Several years ago, I decided to rent a different kind of bike as I’ve done on other occasions. Instead, this time I wanted to rent a Ducati 848 sportbike. Back in November 2010, I called a “bike rental company” based out in southern NJ. I went ahead and booked the Ducati. I provided my credit card information and reserved the bike. I reserved the bike from a business called “Chatsworths ATV/Motorcycle Rentals”.


The following morning, my wife and I started heading out there but once I got to the address, I was puzzled because it wasn’t a store front or business per se and my wife said “I don’t know about this place, are you sure you want to do this?” I was somewhat doubtful but pressed on because I wanted to ride and thought “what the hell, we’re out here already”. It was a house with a couple dirt bikes nearby and I also notice a few guys riding ATV’s near the side of the house. No signs or office.


Anyway, I waited a couple of minutes and a fat woman comes out with a clip board and says “Hi, you’re here to pick up the Ducati?” I replied “ahhh, oh yes, yes”(but with I’m sure with a surprised face). I started to inspect the bike carefully before signing anything. Even before starting the bike, I noticed the motorcycle had some visible external damages which I questioned the lady about but told me that the motorcycle had fallen at the hands of previous renters but she stated “oh don’t worry about it because my husband fixed the damages”. At this point I told her to make a note of that on the paperwork, she agreed and then I signed the agreement. The woman then walked away. Upon turning it on, it shut off three times but on the fourth try, it started. I rode maybe two miles before a man driving a car starting yelling at us that the bike had a problem. My wife starting yelling and screamed“the bike is on fire, the bike is on fire !!!”


I immediately turned it out and jumped off the bike as I left it on the stand in the middle of the street. At this point I started to panic because I saw fire starting to grow in between the dual pipe exhausts of the Ducati and it started to smoke a lot. I wondered how the hell I’m I going to turn this off because we were in the middle of nowhere. Surrounding us were literally miles of corn fields. Seconds later, an old woman in a car yells at us if we wanted a fire extinguisher. I immediately ran over and took the small extinguisher and used it to turn off the fire. This woman must have been an angel because think about it, what were the chances of a woman with an extinguisher driving by at that exact moment. After I turned off the fire, I began calling rental owner who said that the bike was just fine and stated “you’re going to have to talk to my husband”. She then sent two workers to recover the bike. When they arrived I was again surprised because they did not come in a tow truck and said they didn’t have one. I then proceeded to I explain what happened and they didn’t see anything wrong with the bike with the exception all the white powder from the extinguisher.


At this point I was completely pissed off and told them I did not want to rent the bike. I had to then help the guy push the bike for about half a mile before the guy jumped on a started the bike. He rode the bike back to business while I rode in the truck with the other guy while following the bike. To my surprise, I didn’t notice any smoke coming from the exhaust and the bike did not turn off. I only had the bike approximately half hour before it was returned. Upon returning back to the rental location, I told the woman (owner) told me that she said could not return any monies to me. She then called her husband who I also was able to explain exactly what happened but he said that he couldn’t return any money until the bike was inspected by his mechanic. He said if they found no problems then he would refund the deposit exception of the rental fee which is non-refundable.


While driving home I decided to cancel the credit card but by that point this woman swiped the card again and took an additional $1500 against the card so she had $3000 plus the rental fee. A few weeks later, he emailed me explaining that they found nothing wrong with the bike and refunded my money less the rental fee. This was a tremendous lesson learned and will never rent from a non-established, backyard wanna-be bike rental place. I’ve ridden many different bikes over the years and I have never experience any bike act like this. From time to time, I rent from places like Eagle Rider and I have never, ever experience anything like this. Bike renters, BEWARE!

 

Definitly need some paragraph breaks in that story, Was getting hard to read.

 

^^ this

but thanks for sharing thats one hell of a story. glad no one was injured when that thing caught on fire though.

 

Damn...I would deal with my credit card, chargeback 100% include rental...if you did not get what you pay for?

 

that's a nut-so story... can't believe that happened to you. bikes don't just spontaneously catch fire. i'd def talk to the credit card people as they're usually more than willing to help protect you from this and get your money back

not to mention... if there was an actual fire... there'd be evidence. - not just from the fire extinguisher - plastics, wiring, connectors, - that stuff tends to start to melt/deform/discolor

 

jesus. This happened to you down in chatsworth? I go down there sometimes with my buddies who race their track cars on those roads. You got lucky there were people around those roads really are in the middle of no where. There are some awesome roads to ride on in that area though that i never knew about. Once its riding season again im making quite a few trips down to tear them up.

 

that's a nut-so story... can't believe that happened to you. bikes don't just spontaneously catch fire. i'd def talk to the credit card people as they're usually more than willing to help protect you from this and get your money back

not to mention... if there was an actual fire... there'd be evidence. - not just from the fire extinguisher - plastics, wiring, connectors, - that stuff tends to start to melt/deform/discolor[/QUOTE]

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Yeah I did get the entire deposit back less the rental fee which was non refundable but heck they AS%$#@ should have given back to me.

 

Ducatis do!

 

Could you just repeat that please? I'm not sure all the members of the jury heard what you just said.

 

Don't worry kiwi TK, I just went down to the station and picked up some of the boys, we're heading down there now.