Hire Car Excess

zenmaster

I am renting a car in Europe later in the year, with a 300 euro excess (about £180). I can get a waiver on this for around £32.

Bearing in mind that they can apparently charge you for stone chips, tyre damage, and any other little thing they can dream up (which I would consider fair wear and tear) - is it worth taking out this extra insurance?

Also what do you do if a hire car breaks down? Do you call the hire car company to get it sorted out or are you on your own?

Thanks

crossleydd42

IT sounds worth it for peace of mind and not spoiling your holiday memories. A friend of mine who regularly hires a car in france says they they come with breakdown cover and the control he used on one occasion spoke English. When you settle on a company, maybe you could ring them or the English equivalent to find out?

pompeyrich

Tyres and glass are normally excluded from car hire insurance in Europe so even if you pay the extra £30 you should check that this will cover them. I paid 10 Euros extra to cover the glass and tyres in Spain, this was on top of CDW etc.

Carjet dont have any excesses on their CDW but still wont cover tyres, glass and in some locations, locks.

Bossyboots

My boss crashed a hire car last year so the extra cost to waive the excess was well worth it for him.

zappahey

It depends how often you hire cars. We used to hire about 3 or 4 times per year and the extra insurance fees quickly racked up, so we decided to carry the risk ourselves.

This year we took a policy with insurance4carhire.com and the cost was £49 for a year's excess cover, which was worth it for us.

zenmaster

Thanks everyone,

Some sound advice here. I think I shall go for it, for the peace of mind.

I'm not intending more than one rental occasion (although it could happen) but I am renting 2 cars this time round. I have looked at insurance4carhire.com and it doesn't say anywhere that you CAN'T apply it to more than one vehicle at once - I just need to decide if it's ethical . Also, if I time it right, it may well serve me next year as well.

crossleydd42

For the record, which website did you find the best?

zenmaster

Definitely going for the insurance4carhire.com option, especially since the excess waiver on the second vehicle is over £90!

crossleydd42 wrote:

For the record, which website did you find the best?

Do you mean for the car hire?

I got what I think to be an excellent deal for 9 days hire:

Mercedes Vito from easyautos.co.uk for £425, with 7% to come from Quidco. £14 for each additional driver. This still has to be confirmed though, as it's special order. Sample quote from easycar is £465

Opel Vectra from arguscarhire.com for £221.44, with £7.50 to come from Quidco and additional drivers free. Sample quote from easycar is £326.

I spent hours on it though - if I'd done the equivalent amount of overtime I could have just gone with the dearer quotes and still made a profit!

When I first looked argus had the Vito for £216 (probably a misprice). I should have grabbed it then, but I am quite new to this MS experience.

Thanks for you help.