Mustang "broke down" & what we learnt . . .

[elliecjno1]

Hi all!

Thought I'd share this with you as it may save you some hassle or waiting for a call out one day - if you have hired a Mustang!

Picked it up with a mere 197 miles on the clock & it hadn't skipped a beat the 3 weeks we had it, we'd just filled up & were literally coming through the car park barriers at MCO to drop it back (took a wrong turn & went left instead of straight after drop off zone putting us into general parking instead of hire car return) so pulled to the barrier, popped in it park, handbrake on, car running. Leaned out the window to get the ticket to drive through & around to return the car, just about the put it in to drive & it died - no life at all bar "no key detected" on the dash. They have the keyless entry/start so key hadn't moved & was still in the tray next to the start button.

We got in & out, locked, unlocked, got the key out of the fob & did the doors with that & bar a few flashing lights, nothing. The FBM facilities guy came to us & tried to jump it in case it was battery, but nothing. Couldn't roll it out of the way as it was in park.

Avis (got it on BA flydrive package) were only 3 floors directly below luckily so I went & asked for maybe a spare key or some help - extremely unhelpful, lots of eye rolling & huffing telling me it wasn't their problem, they don't hold spare keys & I have to ring for recovery & get someone to tow it from the barrier despite me saying it was only upstairs & jammed in park.

An hour later luckily a helpful (woop!) Avis/Budget guy was behind the staff in the booth on my partners 3rd visit to the desk & he over heard the conversation & came to help. He tried everything & declared it a mechanical issue, but another half hour lots of googling later he got it started just as we were waiting for a tow truck. What a legend!

So advice if your Mustang "dies" & tells you it cant detect the key, pull up the rubber liner using the tap in the front centre cup holders & there is a little slot which you can put the fob in which will start the car to at least move it from where ever it has died - in our case - car park barrier

Also, if you really do need a tow truck - when asking make sure you ask for a smaller restricted height one from the get go as we were told they usually send the big lorries as standard & if they need towing back to a garage they'll only send for another on arrival - doubling your waiting time. We didn't need it in the end but were told it often causes issues.

All I can say is that if we didn't know our flight was delayed by 2 & a half hours or it had happened in the garage getting fuel 10 minutes earlier down the road, we'd have had a melt down!

Hopefully this may help someone!

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Good post, must have been so stressful.
Handy for others to know where the key slot is. That's news to me as I assumed there wasn't one.
Not exactly sterling service from some of the employees.

[YorkshireT]

Good post.
I once had one of my 12 seater mini busses fail on me. Brakes stopped working properly, quite disconcerting when you brake in one of them and suddenly very little happens.
They eventually sent a tow truck (was in Rotonda at the time) and a new one.
Took a day though. Had to chase quite a lot as well, service was very poor, that was Dollar from memory.

[paw]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

Good post.
I once had one of my 12 seater mini busses fail on me. Brakes stopped working properly, quite disconcerting when you brake in one of them and suddenly very little happens.
They eventually sent a tow truck (was in Rotonda at the time) and a new one.
Took a day though. Had to chase quite a lot as well, service was very poor, that was Dollar from memory.

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We had exactly the same with a Ram Van a good while ago with Dollar. The brakes failed coming down a bridge on E Osceola Parkway by Walmart. We all thought our friend was just being late slowing down and all started to shout at him. Luckily the lights changed and we cruised through the junction. Dollar were not interested and the men in the party had to taxi to the airport and be very forceful in the office to get it changed. Luckily we were staying in Meadow Wood so not too far when we abandoned the Van at Walmart. They were much better when we had to change it again after being hit by lightning while being brushed by a tornado in the old Beltz Mall carpark.

[Warkman58]

If you can’t get it out of park, all auto trans have either a cable or lever either in Tge cabin or under the hood to manually take the car out of park

[wanye]

obviously different, but if you have a keyless entry mazda like i do, then tapping a dead fob on the ON button works similarly

i think all keyless cars have something similar, its just a matter of knowing where to stick it :p

[elliecjno1]

Originally Posted by wanye

obviously different, but if you have a keyless entry mazda like i do, then tapping a dead fob on the ON button works similarly

i think all keyless cars have something similar, its just a matter of knowing where to stick it :p

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That was one of the things we tried as we heard that others sometimes work that way but no luck But yeah definitely just a matter of where to stick it

Turned out fob was fine according to the guy who eventually helped us & was linked to something mechanical, but who knows Was so frustrating! I'll stick to my old 4x4 with 135k on the clock & a proper key

[Forkbeard]

Thanks for sharing.

Situations like this wouldn't be much of an issue at all if staff were receptive, courteous and ultimately helpful. Sadly all three of these are found to be lacking far too often.