Avis Car Rental Damage Advice

ThePiper_2

Hi everyone,

I am looking for a bit of advice on behalf of my father in law who has had a bit of a problem with Avis Car Rental.

My in-laws who are American arrived in the UK for a weeks visit and hired a car for a number of days. Upon taking the car back at the end of the rental, the person there spotted a scuff about 1.5 inces along the edge of one of the alloy rims. Having had similar scuffs repaired on my own car a while ago, I know it costs roughly around £35 to do. Avis however wanted to charge £225 for a complete new rim. My father in law insisted that if he was going to pay for a new rim, he wanted to the old rim taken off the car to take away. The lady of course refused this and at the end of it all he refused to sign the form and credit card receipt meaning that they won't be able to charge his credit card for the fee. (He had prepaid for the rental itself before landing in the UK). In the end, the lady filled out an incident report form (or something like that) which my father in law signed. We don't know what happens from here but assume that they will be written to and asked/threatened if he won't pay.

Before leaving the rental station, my father in law inspected the car and all the other wheels were also scuffed but these were disclosed by the Avis at the start meaning that they had likely charged someone else for those before and still not changed the wheels. I have photos of the car, the damaged wheel in question, and all the other damaged wheels as a record.

Has anyone had a similar experience? They are due to fly home to the US in a few days and aren't sure what their rights are at this point.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ryan

111KAB

I would send your photo of the damaged rim to three or so alloy wheel repair firms to justify the £35 repair cost you mention by seeking a quote. I would then contact Avis head office and speak with someone in authority to try and resolve the matter. If it fails to be resolved at least you can then say you tried to assist and should the matter go further you have your quotes as a back up.

Alan_Bowen

The truth is most if not all car rental companies charge for work which they don't actually do. I rented a '11' registration car from Manchester Airport 5 days ago, it had clearly been in an accident with a serious dent all along the left hand said to the point that the wheelarch at the rear was already rusting due to the lack of paint. I have no doubt someone has already been charged a fortune but nothing has been done.

Your father in law may have paid in advance but I would guarantee that when he collected the car they took another swipe of his card which will be debited. Avis tried this with me when they alleged I had damaged a wheel which I knew I hadn't. I sued them and got the money back and avoid Avis like the plague.

malkie76

The difference in cost is lost revenue when the car is off the road getting fixed. Also costs to have staff to take the car to their repair garage.

In reality they'll wait for a good few scuffs before taking the car in and probably charging everyone for the lost revenue.

They would have swiped a card at the time of collection, and they'll add a charge to that. You'll need to challenge this, but you've already agreed to pay for damages when you signed the documents at time of rental.

111KAB

Guys above are right - I worked for Enterprise for 10 months - we generally let the minor repairs build up and only when the car was deleted from the fleet did it get considered for repair/tarting up. The cars were then often sold back to the trade so the trade cost of repairs was deducted from the lower book price when sold on.