Penske has left my family stranded in Flagstaff

Penske Truck leasing company has left me, my 6-month pregnant wife, three young daughters and my father-in-law completely stranded in Flagstaff. We've been living out of a hotel since Wednesday March 9th.

Condensed version here for full story read below. - We rented a Penske truck and car carrier from Amarillo, TX because I would save about $5,000-7,000 even with the gas and flying down there. I picked it up, started my drive back to CA to pick up my family and things for the move. The drive back took 3 days because the truck wasn't running right and had to stop in Albuquerque for repairs and I got stuck in a snow storm because of it. I got home and it took 2 and half days to pack, found out our Penske truck could not tow the second car due to weight even though we had specified our car make and model on our reservation. We had to return the carrier to Penske and we had our contract extended 7 days for the mistake but needed to make new arrangements for the second car. Delay took 3 days. We left this past Sunday and 20 minutes into our trip my father-in-law was hit from behind in a crash and totaled his truck. He walked away from it unscathed but now we were shaken up and had to repack the things from the truck. We left again this past Tuesday and had more issues with the truck and Penske advised us to stop in Flagstaff to get it repaired. They added 3 days to our contract and paid for a hotel. Once it was fixed it was snowing and we asked Penske if we could stay one more night due to the storm and our kids were throwing up the night before and we had 3 hours of sleep. They agreed and added one more night to our contract. During the night a different division at Penske flagged out truck as stolen and they had it towed with all of our things. Everyone we have talked to at Penske has said there is nothing they can do and we are on a do not rent list. We are now stranded in Flagstaff and we have to pay for a moving company to pick up our things. - 
The funds will be used to get movers to unpack this load and move it to our new home, to ship our cars, to get flights if necessary, to pay for our expenses at the hotel and food. Thank you.

 

We lived in California and decided to move our young family to GA. A quote for one way moving trip to GA with Penske was nearing $10k with fuel and truck rental. The quote also included my Kia Niro and a trailer to haul it. At these prices, it was not going to work, so I started looking in other cities to pick up a moving truck and Amarillo, Texas was going to cost about $2500 with flight and gas back to the Bay Area. The only caveat was I was allotted six days move time, but I asked what happened if I was over and it was going to be $100 per day. I figured I would owe a few days in the end, so I booked it and flew to Amarillo three weeks ago. The trip was only supposed to be two eight-hour days of driving back to California. I was at the Penske office right when they opened at 8 am but didn't get my truck until 10:30 am. The only truck they had literally arrived the night before and they hadn't cleaned it out yet. It set me back nearly a quarter of my day but was glad that it seemed to be working out. The desk attendant advised me about a DEF sensor issue but that I should be good to go. I was finally able to rent the moving truck and a trailer that I planned to use to haul my second car. I got on the road, but I was making bad time. The truck wasn’t getting up to speed and was struggling to stay above 60MPH. A snowstorm was coming through my route and I had to get through it before it passed over. Right outside of Albuquerque I called Penske to see what could be done. They advised me to stop in the service center to have it looked at. The service took nearly 2 hours, and they couldn’t fix the tuck, but this delay was putting me right into the storm. My wife was in California with our kids, and she thought it was safer if I drove through Phoenix to avoid the storm. More delays with things like fuel, food and locks for the truck was putting me at my first stop at midnight. I decided to stop in Holbrook for the night, a point which could have taken me through either Flagstaff or Phoenix. I planned to push through an 11-hour day of driving the next day. I woke up at 5:30am the next morning and I-40 was shut down in Flagstaff and so I decided to go south towards Phoenix. Not long after I left the I-40 opened but at that point I would have lost more time trying to backtrack according to my GPS. Driving to Phoenix took me through the snowstorm anyways and added many hours to my drive. The driving conditions were hazardous and there was also an issue with the truck’s windshield freezing over. I was very afraid to continue driving because at times it was hard to see with all the snow and the windshield frosting up. I took it very slowly but all I could think about was holding my little girls and wife again. After about 6-7 hours I made it to Phoenix and doing the math on my remaining drive time I realized that I was going to be on the road for a total of 18 hours that day before arriving to my destination. I was trucking along and arrived in Los Angeles around 5pm, decided to change direction and head north on back roads towards Bakersfield in order to save the potential for LA traffic delays. The sun started setting about an hour into the detour and I had thought I would have been in Bakersfield soon enough, but saw that I was still about 2 hours away. In the truck it’s very difficult to navigate and change routes on the road so I decided that it was safer to turn west towards the I-5. I had one final stretch of 40 minutes before connecting to I-5 and was a nervous wreck driving this huge 26ft truck on unfamiliar back roads with poor lighting. I made it to the I-5 at the Grapevine and had about 5 hours left of my drive. I would arrive at my destination about 11:30pm. I got off the freeway for my last fill up of fuel and because there was a long truck line at the gas station I decided to go down one more exit. I got on the wrong direction and ended up driving 6 miles the wrong way. My heart sank and I wept because all I wanted to do was hold my daughters and it seemed like everything was going wrong. I made the turn at the next exit and headed north. I decided to get some black tea at the next exit and some gas but my new ETA was going to be after midnight. I drank the tea and only 10 minutes had gone by when I felt my reflexes slowing down and decided to take the next exit in Coalinga. I called my wife and told her I tried so hard to finish the trip but had to sleep. I was going to get a hotel for the night, and it was THE WORST HOTEL I have ever stayed at during all my travels. The towels were damp, the heater wasn't working on a particularly cold night, I asked for an extra blanket that turned out to be dirty and smelling like someone else, but I went to sleep thankful to be alive. I woke up 5am the next morning to finish my drive and realized that the next hotel off I-5 was nearly an hour drive away. I probably would have tried to drive to the next hotel and possibly fallen asleep if I hadn't stopped in Coalinga. I got home to my family early in the morning and was so very thankful to be safe and with my family.

