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What you should know before you rent motorcyles from AZRide.com or MC Tours LLC
We first read about the company in the USAirways Magazine. It was quite a while ago, but the idea of renting motorcycles in Arizona seemed exciting. When we knew that we were going to miss the Honda Hoot for a trip to Arizona, I felt like we could probably balance it out by planning to rent two motorcycles to see the countryside with. Besides, it seems so uncommon to see motorcycles for rent at all, especially something other than the same old chrome cruisers.
We spent some time on their website getting to understand the way their rentals work. They had a Suzuki SV650 that was lowered, and we figured that would be a good match for Tabitha. She's not short by female standards, but she is not very tall by male standards. Since they make most motorcyles for males, that presents a problem. We knew that she had ridden a DR200 with no problem, and since the published seat height on the DR was higher, we figured the SV would be a safe bet. Tabitha called and spoke with Monica, who was polite and well informed about motorcycling in general.
Since we knew that it wouldn't make very good financial sense to rent for the entire time we were there, we figured we would just return our rental car early and pick up the bikes in Phoenix to keep them for two days. So as soon as we had booked the river trip, I called them to finalize the booking. I spoke with Monica again, and she had remembered Tabitha. It turns out that the SV was available, but my first choice, the V-Strom, was not. Neither was my second choice, the BMW R1200GS. They did have the DR650 available, and to be honest, it was certainly a bike that I was interested in riding. The only reason that I was reluctant to take the DR was that the price was the same as the BMW. It seemed a little bit silly to pay so much for a dual sport when we knew we would be on the road the whole time because of the SV. But, this was what they had so we went with it.
We were also excited because on their website, they say that they provide transportation to and from the airport. This was the final missing piece in our transportation puzzle. We would return the rental car at the PHX airport on Thursday morning, then have them pick us up and take us back to the airport after returning the bikes on Friday afternoon. When I asked Monica about arranging this, she said that she would be able to call a cab for us. Hmmm... well, that's not really a deal breaker, but we certainly got the impression from their website that the airport transportation was something we could count on.
In the coming weeks we resolved the transportation problem by booking a night at the Holiday Inn Express that is just around the corner from the rental shop. They would be able to pick us up from the airport, and even though we were only staying on Wednesday night, they offered to take us to the airport when we got back on Friday. Our rate with AAA was $89 per night. When I called a few days before we got to AZ I called Monica to ask a few last questions about the rentals she said the she could book us a night there for $85, but that she would need some notice because she "would book it by other means." I'm not sure what that means, but I figured for $4, I would stick to "normal means." It was nice of her to offer though.
So we set out on our great western adventure and enjoyed the first three days (as you can read about by clicking here). Then, we had an idea. Since Enterprise had a rental car drop off close by, maybe we could just drop the car off right there instead of taking it back to the airport. We called them to ask if there would be an additional charge, and they said that there would not be. Have I ever mentioned that every time I've rented a car from Enterprise, I've been treated like royalty? The employees are always spectacular, and they will do whatever they can to make sure that the transaction is a good one.
It was a little bit harder than it should have been for us to find the shop. We asked the hotel staff where the motorcycle rental place called AZ Ride was, and they said that it was just down the road. We were both wrong- I was wrong because they aren't called azride, that's just their website. He was wrong because he was talking about the aforementioned chrome rentals, which are also within a block of the hotel. We borrowed the phone book to find the address, but since we didn't find it in the "A" section, and didn't think to look in the "M" section, we had no luck. We ended up having to go back to the hotel to use the internet to find the address. Once we found the address, we had no problems finding the place. I dropped Tabitha off and took the car over to Enterprise.
When I got back, Tabitha was already neck-deep in paperwork.
Let me get side tracked here to provide some more background information. If you haven't already, be sure to check out the thread about this rental company on adventure rider. You can find it by clicking here. We knew from these experiences, and from our confirmation experiences, that we should expect a lot of paperwork and legalese, and that we should view their damage policies with suspicion.
Our first paperwork encounter was with the confirmation email that Monica sent us the day after we had booked the trip. To her credit, all of the policies and paperwork are available in advance. Also, throughout our experience with her. we never felt that she acted in a way that contradicted those polices directly.
So let's get back to the rental shop, wading through the paperwork. The first major hurdle was when she told us that she needed to hold a deposit for $2500 for each bike, in addition to the rental charges. Without disclosing too much about my personal finances on the internet, I'll tell you that without some prior planning, having an extra $5000 floating around in my bank account is not likely. It turns out that I had misunderstood the policy as I read it in the confirmation email. I didn't realize this until I went back and read over the email again, at which point I was able to see how it was that I had made the error.
Here is the wording from the confirmation, copied directly from her email:
The Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) reduces your responsibility for physical damage to the vehicle from the value down to a particular sum.
