DO NOT RENT FROM CRUISE AMERICA!!!!!! Poor Product and even Worse Support!!! It took 21 HOURS to get a tow truck after breakdown. Full story below.
First I'll address the Product. We arrived to pick up our large rental at 1:00pm yesterday July 13, 2017 in Houston, TX. We did our walk around and there were large scrapes down the side of the vehicle, and internally there was still trash from prior renters. There were a few other small cosmetic issues inside, but all was documented on our rental agreement. When we started up the vehicle the check engine light was on, so the manager came and plugged in the unit for diagnostics and told us it was a loose gas cap, and the light was cleared, so we took the RV to our home to pack. While packing the Generator had difficulty starting and staying on, but we weren't too concerned because we planned on plugging in at our final location so we could overlook a faulty generator. We left Houston just before 4:00pm on July 13, 2017. While driving down the road I would have to hold the steering wheel at a 45 degree angle and fight the horrible misalignment. You could almost make a 90 degree turn by just taking your hands off the wheel. Also while driving the roof hatch would fly open because the lock was missing. At 5:50pm, we decided to stop at a gas station to fill up before passing through San Antonio. As we exited I-10 the RV completely DIED. We restarted and died again about 3 times before finally making it into a gas pump. I thought maybe it was bad gas from sitting at rental place, so we filled up and tried to start again, and same problem. We were able to start/die multiple times to get away from the pump and coast to back end of parking lot and we contacted Cruise America Support around 6:00pm, and that's when the real fun with customer service starts.
In regards to Service, after that first contact to get a tow truck out, they called me back and asked if I could manage to drive the vehicle 5 miles down the road. I explained the stop/start issues and that my wife and I had our 5 year old and 7 year old with us and driving down a major road that had no shoulder didn't sound safe, so I would prefer a tow. She said that she would leave a note for her replacement in the morning to work on finding a tow truck because she hadn't had any luck reaching any tow trucks. Keep in mind, it is 6:15pm and we are on I-10 in Texas with tow trucks going in and out of the gas station as she's telling me this. I questioned what time I could expect to heard from the next agent and was told 9am!!!!! Yes, 13 hours later I would get a call back to let me know they would start looking for my tow truck. Let me remind you I have a large RV broken down in South Texas with a 5 year old and 7 year old and a generator that keeps quitting and internal temps rising due to a poor generator/ac but it was perfectly acceptable to wait 13 hours to schedule a tow truck. Since we had no alternatives, we basically set up camp in a gas station parking lot and slept through the night. In the morning, there was no call. I had to call in to remind them to call a tow and then would contact them every hour to get an update. Each time I called they would tell me they were really busy and would call me back once they had a chance to review our options, but no return call would happen. In fact, other than the initial call back right after the breakdown, I did not get any return calls for almost 18 hours into the process. Around noon I received a call from the first truck that was dispatched because he decided Cruise wasn't going to pay them enough to sit through the traffic to Tow me so he left after already being in route. Again, I had to contact Cruise to let them know their dispatched tow driver cancelled and they would need to find another. 21 hours after we broke down, a tow truck finally arrived and proceeded to tell me he was contacted by the other tow driver and after hearing our story came as quick as he could. He literally arrived within 25 minutes of us getting our automated call saying a tow was dispatched. He was the only good service experience we had in this entire event.
In addition to taking nearly a full day to get us a tow, Cruise would not arrange for my family to be transported so I had to call and arrange transportation for my wife and children so I could ride with the RV to sign all the forms when dropped at mechanic shop. Since Cruise America would not provide another RV and the maintenance shop wasn't going to look at it that day, we decided to rent a 15 passenger van (again arranged on our own) and emptied all the contents of our RV and drove back home. Cruise recommended we terminate our contract since we were leaving the RV and that would cancel our liability, otherwise I would have been required to stay with the RV at the shop until looked at. STAY AWAY!!!! DO NOT RENT FROM CA!!!