Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
It always cracks me up how adamant they are about making sure the equipment comes back full. I wonder how many people put gas in a diesel and vice versa and send it back for the next renter to figure out
Wrong fuel put in rental machine?
- Thread starter Hobby_Man22
- Start date
It does happen.... and that customer gets to pat for their mistake, too.
All rental machines get inspected, serviced (washed, if necessary) and test ran between customers. The guys in the shop WILL figure out if the wrong fuel was poured into the tank.
Generally, on commercial job sites with commercial rental equipment, it gets sent back to the rental house with a partial tank of fuel. The truck driver for the rental company (who delivers and picks-up rental equipment) is required to fill the machine with the proper fuel and then note the gallons on the rental order.... then the customer pays for that fuel on their final invoice.
All machines get delivered to customers with a full tank of fuel..... why shouldn't the customer be required to either fill the tank, or pay for the fuel they used?
All rental machines get inspected, serviced (washed, if necessary) and test ran between customers. The guys in the shop WILL figure out if the wrong fuel was poured into the tank.
Generally, on commercial job sites with commercial rental equipment, it gets sent back to the rental house with a partial tank of fuel. The truck driver for the rental company (who delivers and picks-up rental equipment) is required to fill the machine with the proper fuel and then note the gallons on the rental order.... then the customer pays for that fuel on their final invoice.
All machines get delivered to customers with a full tank of fuel..... why shouldn't the customer be required to either fill the tank, or pay for the fuel they used?
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My experience is the same as above as I worked in a rental place for a few years as a small engine mechanic in the 1990s. Everything was immediately started when it was returned to verify it wasn't F'd up. Then it was cleaned, oil checked, filled with fuel, air filter cleaned.... The guys that serviced the rental equipment, not me, kept a book with oil and filter changes, etc, for each item.
I never recall getting something back with the incorrect fuel in it. I'm sure we had people that put gas that had water in it in things like generators though. For the large items like Bobcats and tow compressors, we did like said above and billed them for the amount of fuel added if we picked them up at completion of the rental- which was the norm for large items. We had one guy that spent almost all of his time just on delivery, pickup, and service at the rental site for stuff that stayed out for weeks and months at a time. We had two delivery trucks and two trailers. We had towed air compressors that stayed gone for months and years at a time on long construction jobs, so he'd go and change the oil, filters, spark plugs.... while they were on lunch break and the machine wasn't running.
For smaller items like generators, when they were returned, we had gas pumps outside so we could just tell them to fill it up outside, pay Gary at the pumps, then bring it to the garage area to check in. If that option wasn't available, then I'd assume a shop would have a $X flat fee for a fillup on smaller items.
I never recall getting something back with the incorrect fuel in it. I'm sure we had people that put gas that had water in it in things like generators though. For the large items like Bobcats and tow compressors, we did like said above and billed them for the amount of fuel added if we picked them up at completion of the rental- which was the norm for large items. We had one guy that spent almost all of his time just on delivery, pickup, and service at the rental site for stuff that stayed out for weeks and months at a time. We had two delivery trucks and two trailers. We had towed air compressors that stayed gone for months and years at a time on long construction jobs, so he'd go and change the oil, filters, spark plugs.... while they were on lunch break and the machine wasn't running.
For smaller items like generators, when they were returned, we had gas pumps outside so we could just tell them to fill it up outside, pay Gary at the pumps, then bring it to the garage area to check in. If that option wasn't available, then I'd assume a shop would have a $X flat fee for a fillup on smaller items.
Kscardsfan
Well-known member
Around here, if you don't fill it up they charge you for the fuel they put into the machine at like 1.5X the market rate. I just put the gas in it from my can or at the pump when I return something.
