Hertz Vs. Avis (GPS Road Test)

Our family just came back from Orlando last week. We had a Hertz car with the "Never lost". We ended up caling it the "Never Work". Terrible system !It would only list sponsered locations when requesting a business, and would often send mid route corrections to a totally different destination that was originally entered into the system. I just can't say enough on how bad this hunk of crap is.

I have used the Avis GPS on nearly every rental I've had in the last three months and it's been fantastic in my experience with it.

Until last month I'd never used a GPS, but was talked into renting one on a family vacation in Los Angeles for $50 on a weekly rental by AVIS. It was the best $50 I've ever spent! We went all over Southern Cal and didn't get lost once. Since coming home, I've purchased my own. Now I won't have to rent one and will always have it.

I had a National rental out of Orlando last week and the portable GPS unit was terrible. I have VZ Navigator on my 2 inch cell phone and it is way better. First of all, my rental car (Monte Carlo) had a slanted dash and low window, so there wasn't enough room to place the unit and secondly, the unit gave wrong directions most of the time or told us to turn 500 feet past the intersection! Save the $43.95 and get a map

I agree with Vinny: Hertz "NeverLost" beggars description. Just how bad can a GPS user interface be? Can it be dangerous, stupid, useless and obtuse all at the same time? Apparently, yes it can, and then some. And we, like Vinny, gave it a name. Actually, we gave it several: "NeverWorks" (same as Vinny), "NeverAgain" and "AlwaysLost"... and also some other names too colorful to print here. We could never decide which was the better description of this execrable piece of wasted technology. While the turn-by-turn directions were OK (imperfect, but potentially helpful), what got me was how hard it was to tell the blasted thing where I wanted to go. NeverLost has a "yellowpages" function (supposedly), but this function is so beholden to sponsored advertisers that the interface designers had to (get this) pretend it isn't a GPS unit!

You see, although the GPS unit "knows" where you are, not very many folks "advertise" with NeverLost, which means that probably NOBODY near your current location, advertises with Hertz. So NeverLost has to "pretend" that it doesn't know where you are, and show you a list of sponsors who might be hundreds of miles away. If you're in Napersville, Illinois, (as I was), and ask for, say Wal-Mart, you get the one in Iowa, over 300 miles away. Because that's the nearest one that paid Hertz any money. This will happen, even if you are IN THE PARKING LOT OF A WAL-MART IN NAPERSVILLE, ILLINOIS! You heard right! In order to narrow your results geographically, centered on your actual current location, you have to tell it where you want it to search, via the (hideous) text-entry interface, a tedious process where you push up/down/left/right arrows until the blinking cursor is over the correct letter on a crude "QWERTY" keyboard picture. So in downtown Napersville, I'm tapping away (right-right-right-right-down "N", up-up-left-left-left-left-oops-right, "A"... and so on, until I've typed in "NAPE"). At this point, NeverLost asks if I want to find something close to Napersville. YES! you infernal piece of crap! Napersville, NAPERSVILLE, where I currently am, and have been, for the past 5 days! Is this a GPS unit, or not?. It knows where I am, down to the street corner. So why does it suddenly NOT know where I am, in the context of business lookups?

Why? Because accountants at Hertz saw NeverLost as an advertising revenue opportunity rather than a GPS unit that the customer is paid for. The sponsors won't pay if Hertz lists competitors for free (simply because they are geographically closer). What to do? The interface designers did what they were instructed to do: make it so crappy and useless and horrible, that the customer just gives up every finding a good Italian restaurant nearby (you know, the one the locals recommended ...just 5 miles away, except I can't find it!). But NeverLost is happy to send me 90 miles to a bad Italian restaurant that Hertz takes money from. Take my advice: find a real YellowPages.

That's a cynical, screw-the-customer attitude, in my book. So NeverLost? NeverAgain! And Hertz? Well, I don't shop there anymore either, if I can help it.

We rented a Hertz vehicle out of JFK with the Neverlost system. We'd never used a GPS before, but quickly learned a few basic moves. However, when we first programed it to go from JFK to our destination, it took us from the Hertz rental area straight to the Avis rental car location at JFK!! We think the horse wanted to "go back to the barn". But, this horse also wanted to switch teams! LOL. Otherwise it worked well for us throughout our trip.