Railfan Technology > GPS and rental cars

Hi,
The prior post about GPS and being where you should not reminded me of some posts awhile ago about rental car companies monitoring your route so you are not on gravel roads or off road.

I have not had a problem but wonder if that is a current issue or an issue at all.

Thanks, Bob



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/13 15:18 by robj.

I'm down to about 6-10 rental cars a year, that varies for all sorts of reasons. We've heard about GPS tracking but nobody I know of has had an issue from the Rental company. Although I suspect it depends on the particular Company, I'm usually with an upper level Rental company and often on Corporate Accounts. We've also speculated the GPS tracker was for stolen cars. There was a story somewhere about cars being turned off when they crossed a State Line, Renter had to call the Rental Company to get it turned back on and promise to turn around. No one I know personally has had that happen though.

It may also depend on the rental plan, going outside of the state could trigger an issue, I always mention to the Rental person behind the desk if I'm going into another State. There had also been stories about going into Canada as well, that may be due to Insurance Agreements. I drove into Switzerland over the Summer and had to buy a 40 dollar permit at the Border, not real sure what the background of that would be... but I made it to Switzerland.

I frequently rent Enterprise in Portland OR. and drive to Canada. Enterprise has no problem and neither does my insurance company. I also rent in CA and drive to Hill 582 and out on dirt roads in the desert. If anyone has tracked me, no one has complained.

I've wondered about this a lot. I frequently fly into Las Vegas to go railfanning, since they have the cheapest car rentals in the SW.

Geez, if you rent somebody an SUV out of Las Vegas, you certainly have to anticipate that he might drive on a non-paved road at some point. But the rental car contract always seems to imply that even gravel roads are off limits.

I wonder what their tracking system thinks of that long slog from the I40 exit at Two Guns AZ to the Diablo Canyon bridge? The GPS doesn't show that as a road at all.

Not part of the GPS point, but along the lines of what you can and can't do with a rental car. When my 2006 Chevy 2500HD was in an accident and out of service for an extended time, I was offered a free rental car to offset my inconvenience. So, when I said I really needed a truck to pull a trailer, they said they did have trucks available, but that I would not be allowed to pull a trailer (note, that it would have only been a small single axle utility trailer, not a heavy duty bumper pull or gooseneck trailer my truck is capable of towing). I was then wondering why they even rent trucks and the guy could only shrug his shoulders. So, don't be surprised when they impose silly restrictions on very capable vehicles. And be very sure to read and understand the fine print!

Yep, trucks that don't haul trailers and SUV's that don't go off road since they are considered for snow conditions or for hauling extra passengers. We have been getting 4wd's from Avis with no known restrictions. The smaller ones are not too expensive, the bigger ones hit the gas mileage pretty heavy.

From an Enterprise Employee, there's no such thing. Agents usually ask if you will be staying in the area just to make notes on the account. A tracking device would be an astronomical fee when you figure there's better than 250 thousand rental cars in the Enterprise Group. These cars usually never even see more than 2 years old nor go over 30,000 miles before their sold. There's no sort of "tracking device" they use to zap the car or your credit card if you go out of a certain area. As for GPS tracking in your rental vehicle. I once had a GPS unit stolen from my vehicle and contacted the local police dept. They said to make sure to contact the manufacturer (Garmin) in my case. I just assumed that since the satellite knew where the GPS and vehicle were that they would be able to track it to the offender. NOT! Garmin explained that the GPS uses satellites to find its location however the GPS Company has no way of tracking the unit itself.

Hope that helps....

taskforce3guy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just assumed that since the satellite knew
> where the GPS and vehicle were that they would be
> able to track it to the offender. NOT! Garmin
> explained that the GPS uses satellites to find its
> location however the GPS Company has no way of
> tracking the unit itself.

Your personal GPS unit is simply a radio receiver that makes its own position calculation based on the precisely coded satellite signals it receives. It does not send anything back out to anyone unless it's got a completely separate transmitter operating in another frequency band, such as the cell phone band (the basis of stolen car trackers). The USAF, which operates the satellites, couldn't care less about about where anybody's receivers are located.


Ray

There is such a thing for high-end vehicles, no offense intended but I don't think Enterprise would have those cars. I have heard about New Car Dealerships using them and also custom alarm set-ups.

I regularly rent from National. Lots of their cars have On Star. That would give them all kinds of tracking and control if they want to use it. As far as I know, they only use it if the car does not come back. I know there is no problem going out of state, but I am not sure of their off pavement policy. I suspect if you have an incident off road, it could be an issue.

Most of the GPS based "fines" (speeding, off road or out of state) have been with little discount outfits looking to rip people off.

Scott Schifer
Torrance, CA
TinyTrains Website



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/13 21:36 by tinytrains.

I travel for a living and am at the top tier status for hertz, national, and avis. I've been traveling like this for over a decade and have never once had any issues (logs)of where I take my rentals that have the GPS questioned. I often get, "wow did you go off-roading or something". lol

Now what they do with the logs from onstar or the gps units for study and research is up to them of course and they do have right to use that data

Interesting discussion. My own observations are 1, when rental vehicle broke down, I had to discuss in detail where I was with the agent, whom located me using google earth on her computer, with me describing in detail the local road layout - no GPS there.
2. When I've read the small print, it refers to 'maintained roads'. To me, a graded dirt road is 'maintained'.
Usually rent twice a year in the US.
chris UK