I'd love an expansion on that as well. We have hired from National 3 times now from LAX and never had any problems.
Ok in brief
Booked prior to departue from Aust , booked GPS
Went to Anaheim office - waited 1 hour 45 mins because they was only 1 staff member on -No car ready , No GPS in stock , had to return the next day to pick a GPS up and as we wanted to get away early the next day to go to Palm Springs/Cabazon etc this was an inconvenience .
Got in the car the next morning at 7.00 and the kids said there's blood all over the seat and roof , sure enough was blood splatter all over the rear passenger seat and the roof - didn't notice it the night before because as I said they didnt have a car ready and had to wait for one to be detailed (??) and also it was dark when I left the lot and I quickly got out of there as my wife and kids had been waiting so long for me as they had no idea where I was . General state of the car was filthy too with coffee stains etc .
Fair dinkum the car looked like a CSI crime scene ! It wasn't just a couple of spots it was a large amount and it was all over the inside roof and rear of the passenger seat .
So took it back to National , saw the manager , who denied it was blood , said it was oil !!! It was so obviously blood . Either way it should not have been released that dirty , she quickly swapped the car over .
When I took the car back a few days later I saw the original clerk who said they took the original car away straight away on the back of a truck !!!!
So that was Anaheim
Foolishly and without thinking in Hawaii we used National again to drive to Pearl harbour and the North Shore , in Hawaii they pick you up and take you to the lot to pick your car up . We arranged to be picked up at 7.00 - well at 7.30 I rang them and was finally picked up at 7.55 , when I got to the office i was a bit annoyed and said so , when I walked out of the office the 2 clerks at the desk were laughing at me , I returned and said I dont appreciate being laughed at and you should have seen the sheepish look on their faces .
So that was our experiences with National car rental !