This might be IMHO, but i thought i’d start it in GQ.
I’ve been driving a rental for the last four weeks, since my own car died and i had to buy a new one. I noticed a couple of days ago that there is a ding where the back door meets the rear part of the car. It’s in the area marked by the blue dot on this image.
In bright sunlight, and from most angles, you can barely see it, but if you go up and look there’s a decent crease in the bodywork, both on the door itself and on the panel behind the door, about 8 inches long. I guess it’s possible that I overlooked the damage when I rented the car, but it seems just as likely that some asshole sideswiped or backed into the car in a parking lot or when it was parked on the street.
Anyway, i know that the damage wasn’t noted when i rented the car, so i’m probably on the hook for it. The rental ends tomorrow, and i have to take it back and face the music.
I have full comprehensive insurance of my own, including collision, and i also rented the car using a qualifying VISA credit card. The collision policy on my own insurance has a $250 deductible, and the insurance doesn’t cover “Loss of use,” so if the rental car company wants to charge me for the day/s that the car is out of commission, my own insurance won’t cover it. I believe, however, that the VISA insurance will cover that.
My main question here is: what’s the best way for me to deal with this that will give me the least amount of hassle, and cost me the least out of pocket? Should i contact my insurance company before i even take the car back? Or should i leave it until the rental company tells me how much money they want?
If anyone’s had to deal with this before, i’d be grateful for your advice and your experience.
Concur. Talk to your insurance agent first, then Visa, and go ahead and get together whatever information from them the rental company will need to file a claim.
Actually, it seems that i won’t qualify for the VISA insurance.
The conditions say that they only insure rentals up to 15 days, and my rental was for 28 days. So i guess i’ll have to eat the deductible, plus the “Loss of use” fees myself.
Are you sure it wasn’t there and you just didn’t notice it when you rented the car? I would say nothing when you return the car and wait for them to say something.
I don’t have specific advice for you, but one thing you could do is contact your insurance company and ask for a copy of the policy. Then you can look up the section about rental car claims and see what it says on how to deal with it. That way, you don’t have to risk opening a claim (which may affect your rates (but I don’t know about your situation!)) until you have more information.
Yes. Absolutely do not say anything. Let them be the ones that bring it up. They may either not notice or just consider it normal wear and tear or something.
IME and all: A good rental agency notes all dings before and after. Morally, you should probably mention it. If you do, they may charge you or they may just let it pass/ignore it. AFAIK you don’t have any legal obligation, but check the contract. If you don’t mention it, they may not even notice it. Also (without seeing a pic), that may be something that a mechanic can just pop out so they don’t bother worrying about it.
In the future, take pics of previous damage. Although it sound like you are pretty certain this is new, so doesn’t apply, but still a good thing to do.
I rent a lot of cars (2 or 3/mo) from Hertz, Enterprise, etc. and most have dings, small dents and scratches all over them. If the damage is difficult to see, chances are it won’t even be noticed. You’d be surprised at what gets written off as normal wear and tear on these cars. I wouldn’t say anything, especially if you’re not sure if it was there when you got the car.
Yes, this. I had to rent a car while mine was in the shop a bit over a year ago. Some asshole in my condo building’s parking lot opened his door into mine and left a little ding with some residual paint–barely visible, but it was there. I didn’t say anything. Neither did Enterprise.
Did you actually talk to someone from Visa about it? I’ve had them bend the rules a bit with the 45 day reporting rule (long story) and so it might be worth a try seeing if they’ll bend the rental term limit. Maybe if you explain your situation and that it was just a temporary rental and you weren’t trying to use them as your primary insurance or anything like that.
Otherwise, I’d agree with the keep 'yer yap shut advice. Also, if they do say something about it, you should definitely try to figure out some way to just kind of slip the implication that you rent cars for weeks upon weeks like this all the time into the conversation.
From what I’ve heard, “loss of use” fees are often dropped when challenged. Basically, to prove that they suffered any loss from the car being in the shop, they have to show that they didn’t have any idle cars at all for the days they are claiming and had to turn someone away because your car was out of commission. This is usually not true.
In another thread, you say that sampling a grape at the grocery store is “low class and theft,” but an automobile gets damaged while you are renting it and you keep that information from the rental agency? And THAT is perfectly legit?
It’s like that picture I saw on Facebook entitled Female Logic
First picture was labeled “My boyfriend cheats on me because all men are scum”
Second picture was labeled “I cheat on my boyfriend because all men are scum”
:dubious:
for some reason it is considered OK to lie though your teeth to a car dealer/repair shop/rental agency/pretty much anybody in the car business.
I swear you would not believe some of the whoppers I get told. I stopped getting mad about being lied to 20 years ago, now I just get amused.