Option 1* and **
$15/ day reduces your responsibility from the full value to $2500
Option 2
$25/day reduces your responsibility from the full value to $1500
Option 3
Decline, rider remains responsible for all damages to or loss of the vehicle,
(Security deposit of $5000 is required or 50% of the value of the rented vehicle whichever is less).
This figure also serves as a security damage deposit, which is a credit card authorization, not a charge.
If damage occurs then the deposit is used towards the amount owed. Damage policy is available online.
Where I was mistaken was with the line that starts with "This figure..." near the end. As I understood it, that line applied only to option three. My understanding was that by purchasing the CDW, we would not have the security deposit authorization. So in my mind, those last three paragraphs were grouped together. But, as she intended it, the last paragraph was separate from option 3, and applied to all of them. I can see how she was probably right, so I set out to figure out how we were going to be able to make it work. We don't use credit cards, but it was looking like we could get the money together to cover all of the charges. The bad news was that even if we did get that much money together, it would put is in quite a pickle if we found ourselves needing anything more than the bare minimum cash on the road.
At this point, I still didn't fully understand exactly how their CDW worked. It isn't really insurance. You can think of it as collision insurance with a $1500 or $2500 deductible, but that isn't really the case. Instead, they actually hold the funds on your credit card (or bank account in our case) until you bring the bikes back. If you cause damage to the bike, they will waive the right to charge you for any damage that exceeds $1500 (or $2500) in repair costs etc.
When I thought about it this way, I realized that I have been shopping for a motorcycle for 7 years now, and $2500 would buy my first choice modern motorcycle easily. I started thinking about the possibility of us balling up one of theirs, and then having to pay $2500 towards replacing it. If I am going to spend $2500 on a motorcycle, I would much rather it be my own, and not someone else's pile of bent metal.
Perhaps because she realized that the transaction was in jeopardy, she offered to let us rent both bikes on a hold of $1500. This would be with the expectation that if we caused damage, we would still be liable for up to $2500 per bike. Are you confused yet? Hang in there, we haven't even gotten to the liability insurance yet. Having all things considered, and having a preference to not owe any favors, I asked her if she could just offer us option 1, and hold $1500 per bike with the expectation that we would owe no more than $1500 in the event of damage to the bike. She agreed, and for the additional $40, she made the change. Notice that even though the lower CDW was only $10 more, that's 10 per day per bike, with two days and two bikes. Don't forget about tax, so it was actually more than $40.
In case your eyes are totally glossed over at this point, let me put it into simpler terms. Say for instance that you were borrowing a buddy's DR650. If he were to loan it to you under the condition that you would only be insured with a $1500 deductible, would you take it? How about a $2500 deductible? How about if he was really picky about the condition of his on/off road bike?
By now we knew that this was going to be a high risk adventure.
I should also point out that Monica has a very businesslike personality. While she was always very polite, even to offer us complimentary bottled water, she seems a little bit distant. Perhaps that is just the nature of their business. Gabor seems to disappear when the papers come out, and then when the paperwork is done he comes out to talk motorcycles. He also was polite and knew his product 110%.
By the time we were done with the CDW adventure, all of the normal paperwork, the liability insurance, and everything else, it was time to sign the credit card receipts. There were several, since each hold was its own receipt, and each rental was also separate. For two days, here were the totals:
For the DR's rental and CDW: $444.80
For the SV: $378.08
For the Liability Insurance for the two: $85.80
The total: 908.68
For the record, that is just shy of 10 times the cost of our rental car, and we kept it for a full 3 days. We didn't expect motorcycle rentals to be cheap, and that expectation was certainly founded.
The good news was that we were finally on the road, with enough money in our accounts to still enjoy ourselves. The bikes performed flawlessly. We rode up Highway 89 towards Payson, then through Pine and Strawberry to finally spend the night in Cottonwood. The next day we went to Jerome, where Tabitha enjoyed the art galleries. Then the trouble began. Jerome is a town with very steep roads, since it is built on the side of a hill. There is also a peculiar one-way arrangement that put us into a position that required a turnaround. Tabitha was not used to the weight of the SV, and in the process of turning it around, she locked up the front wheel on some loose gravel. She stopped the bike but was not able to keep it upright, and set it on the left side. I helped her get it back upright, and she was fine, though a little shaken. I drove it up to a different parking lot to park it, and when I put my right foot down to stop it, I stepped on some loose gravel and I dropped it on the right side. By now we were just about into "three stooges" territory. The bad news was that we had put 5 scratches on the SV, and Tabitha had really lost some confidence with the low speed manuvering.
We set out across the Mountain towards Prescott. The roads were finally perfect for motorcycling- good pavement, twisty curves, and mountain scenery. Because Tabitha was a bit shaken, she was really slow in the curves. We stopped at the pass to converse, and decided that we really weren't going to be able to ride our original plan at that pace. We came up with an alternate plan to get back to the interstate and just go back to PHX more directly.
