NHTSA Complaint #11515839 — 2020 KIA TELLURIDE

On October 1st, 2022 we rented the listed vehicle from Budget rent a car in Port Canaveral, Fl. We had just returned from a cruise vacation and due to the hurricane, we had to drive to Fort Myers to pick up my 83 year old mother from the hospital, as my sisters home had just been flooded my Hurricane Ian. When we rented the vehicle, the location was extremely busy, and they simply handed us the keys to the car. No inspection was completed, however my husband and I noticed several dents and deep scrapes to the vehicle that had began rusting. We joked how bad in shape the vehicle was considering it only had about 5000miles on it. We drove to Fort Myers and heard some banging in the rear drivers side. When we stopped for gas, my husband checked to make sure there wasn’t any obvious issue with the tire….he noted no appearance of damage to the tire. As no other vehicles were available due to the hurricane, We continued, picked up my mother, and began our trip back to the north Atlanta. We spent the night in north Florida, and resumed our trip the next morning. In Forsyth, GA (Monroe county) the rear tire began to wobble and the car began to shake. Traffic was extremely heavy, but we were able to pull to the narrow shoulder. My husband got out of the car and immediately noticed the tire appeared to be coming off the car. He looked at the lug nuts and only 3 remained. He touched them to see if they were tight and 2 bolts with the nuts attached fell off the wheel. The BOLTS fell off the wheel! We contacted Avis budget group and explained the situation, but we’re told it would be 4 to 6 hours before they could send anyone to help us. We pleaded with them, as this section of highway is extremely dangerous and full of semi-tractor trailers. We had to call 911 to get help to get us to safety. Additional info available. We have the lug nuts/broken bolts in our possession. Clearly we were rented a defective, not maintained, unsafe vehicle.