Sixt rent a car - Any Questions

Gary_Coughlan

Hi,

I'm Gary Coughlan the Customer Service Manager for Sixt in the U.K.

MoneySavingExpert must be by far one of the most popular consumer forums, with over 18 million visits in December alone.

I'd love to have an honest and open conversation with you here in this forum, on the platform that you choose to use.

If anybody has any questions I will do my best to provide an answer.

Best regards
Gary

marlot

Gary - One thing which has always bugged me about hiring a car is that the damage sheet that is used for the start of hire inspection is always blank. I think it would be much fairer if it started from the previous end of hire inspection.

We're all rushed when we get off the plane, and its incredibly hard for an amateur to spot all the cosmetic defects on a car. A couple of times when I've rented a car, I've noticed a scratch or minor dent after I've arrived at the holiday villa. And as I haven't been parked anywhere, or hit anything, they were probably there when I hired it - but I just missed them. And I'd be willing to bet that if I asked for the previous end of hire documents, the damage would be on them.

This isn't a dig a sixt - last time I hired one of your cars I got a really nice car with 400 miles on the clock and a good experience - more of a feeling that there has to be a better way for the industry as a whole to operate.

Gary_Coughlan

Hi Marlot,

Many thanks for your question.

For Sixt in the U.K, Germany, France and Spain we have introduced an electronic car check system.

The electronic car checker records all known damages which are preloaded into our system, our customer receives the rental agreement with the damage already listed. We ask our customer to check the vehicle and report any unlisted damage which is entered onto our electronic hand held car checker device.

Should a vehicle return with new damage, this is entered onto the hand held system. All damages are listed and will show automatically on all future hires until the repair is completed.

We plan to continue to roll out this system through out our corporate network.

For extra peace of mind you can take the additional insurance excess, in the U.K for example you can now reduce the excess to zero for many car groups.

With regards to receiving a blank inspection sheet as per your own experiences when renting vehicles, I understand your point of view. I can't comment for the industry as a whole but where new inspection sheets are used traditionally it has remained the hirers responsibility to check the vehicle and complete the form.

Should the agent complete the form on your behalf? I agree that this would be good service for you in order to save time but of course this potentially could lead to additional complications in case the agent made a mistake on the form.

There really is no intention to charge customers incorrectly for damages, mistakes will and do happen from time to time, as a company Sixt is doing it's best to minimise any errors. We do not wish to disappoint our customers, we just want to rent cars and for our customers to have a good time.

Best regards
Gary

marlot

Gary_Coughlan wrote: »

Hi Marlot,
The electronic car checker records all known damages which are preloaded into our system, our customer receives the rental agreement with the damage already listed. We ask our customer to check the vehicle and report any unlisted damage which is entered onto our electronic hand held car checker device.

Should a vehicle return with new damage, this is entered onto the hand held system. All damages are listed and will show automatically on all future hires until the repair is completed.

Excellent! I'm off to France in a few weeks - looking forward to giving it a go.