 

After spending 3 days on the road even more delays ensued during the moving process. We had a monumental effort of the family helping us pack our things. My wife and I both come from large families, and they all showed up to support us during the move out of our rental. What should have been a single day to put all our belongings into the moving truck turned into 2 and half days. We had to come back to our rental two additional days to finish tying up loose ends. We had been staying with my wife's parents an hour away from our rental because we didn’t have space to park the truck nearby and had to postpone our trip to GA due to these delays. I spoke with Penske in GA and let them know we were delayed and they took note and said I would owe some more days, I said ‘ok’ and we continued with our plan. Day 7 of our truck rental I drove my one of my personal vehicles down to meet the rental property manager for the walk through and got a nail in my tire directly outside of the complex where our rental was located. Fortunately I was right next to the Costco where I purchased the tires so I slowly drove there to have them work on the tires while I did the walk through with the property manager. The property manager asked if she could pick me up to do the walk through with her and also hand her the keys. She picked me up and we finalized the walkthrough. After that she dropped me off at Costco and I went inside to get a new tire. The shop did not have the tire size I needed in stock nor anywhere near me. My car does not have a spare, it has a Fix-A-Flat system which did not work at all. The worker who attempted to fix my tire told me that I had worn a black ring into it, which is not good for the tire and I told him since we're going across the nation I definitely want this replaced because my family would be in the car during the trip. He said the best thing to do is to tow my car to a shop that has my tire size so I called AAA and waited 2 hours for the tow truck to arrive. I had already called the repair shop and requested to be added to the waiting line for a tire replacement, which I was told would happen. When I arrived at the shop a worker said there was one car in front of me and I was a little bewildered because I'd already been waiting 2 hours for AAA to come and I shouldn't have had to wait for long, but thought it was probably going to be a short wait since it was a single tire and was patiently waiting for about an hour and 45 minutes before somebody finally pulled it in the shop. Several times I looked inside the garage and saw five guys just standing around doing nothing and I couldn’t help but get irritated because our trip had already been delayed multiple times and we were supposed to leave to GA the next day. The workers finally pulled my car in and I asked for a rotation on my tires as well, but after waiting for about 25 minutes I noticed that no one was working on my car and in fact the guy that was working on it was in his truck on a break. I talked to the manager and got them to fix it immediately. By the time the tire was replaced I ended up leaving right as the notorious Bay area rush hour traffic was going on and was stuck in multiple traffic jams on the way back to my wife's parents' house. Another issue that needed attention that same day was the possibility of the moving truck hauling more than the maximum weight, specifically a vehicle on the trailer in addition to the weight inside of the truck. I had previously taken the truck to a weigh station because I noticed that listed on the side of the truck is a limit of 26,000 lb. It turned out with the trailer I was going to be way over the weight limit and contacted multiple companies, including Penske, to see if it was safe to haul my vehicle on the trailer. I finally received an answer and found out that I couldn't tow anything over 26,000 without a CDL license. I called Penske and told them that I was unable to haul my Niro on the trailer. This set me back a lot, especially since Penske gave me the trailer to use knowing the weight of my car and did not disclose this crucial information. The company apologized and offered a refund for the trailer. I took an additional day to drop off the trailer and get quotes for shipping my vehicle out to GA. The representative at the location where I dropped off the trailer said that he would give me an additional 7 days on my contract. At that point I was able to avoid all overages and the new plan was to leave for GA early Sunday March 6th.

