<p>Has anyone had success in separating the mass of chained together keys that rental car companies give you these days? They barely fit in my purse, much less my pocket.</p>
<p>No. But I’ve always found it odd that they give you two keys to the car but the two keys cannot be separated. What good is that??!</p>
<p>We had the same issue and were told at pick up that we were not allowed to separate the keys. I called the manager the next day and he said the keys come to him connected and that as long as we returned both sets, it was no problem to separate. (I was humored that no one at Budget understood why this process was without logic)</p>
<p>I also asked why two keys- if you lose the ring, you lose both. Not like real life, where there’s a separate spare. I also learned there’s a substantial charge for losing keys.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up - I’ll bring a separate empty key chain for when we rent next week - IF we can separate the keys!</p>
<p>The rental car companies probably don’t want to have to find the extra key to include with the car when they sell the car later. Note that rental cars move around, so the extra key (if stored separately) is not necessarily at the location where the car was rented from.</p>
<p>When I had a rental after an auto accident, I just cut them apart. When I returned them, I was told they keep them together because so many cars are one-way rentals these days.</p>
<p>The issue is that keys today are very expensive with all the electronics contained within. The rental car companies do not want to have to track 10s of thousands of spare keys for when there is a one-way rental and for when the car is sold. So both sets are on the one ring you get. </p>
<h1>firstworldproblems</h1>
<p>
</p>
<p>Or the company could just keep the extra keys in a central location, so they don’t have to follow each and every car. This way, when you lose them, they get to charge you for two sets of keys (which, from what I’ve read, can be upwards of $1k)!</p>
<p>A central US location since cars go one way all over the country? And then when the car is sold or the keys needed they have to request the keys and then someone has to find them and ship them. And maintain the database and hardware to track everything. </p>
<p>Or they can just keep the two sets together and eliminate all that time wasted and cost…</p>
<p>Which is smarter? And seriously people are so spoiled that an extra key on a keyring is an issue?!?</p>
<p>Amazon sure has showed us that shipping things in an organized manner across the country is nigh impossible. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I think the point is you’re paying for a service, and it’s reasonable to expect certain levels of convenience with that service.</p>
<p>That double-key causes us an an annual vacation rant. It makes keys bulkier for DH, and I don’t get to carry a backup. Hertz is just too lazy/disorganized to come up with a better method.</p>
<p>This is the funniest thread in along time. People will complain about anything in this country.</p>
<p>OP here. I probably should have asked this question over on the Parents taking care of parents thread. The reason I’m renting a car is because I’m in the midst of trying to help my parents while my mother is hospitalized because of an awful manic episode complicated by dementia. I’m really stressed out and worried about losing these darn big keys or locking them in the car and would like to leave a set at their house just in case. I can’t find any wire cutters, but if I could, I would cut the little cable, buy a new one, and just put the keys back together before returning the car. It just seems like an unnecessary inconvenience to customers.</p>
<p>I bought a used car from Enterprise (great experience, by the way). It came with one key and they mailed me a second key and remote a few weeks later.</p>
<p>You could probably take the keys to a mechanic or hardware store and beg them nicely to cut the cable keeping them attached. You still have to do your best not to lose either key because replacing one can run over $500!</p>
<p>Oldmom, tell us about buying the used car from Enterprise. How do you know it’s in decent shape?? Where does one go to do this? Etc.</p>
<p>We purchased a used car from Enterprise about 4 years ago as well.</p>
<p>Some but not all Enterprise sites sell used car. But any Enterprise site should know where you can go to and shop the used car.</p>
<p>If I remember well, I hired some mechanics to check it out before the purchase. We only noticed the brakes were not the original ones from the manufacturer; they were from Firestone.</p>
<p>They took in our trade-in car as well.</p>
<p>There is always some risk involved when buying a used car. We tried CarMax as well but did not find what we liked.</p>