By the time we got back to the rental shop, we were both overheated and very sweaty from the slow stop and go traffic of Phoenix and Scottsdale. It was 5:10 in the afternoon, and the highs were in the 110 degree range. Monica greeted us with more bottles of water and we started the check-in process. Within the first few minutes we told her about the damage to the SV and pointed out the scratches. We knew that there wasn't much point in trying to hide the scratches, and after all, we knew that we should take responsibility for them since we caused them.
We set about rearranging our suitcases while she and Gabor took a look over both bikes very carefully. Here are some pictures of the scratches. They were on the engine guard, which was a metal powder coated tube of about a 7/8" diameter or so, on the luggage, and on the exhaust pipe.
If you can't see the damage to the cases, be sure to look again. It is on the left side of the first one in the lower corner, and on the right side of the second one. The scratches on the engine guard were through the powder coat, but not much deeper. They could have been hidden completely by a postage stamp. The damage to the exhaust could have been hidden completely by a dime.
She gave us some more paperwork, to basically put in writing that we had damaged the bike. She said that they would be charging us for labor to repair the engine guard and exhaust, and that they would be charging us for replacement of the outer lids on the luggage. This was when we started to smell something a little bit fishy.
Tabitha started to question her first, by asking what they would do with those cases, since they are barely scratched. Monica said that they would throw them away. Being as how Tabitha and I are both reasonable people who don't trade in a car when the ash tray is full, this made for some eyebrow raising. But, there wasn't much we could do at that point. She said that she would send us a reconciliation statement when she had the numbers. Since we had a few bags, Gabor gave us a ride over to the hotel, who gladly took us to the airport. We left the rental shop with mixed feelings. We knew that up until that point, the transaction had been fairly smooth. However, she was providing a few hints that made us really wonder what she was up to. We also figured that since they were rental motorcycles, they would have to have some expectation for some minor damage. After all, luggage is designed to protect its contents, and the scratches could have just have easily come from getting them up to the hotel room.
We got home ahead of schedule and enjoyed the rest of our weekend, until Tuesday, when Monica's email came. At that point, we knew that in fact she was not going to be reasonable. She sent a PDF document that outlined each spot of damage. Let's look at those pictures again, and see what she considered the damages to be for each one.
The first item on the statement was the engine guard. Look at the pictures below:
The labor and tax charge to repair these two scratches: $87.36
The exhaust pipe:
The labor and tax charge to repair this small area: $43.68
And now for the cases. This was perhaps our biggest area of contention.
For each case, she charged us $47.66, plus a combined $15 for shipping, and tax on all of that for a total of 123.56.
And of course, don't forget a handling charge of $35 plus tax to be $39.20
The total for the damage: $291.71
We replied to her email to tell her that we thought her charges were not fair or reasonable. We knew that we were liable for some damages, and we didn't argue that. Rather, we made the case for why we didn't think the lids should be replaced. We told her that 1.5 hours of labor to replace those scratches was insane. Her reply was essentially that because of the word-of-mouth nature of motorcycling, it would not be in her best interest to over charge us. She thought the charges were quite reasonable. After all, she gave us a perfect bike, and we didn't bring a perfect bike back.
She pointed out that it is our right to take posession of the "damaged" cases, provided we pay shipping and handling. I asked her for a total, and she said that it would be $35 plus tax plus whatever the carrier charges. Mind you, that is $38.93 to take the new cases out of the box, put the old ones into that same box, tape it up, and drop it off at a Fedex location. I think that they are entitled to charge a reasonable handling fee for their time, but if it is worth $78 per hour to be the one to put parts in a box, then maybe I should stop flying planes and get into a real job of parts shippping. It would be a pay raise no matter how you look at it. Now for the best part- because they will be closed for the entire month of July, she'll deal with it when they get back in August. This, while inconvenient, is not entirely unreasonable. Each person is entitled to a vacation. Yet, in spite of delaying my transaction for 30 days, she still intends to charge the entire handling fee. Fair and reasonable? You be the judge.
In my opinion, her email reply is correct in every regard, except for the one about the charges being reasonable. After all, we didn't bring back a perfect bike. She is also correct about the reputation-dependent nature of the motorcycle business- and that is why I have provided this information to you, the fellow motorcyclist. So I hope that you the reader, if you are a potential renter from MCTours LLC, will decide for yourself as to whether you think the charges are reasonable.
After you have read the damage stories on Adventure Rider and have decided to rent anyway, keep in mind when you sign those papers, that you have no recourse if you consider any damage charges to be completely unreasonable. You are signing a $1500 check if you bring back a bike with as much as a rock peck on the windscreen. She may be so gracious as to only charge you $300 to repair some scratches, but it is her decision to do so. We signed those agreements with the expectation that she would be reasonable and have some discretion, but in our opinion, we were wrong.
So fellow motorcyclist, be forewarned. If you don't think her charges in this case were unreasonable, then by all means don't let us deter you from renting from them. But on the other hand, don't say I didn't warn you.
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