Damaged Hire Car Today. Need Advice Urgently!!

cyclonebri1

Apologises, non of the above read, but, you must have had insurance, let them take care off it, if you didn't well...................

vaio

Anihilator wrote: »

Three outcomes here

1) They don't check car properly miss it and OP can just deny knowledge
2) They spot it, OP took out CDW and is only liable for excess - likely to range from £500 to £1250. If the repair is less than that they will still ask for the full excess but by kicking up a fuss and asking to see receipts etc they might only reduce this to actual cost
3) OP took out no CDW and is liable in full for all rental companies losses

Also any repair involving a scratch etc to be properly repaired will probably cost more than £200

I’d be staggered if any car hire company would let a car out relying on the hirer to replace it if it ended up stuffed into a tree.

I think you might have the wrong idea about CDW, I had a car out from Euro car recently, the standard insurance had a £250 (might have been £500) excess which could be reduced to zero by paying £2 per day CDW

darich

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

how is it rediculous your golf is 9 years old you could take it to main dealer for painting to honour the garentee but we are talking about a new car not old banger vw golf! cars today are designed to crumble on impact so the engine/frame takes brunt of it and the cabin is like a hardened safety cell, side impact bars toughened windscreen and windows multiple airbags toughened bulk head e.t.c the reson for platic flexible wings is that if you dinked it the frame and engine would take the force of it! and you have options with insurers either they take it for repair or you can nominate a repairer like a main dealer!

Did you read the OP's first post???
The bit where it says "There are no dents or bumps etc."????

Now in principal I agree with what you're saying about unseen damage etc....but if the impact wasn't enough to dent or bump any bodywork I can only imagine it would need chocolate engine mounts for the engine to fall out as you dramatically claim could happen.
The OP never mentioned hitting a kerb/pothole/lamp post or anything else solid. No help was asked for regarding any wheel, tyre or suspension damage so the assumption is that no impact of that type happened.

Your car may be designed to crumble when the paint is damaged but most other cars aren't.
You'll find the body work crumples first so the momentum of the important parts ie passengers is reduced gradually so if the body work hasn't crumpled I'd doubt there's been enough impact to make the engine fall out or chassis disintegrate.

I do agree though that for the car to aquaplane the OP has been driving too fast for the conditions and no matter what the eventual damage to the car is, ultimately, it's down to being careless with their driving.

plane_boy2000

Incredible that people think they can insure something after the event - very dangerous game as its fraud and when you get caught it will be difficult to get insurance in the future.

Reality is you were driving in a manner that caused you to damage the car - the rain is no excuse - you need to adapt to the conditions.

The petrol issue is a non issue - you are responsible for the fuel level if it was empty out / back - if you wish to make a fuss about it then carry on, but you only had loss of use of the car from when you called to when they added fuel which I think you said was about an hour???? Think you were lucky that they added fuel for you - they could have just said its run out - your problem.

Also you need to factor in that they will charge you the hire rate for the time the car is in being repaired as they will be losing on that time to.

Sorry, but if things are really that tight then you should have either taken CDW or not hired the car

espresso

Is the OP still washing cars at Enterprise or just a selfish stumper?

orangefender

I was hoping some of you can help me on a related matter to the OP's. I'm using a car on a long term (7 months) hire from Thrifty. I've had the car a couple of months and already had a few unlucky prangs in it (my fault - new car, new city), some vanadlism and damage caused when a friend drove into it by accident.

The policy provides that that "in each event of loss or damage the Hirer is liable for £500" and optional insurances include "loss/Damage Waiver (CDW/LDW)".

My gut feeling is to wait until the end of the rental period before returning the car and taking it up with Thrifty then. Hopefully they will deal with it as a single claim and I won't be asked for more than £500. I could look at getting the damage repaired myself, but I don't want to risk the hire company being unhappy with the repairs and my having to pay twice.

Would you all go along with this or something else I should be thinking about?

Thanks

Wig

Start a new thread orangefender this one has been stumped.