Renter beware

Well, I got back from vacation late last night, and, yes, I had a very nice Thanksgiving. A funny anecdote from the trip:
Because we were going to be hauling around seven people (my immediate family and three relatives), my parents decided to rent a bigger vehicle from ... I'll call it "Hurtz." They got a Chevy Venture, a minivan with automatic sliding doors on both sides. This thing seems to have a number of design flaws, but the biggest problem came when, after one of the side doors wouldn't close automatically, my dad went to do it manually ... and the door came off in his hand. Yes, the entire door fell off. Needless to say, a call was made to "Hurtz" and a new vehicle arrived, along with a flatbed truck to take away the minivan turned sideways convertible.
The second vehicle was also a Venture. The first thing that seemed off was that the windshield wipers were either designed badly or had the wrong size blades in them -- they stuck together when you turned them on, thus somewhat minimizing their efficiency. After driving it for about 10-15 minutes and parking, we discovered that the battery was dead. (The clock was way off when we first got in, indicating that perhaps this had been a problem in the past.)
So another call to "Hurtz" and another vehicle: This time, no Ventures. We got a Ford Explorer instead, which retained all of its doors and did not die once. Woohoo.
In the course of this, I discovered that a car manual can provide some pretty interesting reading. A couple of excerpts:
(From the Ford Explorer)
Using this vehicle as a snowplow
Do not use this vehicle as a snowplow.
Using this vehicle as an ambulance
Do not use this vehicle as an ambulance.

(And my favorite, from the Chevy Venture)
Warning! Going through a car wash may cause automatic sliding doors to open. Be sure to turn off automatic-door function before entering car wash.

That's just classic.