On the rare occasion I find someone that isn’t lying through their teeth, and does take responsibility for their actions I have been known to fix their car for free or at a greatly reduced rate. Just because honestly and ethics should be rewarded.
This is the route i took. I returned the car and didn’t mention it. If they get in touch and claim that the ding was there when i rented the car, then i’ll take it on the chin.
Thanks for the advice. If it becomes necessary, there’s certainly no harm in asking if they’ll bend the rules, but i definitely wouldn’t count on it.
I’ve been doing a bit of reading about this. The legal status of “loss of use” fees appears to be a bit up in the air, and i also read that some rental car companies refuse to release information about their rental history, arguing that it constitutes proprietary business information, and that they have a right to charge for loss of use even if they couldn’t have rented the car during the period when it was in the shop. There was a recent case in Colorado that found that rental companies do have the right to collect a “loss of use” fee, but as far as legal precedent goes, this decision extends only to Colorado.
Also, quite a few articles about “loss of use” fees say that rental car companies are going after these fees far more vigorously than they used to, in an attempt to claw back some of the revenue lost due to the fact that so many drivers these days refuse the Collision Damage Waiver. The CDW itself has traditionally been a pretty big source of revenue for rental companies.
But…
I’m in California, and my reading of California Civil Code 1936, along with a few online articles i’ve come across, suggest that rental agencies in California are not even allowed to charge a “loss of use” fee at all. Here’s an article from Auto Rental News from 2004:
If you read the relevant part of the California Civil Code, and look at sections (b) and (c), which detail the renter’s total responsibility to the rental car company, loss of use fees are not mentioned anywhere, and could only really fall under administrative fees, which are limited as detailed in the above quotation.
So, as far as i can tell, if they come back wanting me to cover the damage, the most i can possibly be liable for is $400 (my insurance policy’s $250 deductible, and $150 for administrative charges). That would be a $400 pain in the ass, but certainly not the end of the world.
I understand that incidents like this can lead into fairly thorny issues of morality and ideas about obligations and principles. One problem i have with the idea that i have a moral obligation to disclose something like this is that most companies themselves don’t really take issues of morality into account when making decisions about their bottom line. Corporations are supposed to operate in the interests of their shareholders, and this means that they often do things that, if done by individuals, might be considered immoral or unethical.
For example, during the housing crisis of 2008-2011, there was considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth in the media about the number of people who were intentionally defaulting on their mortgages, even if they could afford the payments, because the value of their houses had fallen below the amount they owed. This issue led to lots of debate over what constituted homeowners’ moral obligations to continue paying. Some argued that they did have a moral obligation to pay if they could afford it, even if the house was now worth far less than what they paid, while others (including me) argued that a mortgage is simply a business contract, not a moral straightjacket, and that the mortgage itself contains a very clear statement about the consequences for failing to pay—you lose the house. If you’re willing to lose the house, then you should be able to stop paying and hand over the keys without any moral qualms. It is, in some of these cases, a rational economic decision.
And, in fact, this is exactly what happened in one of the largest residential real estate deals in the history of the nation. Tishman Speyer, the company that, in 2006, spent $5.4 billion to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in New York City, decided in early 2010 that the housing crisis made the payments too great compared to the value of the property, so they handed back the keys and walked away from their payments. I’m an employee of the state of California, and my state’s pension plan lost $500 million as a result of that decision. Yet the same pundits who excoriated individual homeowners for failing to live up to their obligations had very little to say about Tishman Speyer. It was treated in the press as basically a rational business decision, which is exactly what it was.
I guess my point here is that i feel different moral obligations to different entities. If i had been borrowing a friend’s car, and it suffered this ding, i would point it out to him, and be happy to pay for it. The act of borrowing from a friend assumes certain moral and ethical obligations, and all of those obligations are tacit. There is no written agreement, no contract.
But Budget is a company, and my relationship with them is one that is governed not by mutual ties of friendship and trust, but by specific legal and contractual language. The contract states that i am responsible for loss or damage to the vehicle, and if it comes to that i will accept that responsibility. But nowhere does it require me to point out damage that may or may not have occurred during my rental, and that definitely did not occur in my presence. Rick, i understand your point about lying, and i also understand that some people believe that omission is just as bad as a lie, but in contractual relationships like this, i don’t think i should feel obliged to do more than the contract requires simply to conform to a more rigorous moral standard than the company itself would be willing to assume.
When i walk around a rental car at the beginning of a rental, i look at it myself and don’t simply take the word of the rental company that it is in good condition. I choose to assume that they exercise the same level of scrutiny when they get it back. If they do that, and send me a bill, i’ll pay it.
I did this. I basically said the same thing that i said in my OP. The woman basically said, “If they find damage that they think you’re responsible for, they’ll send you a letter. If they do that, then you get in contact with us to start a claim.”