Hannahranga
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The hire yard I used to work with just charged enough on the smaller things they didn't care if it was full or empty. We'd have probably noticed if something came back full of diesel but also the weekend crew did spend enough time high there's no guarantee
RTM
Well-known member
My local yards don't want it filled by you. They want to put their stabilized gas in it. They will include a can of gas with high fuel consumption items, just to prevent you from getting in a bind.
dcg9381
Well-known member
We knew an independent Benz mechanic in the 1990s. He regularly got customer calls who put gas in their diesel Mercedes. This was back before DEF and all the modern diesel stuff, but his solution was to roll up in his GM 1/2 ton with a 350 4bbl. He'd pump the diesel/gas mix out of the Benz into his GM... Apparently the GM motor wasn't that picky about a light oil mix.
I worked during the cocaine years. One of our rental service flunkies literally drank 90W gear oil from a mechanics 16 oz Coke bottle that he kept 90W oil in on his bench.
We all did that same storage thing because the 90wt barrel was behind 100 mowers in the corner of the shop and risked breaking a leg to access.
Tommys face turned green and he ran outside and puked.
Now, how can you NOT smell 90wt gear oil? Oh, be coke head
When I was running a service station, we had a fuel driver put kerosene in a tank that was for 110 octane racing gas. Ooops. It was mostly full, so he only got about 20 gallons in a ~300 gallon tank. Neither my ford 8n nor my 2.25 Land-Rover noticed the kerosene, nor did anyone's quad or lawn mower, but the stuff clearly didn't smell right.
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Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
Nice upper cylinder lubricant.
Speaking from personal experience having worked in a heavy equipment rental shop, customers will do all kinds of **** to rented equipment. They do not care.
I've seen mixed fuels and even water in the fuel that requires an entire fuel system flush, or incorrect fluids that require an entire hydraulic system to be flushed (for example).
The list goes on and on. Fuel and fluids are only a small part of the "DGAF" attitude.
I've seen mixed fuels and even water in the fuel that requires an entire fuel system flush, or incorrect fluids that require an entire hydraulic system to be flushed (for example).
The list goes on and on. Fuel and fluids are only a small part of the "DGAF" attitude.
ArcIndWeld
Active member
" no need to be gentle, it's a rental"
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Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
They do typically get maintained though. Vs buying from an individual it's a mystery if any maintenance was done
Hopefully. But it depends on the company/shop the equipment is owned by.
The CAT dealer I worked for, at my shop, we were dedicated to equipment coming back from rental and new equipment being prepped for rental. Very few customer owned machines come through our shop.
That said, it still surprises me that individual customers and companies who buy machines that can often cost well over $100k, don't maintain or properly repair them. I see it on YT all the time. Clapped out garbage and hacked together repairs, running the machines until they fall apart or simply can't run altogether.
ArcReactorKC
Well-known member
When I first opened the doors to my own business we did generators and heavy equipment "light maintenance" oil changes, fluids, filters, etc. But nothing major, no taking heads off kind of work.
I was always baffled when we would go to do an oil change on a machine that was less than a year old with windows broken, dip stick missing, multiple fluid caps left off or missing. Tracks so loose I don't know how they moved the machine. Groans from the hydraulics so loud you could hear them a mile away.
I would call the owners and ask them, did you know your brand new machine is beat to ****? They almost always would go, "well yea it's construction stuff gets broken" Apparently these guys made more money than me because if I saw someone beating on my equipment the way these guys employees did I would have lost my mind.
dutchgray
Well-known member
There's a lot of construction workers that have absolutely no clue or interest in how machinery works, all they care about is that it does the work they need it to, it's still an industry where pay is often directly related to work output, so spending time maintaining someone else's machinery means earning less.
They just use equipment until it's broken to the point it can't do what they need anymore, then they get someone in to fix it, whilst moaning they can't get any work done whilst the machine is broken.
The place I worked at initially had gas powered tow compressors that had small block Ford V8 engines. One half of the V was the compressor, the other the engine with spark plugs; AFAIK, the only difference was the cylinder head and compressor plumbing on that side.
They were gone 99% of the time, printing money; some were gone for years. When we started to transition to diesel compressors in the late 80's, we had a guy that came in and did a basic ring and bearing job with the crankshaft still installed on the old Ford compressors; after that, the owners could resell them for probably $2k. At this point it was a compressor that they paid $5k for and had made over $250k in rental fees. Because they were never sitting.
