Car Hire – Our CDW was waived off!!

niiico13

Hi everyone,

This is my first post in this chat forum.

I am writing you as my partner and I are living in London and went on holiday to South Africa.

We wanted to hire a car from Hertz in Durban and asked for the best insurance/damage waiver available. We mentioned we were going to a game reserve and were going to drop off the car 3 days later in Bloemfontein.

They gave us the Super Damage Waiver + the personal accident insurance. We wrongly thought it was good enough.
In the game reserve, we accidentally drove into a milestone hidden behind some high grass.

We have just received the invoice:
Cost: 40,000 RDS not covered by the Super Damage Waiver as roads in game reserves are untarred! (one of the cases which excludes the Super CDW - written at the back of the contract in very small print)

When we rented the car, no one told us anything about the risk of going in a game reserve. Moreover, we discovered that Hertz SA can offer additional cover for damage resulting of driving on gravel roads but only for drivers who want to drive to Namibia... It sounded very surprising to us when you think that 95% of tourists go to South Africa to visit game reserves!

We were wondering if there was any ground for a claim there and your help would be much appreciated.

Thank in advance for all your responses. I am sure they'll help us.

MarkyMarkD

Almost all car hire companies exclude damage when vehicles are driven off road. Paying for CDW or SCDW doesn't affect this - it merely covers the excess for a valid insurance claim.

The only basis you have for complaint is that you told the company that you were going to a game reserve and that they should have realised that meant that you would be going off tarred roads.

I have to say that the exemption for going off road would have been detailed in the insurance documentation which you would have been provided with, so the chances of you winning this case are, IMHO, very slim.

niiico13

Thanks for the answer...even though it's not what I hoped!

Just an additional question: Hertz also sent us a document mentioning that we would have to pay less money considering a salvage value of 55,000RDS for the car (car retail value: 92,900RDS).

On the document we received, this amount of 55,000RDS was hand-written without any details about it. Would you know how we could check that it is effectively a fair price?

PS: About the cost of repair, the high cost mainly comes from the fact that the airbags deployed!

Thanks again for all your help.

21maz

I wondered if through your experience you can advise how best we should hire a car in SA. We're off to Cape Town later this year and are going to drive from there up to Jo'burg and visit Kruger while there.

What should we watch for in the small print.

Many thanks