Damaged a hired van

DrtyRbbrCub

And now i'm worried, i got a friend to help move house and drive a van for me but he damaged it, a relatively small dent more of a scrape really in the side, but they took the full excess of £850 on my credit card, they say they will refund the difference but i'm really worried - as they will decide how much it costs to repair it then tell me.

Anybody had experience of this before? the hire company begins with E, like in Star Trek by the way. ;-)

Captain_Flack.

DrtyRbbrCub wrote: »

And now i'm worried, i got a friend to help move house and drive a van for me but he damaged it, a relatively small dent more of a scrape really in the side, but they took the full excess of £850 on my credit card, they say they will refund the difference but i'm really worried - as they will decide how much it costs to repair it then tell me.

Anybody had experience of this before? the hire company begins with E, like in Star Trek by the way. ;-)

Dent to which panel? It could cost more than £850.

DrtyRbbrCub

Urgh, side. The one that the sliding door slides over, the scrape was 4 inches long roughly , didn't puncture the metal but was a couple of millimetres deep.

deanos

in future a smart repair might have been best before returning it

Retrogamer

The problem with damaging a panel like that to that degree is normally a simply repair can't be done. The area will need to be sanded back, the gouge filled, then the whole panel resprayed as you can't really blend it in, in a way that it doesn't stand out.

KTF

I would imagine they wont even bother to repair that on the basis that it will probably happen again at a future date.

They will just work out the cost and take that off the total.

Captain_Flack.

Retrogamer wrote: »

The problem with damaging a panel like that to that degree is normally a simply repair can't be done. The area will need to be sanded back, the gouge filled, then the whole panel resprayed as you can't really blend it in, in a way that it doesn't stand out.

True, but I bet they won't do it just bill the op £1500. The dent will still be there when they sell it on.

Nebulous2

I hired cars from them regularly last year. They were reasonably tolerant of very small scratches, but always tried to get you to upgrade the insurance. The manager told me they rarely charged less than the full excess, even for reasonably straightforward things like mirrors. Included in the charge is loss of hire fees while it is being repaired. Sorry!

bigjl

Whenever i hire anything i take out the extra cover that means i am not responsible fr any excess.

£5 a day is nothing.

I assume your friend was insured to drive the van as they usually have a hirer only driving policy unless you pay extra.

rs65

bigjl wrote: »

Whenever i hire anything i take out the extra cover that means i am not responsible fr any excess.

£5 a day is nothing.

Depends on how long and how often you hire.

I have annual excess cover for £39.99 less £12 Quidco so £27.99.

The excess policy also covers things that your £5 a day doesn't.

Nebulous2

bigjl wrote: »

Whenever i hire anything i take out the extra cover that means i am not responsible fr any excess.

£5 a day is nothing.

I assume your friend was insured to drive the van as they usually have a hirer only driving policy unless you pay extra.

Cars were £10 earlier in the year. Given the hire was only around £20 it made the difference between the hire being worth doing or not. It's the equivalent of paying £3650 a year to reduce your excess from £750 to £150.