Yes, this place printed money. This was in the 90% cash transaction days and one of the owners would bring in a briefcase of cash every morning to use as change for the register.
They were gone 99% of the time, printing money; some were gone for years. When we started to transition to diesel compressors in the late 80's, we had a guy that came in and did a basic ring and bearing job with the crankshaft still installed on the old Ford compressors; after that, the owners could resell them for probably $2k. At this point it was a compressor that they paid $5k for and had made over $250k in rental fees. Because they were never sitting.
Yes, this place printed money. This was in the 90% cash transaction days and one of the owners would bring in a briefcase of cash every morning to use as change for the register.
Exactly. As I've said, the place I worked at rented compressors for many months, and sometimes years, at a time. We had 5-6 tow compressors and there were never more than two at the shop. It's a $5K air compressor that rents for ~$150 a day at that time. After 40 days you've paid for it, but that doesn't matter to a construction company. If you're a construction company and working on a multi-million-dollar job, so what? Most would apparently deduct the rental expenses off their taxes as a business expense- and never have to worry about storing it after the job, maintaining it, worrying about what to do because no one refilled the oil and it locked up.... That was all taken care of by Phil, our driver. This didn't make sense for me at the time, but did later. "Who'd spend $100k to rent a $5K compressor for two years?" Well, they didn't. They mostly deducted it as a business expense and had a functional machine the entire time that they only had to put gasoline in.
Construction workers are construction workers. Don't expect them to check the oil, change the air filter..... They're there to do a job, their job; and it's not to maintain the equipment they use.
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Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
That's why the rental company comes out and does the maintenance. I think the forklift I rented was screaming for an oil change but I only had it rented for a day. For some reason these things are a hot commodity. Maybe they do run them into the ground if they're rented all the time. Idk. I was biting my nails hoping they would be able to find one so the contractor could put doors on my shop, because the contractor was exp3cting ne to have a forklift
Banjorear
Well-known member
It is amazing. Sometimes on the flip, these guys know exactly how valuable their machines are and are willing to pay big bucks to get them running again.
My buddy is retired as a Snap On dealer. One of his customers needed some special socket for a repair like yesterday. The socket was like $250 and the customer paid for overnight shipping from Snap On and then paid my friend another $200 to deliver it to him at his home at 11:00 at night so he'd have it first thing in the AM.
The customer told him every day his machine was down he lost $2,000 profit on the job, so it was worth it to him to get it up and running ASAP.
Kscardsfan
Well-known member
Sounds like my old life in the oilfield. They would pay dearly if it was the right circumstances.
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Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
What machine makes $2,000 dollars a day?
Banjorear
Well-known member
I don't know. I didn't ask. All I know was he was into very heavy earth moving stuff. I'm sure that included his overall profit of the job. My buddy said the guy built this massive garage so he can bring the trailer inside with the machine on it so he can work on it.
renters are liable for misuse, mistakes and that would include putting in the wrong fuel .
if you put diesel in a gasoline machine you probably deserve to be hit with a repair bill.
Long story short... a friend owned a dump trailer that he had rented to someone he knew for a week or something. the person renting the trailer rented a new excavator from HERTZ with no hours on it, it was brand new. He went under a low bridge & totalled both the trailer & the excavator . Hertz was suing him for loss of machine , as well as my buddy launched action for his trailer . unfortunately the guy died suddenly and unexpectedly , Rumour was that could not stand the the pressure he was facing and went sideways .
if you put diesel in a gasoline machine you probably deserve to be hit with a repair bill.
Long story short... a friend owned a dump trailer that he had rented to someone he knew for a week or something. the person renting the trailer rented a new excavator from HERTZ with no hours on it, it was brand new. He went under a low bridge & totalled both the trailer & the excavator . Hertz was suing him for loss of machine , as well as my buddy launched action for his trailer . unfortunately the guy died suddenly and unexpectedly , Rumour was that could not stand the the pressure he was facing and went sideways .
