So we just got back from a week away in a Roadsurfer camper van. We’ve rented from them 3 times before and had a good time, which is why we booked again. This time? Not so much. Grab a coffee, because I have a lot to get off my chest. So here’s a Roadsurfer review.
The cat piss smell
When I picked up the van, the doors and windows were all open. I did notice a bit of a funny smell, but I figured it was just the fridge and didn’t think much of it.
Then we hit the road. We weren’t even at our destination yet when my wife turned to me and said, “That’s cat piss.” And trust me, we have two cats at home. We know that smell. There’s no mistaking it.
But what can you do? We were in the middle of nowhere by then. So we just had to live with it.
And live with it we did. Every single morning we woke up with a headache. Sleeping in a small space that stinks of cat pee is not the relaxing holiday vibe we were going for. We opened the zipper window flaps in the top roof tent to ventilate the van so that we can breathe at night.
After a lot of sniffing around (literally), we figured out it was coming from the carpet between the two front seats. So we found a pet shop in Germany, and bought a bottle of enzyme cleaner for €9.99, and sprayed that carpet about three times over three days. Finally the smell got a lot better but didn’t go away entirely. So we know it was cat pee when the enzyme cleaner worked.
So basically we paid to rent a van and then paid again to clean it. Cool.
The gas bottle ran out after 3 days
Our gas bottle was empty after only three days. And we barely used it! We closed it properly every single time after use. You’d think they’d send you off with a full bottle, right? Apparently not.
The lights that wouldn’t turn off
For the first few days the lights worked fine. Then out of nowhere, they just wouldn’t switch off anymore. Didn’t matter which switch we pressed. They stayed on.
Eventually we worked out that you have to go into the settings on the screen and turn the lights off there. Which works, I guess, but why don’t the switches work? That’s kind of what switches are for. And every time you start the van, the lights went on again. And then neither the switches nor the setting in the console screen worked. So we drove home with the lights on the whole time.
The roof tent leaked on the one side and the mattress, pillow and duvet got wet when raining
One night it started raining. I looked up and saw water collecting in the corner of the roof where the roof tent meets the metal roof, like a little dam. Then we heard dripping. Inside.
The whole one side of the roof tent was leaking through the material. My pillow got wet, then the duvet, then the mattress. Nothing like trying to sleep on a soaking wet mattress in the middle of the night.
Trying to contact Roadsurfer (good luck with that).
You will find many Reddit posts where people weren’t able to contact Roadsurfer for help and support.
This is the part that really got me.
I tried to get in touch with Roadsurfer, and I could NOT reach a real person. The only thing I could talk to was their AI assistant called Lea. Lea gave me a German phone number to call. So I called it. A German voice came on saying something like “this number is not in service.”
Great.
So I went back to Lea and asked how else I can contact Roadsurfer. It told me to log into my account and open a support ticket, and gave me a link. I clicked through a few steps, hoping to get to a form. And what did the page say? That I need to chat with the AI assistant first.
Round and round in circles.
Seriously, Roadsurfer, this is not okay. What if the van had broken down? What if we were stuck on the side of the road somewhere? How exactly were we supposed to reach you?
Get rid of the useless AI assistant and pay actual humans to help your customers. You can’t just replace people with a chatbot and call it customer service. And please put proper contact details somewhere people can actually find them.
Returning the van
When we dropped the van off at the Amsterdam depot, I tried to tell the staff about everything that went wrong. Honestly, they didn’t really give a shit about what I had to say. They just told me I have to contact the head office because they don’t handle money there. I asked them how or what is the best way to contact them and even they didn’t seem to know how to do that. After chatting between each other, they gave me the email address rent@roadsurfer.com.
So I’m supposed to contact the head office. The same head office I couldn’t reach the whole week because of Lea. You see the problem here.
So, what now? Roadsurfer review
We’ve rented from Roadsurfer before and liked it. But after this trip, I think this might be the last time. Unless they refund some of the money and next time I make sure everything works as expected.
I’d like a reimbursement, because the van we got was not what we paid for. We paid for a clean, working camper van. What we got was a cat piss van with an empty gas bottle, lights that wouldn’t turn off, a leaking roof, and no way to reach anyone for help.
Roadsurfer, if you’re reading this, you know where to find me. Which is more than I can say for you.
Where we went: our week in a camper van at the Zugspitze.
