vehicle would automatically loose speed as it switched off and this could have resulted in a tragic accident due to the traffic behind us.

Lastly one of the passengers forgot their phones in the previous vehicle due to the stress of having to unpack and repack our belongings into the next vehicle with a time frame which thrifty did not at all attempt to consider. We proceeded to go back to Nelspruit airport where they made us wait for nearly two and a half hours in hope that somebody was coming to help us so that we can get the phone out of the vehicle and get back home as some of the passengers had to catch flights in Johannesburg. At the end of it nobody helped us except a call centre agent who was trying his best to get hold of Nelspruit management to open the vehicle and who's phone was now turned off after she was contacted and knew about our situation. We then head back to Johannesburg without the phone and a broken vehicle because nobody was willing to see the urgency regarding seven(7) peoples lives put in danger because of a thrifty ill maintained rental vehicle.

Thrifty as customers who rent from you often(well not anymore), we are disappointed in your lack of provision of vehicles that are compliant for journeys as tedious as the one we took, trusting you would give us a vehicle able to do the bare minimum on the road with less effort and worrying from our side. We will not be recommending any of your vehicles to anybody as we are not going to take part in condoning the use of unsafe vehicles. Whether its a short distance or not. This is unacceptable!