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neophyte
Well-known member
That’s $200 an hour, over a 10 hour shift.
If you figure somewhere between $50-$100 an hour per worker on a jobsite, any machine that can eliminate at least 3 or 4 workers or more, or do the job better or mire consistently, can probably be rented out for $2,000 a day, especially if the machine is obscure, or expensive to purchase, or only needed for certain parts of a job, so contractors don’t want to invest in owning the machine.
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Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
They can still sue his estate
absolutely. but apparently he didn't have much .and his young daughter has a lifetime to live with these memories
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Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
So I guess they just dropped the case then? I'm sure this happens a lot. Hurricanes as an example. When you come home to a pile of debris where your house once stood is a lot to take in.
I'm not sure what Hertz did, my buddy dropped his case as he was told there was nothing there to get
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Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
I don't understand why hertz didn't have the excavator insured. You can't rely on the renter to carry insurance. This is negligence on both sides
I'm sure that Hertz self insures for things like that
Hertz are probably self-insured, the rental car business is. Self-insurance is standard practice for big companies, it's cheaper to deal with routine losses (and people ruining machines is a routine event for people with a big rental fleet) yourself, and insure only for catastrophe. Even if they had insurance, their carrier would go after the renter, and in many cases, would do that as if they were Hertz, so a lawsuit would look like it was Hertz suing. (this is why you sometimes here about people suing themselves, it's a subrogated insurance claiim where one insurance company is trying to get another to pay.)
bwringer
Well-known member
It's mid-April about now... in a few weeks, go to any big box store that sells mowers. Poke around, and in a back room, or outback behind the garden center you'll find rows and rows of brand-new mowers with seized engines. There are legions of numbnuts who buy mowers, peel off 14 fluorescent green and pink stickers telling you to put oil in the engine, discard the useless bottle of oil, dump in gas, and pull the string until noise comes out. They generally don't get far. Then they go back to the store and scream about the "defective" mower.
IIRC, Briggs started making engines with "lifetime" oil already in the engine, and I believe this **** was a big reason. The cold hard truth is that we here on GJ are among the 1.2% of lawn mower owners who ever change the oil. Briggs noticed these two things and did the logical thing.
Right next to all those new locked up mowers will also be piles of brand-new chainsaws, weed whackers, etc. with 2-cycle engines run on plain gas until they stopped.
In other words, people are stupid, whether they own the equipment or not...
IIRC, Briggs started making engines with "lifetime" oil already in the engine, and I believe this **** was a big reason. The cold hard truth is that we here on GJ are among the 1.2% of lawn mower owners who ever change the oil. Briggs noticed these two things and did the logical thing.
Right next to all those new locked up mowers will also be piles of brand-new chainsaws, weed whackers, etc. with 2-cycle engines run on plain gas until they stopped.
In other words, people are stupid, whether they own the equipment or not...
A few of the guys I follow on YT, present your post as fact.
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Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
Most things aren't supposed to be shipped with oil for some reason.
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Hobby_Man22
Well-known member
I utilize gas cans for diesel. They get kept in the corner of the shop so they don't get mixed up.
ArcReactorKC
Well-known member
I worried about this a lot when I lived in Oklahoma, I had a crazy mix of equipment on the property and was constantly worried I would absent mindedly put the wrong fuel in something. That led to replacing everything with diesel and solving the problem for a few years.
The only things I couldn't get in diesel at the time were the weed eater and backpack blower and I replaced both with cordless and a ton of batteries.
Interestingly enough I've fallen out of that trend, thanks to the VW recall that caused a ton of turmoil with our Passat many years ago and the tightening of diesel emissions we've gone back to gas in a lot of areas. But for whatever reason I don't worry about it as much as I used to.
seber
Well-known member
A few years back I bought a Kubota zero turn that had a blown engine at 850 hours. I asked the seller how often he change the oil. I got a very interesting answer. "It's a lawnmower. You don't change oil in a lawnmower."