Everything appeared to be falling into place. My mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, wife, children and myself were ready to leave and we were roughly 20 minutes into our trip when a horrific car accident occurred. Someone rear-ended my father-in-law's truck and caused my father-in-law to slam it into the median right in front of his wife (my mother-in-law) and daughter (my wife). I was on the phone with my wife (hands free connection) at the time and all I could hear was screaming and saw a vehicle slammed into the median behind me. The blood left my face as I couldn’t tell who was involved. All I could hear was screaming and the phone breaking up. I pulled off the freeway and waited 2 excruciating minutes until I was finally able to get a response from my wife. It was not my wife in the accident, and I was able to direct my wife and mother-in-law off of the freeway. Once they were able to park safely they told me what happened and that my father-in-law was the one involved in the accident. I went back to pick him up and he seemed to be okay. We later found out that he walked away from the crash with no injuries. My father-in-law's truck was totaled and of course we would yet again be delayed.

 

We regrouped and planned to leave Tuesday but were still ironing out some details. The new plan also came with its own adjustments: we were unsure as to who exactly would be going on the trip with us and the logistics of how everything was going to work out. Since everyone was very shaken up by the accident our convoy dwindled down to just my pregnant wife, my three daughters and myself. It was challenging to get through the day knowing that it would be just us in the moving truck and one of our vehicles. We planned to leave the other vehicle with my in-laws who would be temporarily using it until they can get a new car. Being that my wife is 26 weeks (baby is due in June) I was very scared about how this would unfold. My wife wouldn’t be able to tend to the kids and I wouldn’t be able to drive the car and help her out.

 

As I was planning a slower route for a trip my father-in-law came down and asked what time we would be heading out. He had made up his mind to help us move even though his life was nearly taken from us 48 hours ago. My wife couldn’t stop crying because it was such a relief to have him go with us. He is willing to take a flight back to California and will stay with us as long as we need him to be in GA.

We left Tuesday the 8th and while heading towards Flagstaff the Penske truck received a check engine warning for the DEF sensor. I called Penske and customer service told me that we needed to stop in Flagstaff for service. Since they don't have the right replacement part, they were going to try to bypass the failed system on the truck. If the bypass failed then the truck would be limited to 55mph and it would eventually slow down further and then stop driving altogether, possibly leaving us all stranded. We were still 3 hours from our next stop for the night, but didn’t want to risk it. The Flagstaff service center was going to close before we could even arrive so the plan was to have them work on the truck the next morning or have a move team swap our things into another truck. Penske was going to pay for our hotel that night and add 3 days to our contract. With all the contract extensions we were only going to pay maybe 2-3 days overage depending on how long it all took to arrive to GA. The service technician was very nice and gave my children some coloring books for the trip. He said he could have it all fixed up within a few hours so we cancelled the truck swap. When we got back to the hotel it was snowing so I called Penske Roadside and they said they would give us one more night and 1 additional day on our contract, which was perfect because our three girls all got the stomach bug the night before and driving on 3 hours of sleep was going to be a bad idea.

 

The next morning we woke up to leave and found that Penske towed the truck during the late night/early morning claiming the truck was stolen. They said it was because I was so late to turn in the truck, but I had been in contact with them many times because of all the delays. The return of the trailer, the two services and even the contract extensions put us well within our total rental agreement. Without the contract extensions the truck was due the day they towed it and I was about 3 days away from GA. I would have had to pay 3 overage days but as of now, not only do we not have our belongings that are in the truck, Penske has refused to give it back to finish our move and put us on a do not rent list. Our vehicle is not able to fit all of us so we are stuck in Flagstaff, and now my wife and I are also sick and stranded here. During this whole time no one from Penske warned me about any possible repossession of the truck and I was in contact with roadside assistance many times. Penske staff said there is nothing they are going to do for us and that we have to get our things out of the truck and continue our move without it. We are receiving moving quotes and are seeing them come in at 15-20k, an extreme financial burden for our family. We are humbly asking for donations so that we can move our belongings out of the Penske truck and into to our new home. 

 

Macias Family