Complaint Review: American Dream Vacation (Boerne TX) - Boerne Texas

American Dream Vacation leased our family a Class A recreational vehicle for 6 days. The 12 volt house battery was faulty, causing the housing on the rv of our rental to be troublesome and inoperable the entire duration of our rental. Due to being in an area without cellular service and their company pressuring us to return the vehicle on time for the immediate turn around rental, we did not have the opportunity to have the vehicle repaired. Therefore they are denying any responsibility to rectify the rental unit not performing correctly, as customers are believed to be renting a unit that's housing unit is operating. A letter was sent to American Dream Vacations, as included, to which the denied to correct the poor customer service and rental quality.

"Having spent time researching recreational vehicle rental companies, we felt confident renting from American Dream Vacations. My husband and I purposely searched for a newer unit with a reputable company to enable us to thoroughly enjoy our annual family vacation. Unfortunately, diligence did not prevent us from renting an RV that severely hindered us from experiencing the “vacation” in our trip. Throughout our vacation multiple problems were encountered, starting with the generator tripping from the water pump being turned on. There was not one instance that the water pump did not trip the generator within approximately 15 minutes. We assumed, after troubleshooting, it was the generator. We would have shore power the next day and decided that would be suitable and that this would only be a short term inconvenience until then. The following day, upon connecting to the shore power, we realized it was not providing power consistently and was dimming to almost nothing within 30 minutes. This prevented us from utilizing any water or electric amenities in the vehicle without turning on the engine constantly. At this point, the third night, the carbon monoxide and propane alarms continued to chime all night, which was again briefly remedied by starting the engine every hour all night. Essentially, we paid for higher premium sites with water and electricity that we were unable to use, causing higher fuel costs and usage for the whole trip. We arrived at a completely unaffiliated campsite, hoping lack or shore power was, of the last location, a coincidence and irrelevant to the problems with the vehicle. However, the shore power problems continued and became progressively worse as the generator and amenities operated for only minutes and were completely unreliable and unusable. By this time in order to use the slide outs and hide a bed, the engine had to be turned on, to turn on the generator, then turn off the engine to extend these features a little at a time (approximately 45 seconds) before the generator shut off causing the need to repeat this sequence multiple times for each feature to extend completely. Hide a beds and slide outs are inoperable with the engine on making this the only option when needing to use these features. This was incredibly inconvenient and time consuming; a real hindrance of our vacation on top of the lack of a generator, air conditioning, water and electricity. We spent hours troubleshooting, time that should have been spent focusing on our one vacation of the year. We were not in a location with cellphone service and far from any service shops. Once there was cellphone service we contacted American Dream Vacations in regard to our struggles with the unit. We were advised by the service department it was a faulty battery effecting the many different components. We were than advised all we could do to address it is to locate a service shop. We would continue to have the rental for almost two more days, all of which were allotted to driving in order to return the vehicle on time. If we had stopped, the RV would have missed the immediate turn around for the next customer. On the return date the manager had the technician diagnose and confirm it was the battery causing so much trouble and distress during our time in the unit. In summary, we experienced many issues that changed the result of our satisfaction with this rental (from no consistent generator power because of the faulty battery): - Little to no air conditioning in the living areas causing very warm sleeping and traveling conditions. Our small children were miserable and sweating during long periods of traveling. - No consistent water - No consistent electricity - Wasted expenses on RV sites with electrical capacities we could not utilize. - Additional fuel costs from using the engine in place of the generator and having to repeatedly start it for various uses in the RV. - Refrigerator, full of groceries, repeatedly completely thawing to warm temperatures. There was not one problem that could be troubleshot or overlooked, rather it was one faulty battery that effected EVERY component in the whole RV. We would greatly appreciate a refund for this rental as the costs we agreed to were for a unit functioning at 100% capacity. Had we known the lack of operable functioning in this unit, we would not have proceeded forward with renting it. Due to the faulty battery, this rental was equivalent to a recreational vehicle shell with an engine, as no amenities or features functioned properly, if at all."

The company's manager responded by saying this is not a a drive train companonent, therefore not a breakdown and not refundable.  In addition, he said he was sorry we felt we were doing the comany a favor by getting the unit back in time versus stopping to get a new battery. NEVER AGAIN, worst comany I have ever done business with. This was a $3,000 rental!!! We DID NOT recieve a unit in working order, they are horrific at customer service and could care less one you have paid, what your experience was.