Car Hire - Pictures - Light

doubledutchy

I have a strange question: I very frequently (10-20 times a year) hire cars in Lisbon. I have an annual Car-Hire-Excess insurance and never pay for the additional insurance cover from the car hire companies.

This means taking pictures + videos but I frequently pick up cars at night and if not, many of the car hire companies get you to pick up the car in very badly lit areas (I wonder why :-))

I've tried my phone's flash, but that doesn't really work (the reflection in the car obscures any scratches), so I wonder how other people deal with this as I can't be the only one with this problem.

I was considering buying a special light, especially for this purpose, but I don't know what to buy.

Newbie_John

Good car hire comapnies - Hertz, Avis etc. - I never bother with taking photos and left cars at night by dropping keys through letter box, picked up cars with no light.

Many smaller rental places - I try ot avoid them sadly after bad experience with Motion Green likes that no matter how many photos you've taken they will find a scratch under the car etc. and charge you £200 - but I think they are now excluded from many yearly car hire insurances..

jbrassy

I agree with the person above, stick with mainstream car hire companies: Avis/Budget, Hertz/Thrifty, Europcar/Keddy, Enterprise/Alamo, Sixt. I have also seen insurance policies that won't cover Green Motion, and this may also be the case for some other dodgy ones I see mentioned a lot like Goldcar and Easirent. The mainstream ones won't challenge you on minor damage which is barely visible at night. 

I also buy car hire excess insurance and the one time I had to make a claim, the car hire company (Budget) provided photos of the apparent damage. I forwarded these on to the insurance company, along with some other stuff they asked for (car rental agreement, invoice for the damage, credit card statement showing I'd paid for the damage). The insurance company paid out with no quibble in a matter of days (the insurance company was Eversure - I was surprised at how easy it was). 

Basically, I'm trying to reassure you that, if you hire from a mainstream established car hire company and you have excess cover, you shouldn't need to worry.

saajan_12

From a photography perspective (if that's the route you want to go down), then I suppose what you need is a dimmer light which you can disperse as much as possible rather than a brighter light from a small source. To do it well would be quite bulky.
Maybe a cheapo selfie light? Or a torch shone at a white umbrella which is facing or perpendicular to the side of the car? 

doubledutchy

Thanks for your comments, and of course, the mainstream companies (should) be more reliable, but..... I hired a car for 14 days, returning last Sunday, and it cost me €23 (for 14 days). That's exceptionally low as it's low season, but it helped the car hire company (they got €23), and it helped me as I got a good deal.

One of the quality rental companies you mentioned wanted close to €200 for the same period, still not fully covered.

I simply don't want to pay these inflated prices, and even with a Budget, you could still end up with the same issue unless you buy the fully covered insurance which will double that price.

I have been going to Lisbon every few months or so for three years, so I have hired many cheap cars. I once had an issue where they found a scratch that I could not find on my pictures because of the photo quality. That's the issue I want to solve. 

heatherw_01

You could get a LED flashlight as many are very bright.

I also take photos even with the well known companies as they can so easily blame you for something that was already there.

doubledutchy

heatherw_01 said:

I also take photos even with the well known companies as they can so easily blame you for something that was already there.

Totally agree - they all try to rip you off.

HUDengineer

Several bad experiences on this front, including here in the UK, picking up a rental at Luton Airport, which had front valence scratches that weren't noticed in the dark, wet, tight parking space that I picked it up from, and which I didn't go looking for the following day when the car was unused. Apparently Avis do/did give you time to report damage the following morning, after that it is pinned on you.

I now take time to do as well as I can, and - having found a dent in the roof of the car a day into the rental - realised I simply hadn't expected to see damage there. I now try and video all round, including wheels, corners and sides, pointing with an assistant's hand, to the main areas of damage,

Having done my video survey of a Hertz/Thrifty rental in Crete this year, it was with dismay that I saw a fresh black mark on the sill of the car, after street parking in Corfu Town, by the castle. I reported it, sent photos, and showed it to a rep, who said it was OK to continue using it, but it only finally got processed at the airport, for our scheduled flight home. With no way of accurately assessing the cost of repair at that time, Hertz Greece charged the full excess, plus VAT and an Admin Charge to my credit card - while it still had the holding excess charge allocated to them as well (so do ensure you have a big credit card limit, or find yourself having to use a non - Halifax Clarity card for that big transaction) - and I have found no way to recover the unspent part of the excess from Hertz, after the repair was assessed. That may be a consequence of having booked through Zest (with total cover option provided with their underwriter, Orchard Admin) so while I did have Excess insurance, Orchard Admin only paid out against the repair assessment, and are not in the business of helping the customer recover the rest of the excess that they have been charged. That left Zest to try and get money from Hertz Greece for me, but that was to no avail, so they made a goodwill gesture payment to cover the shortfall, but I have to say, the effort of chasing this up to a reasonable conclusion probably cost more time and effort than full coverage direct through the rental company, so I'm older and wiser.

One other thing to note: if you see rental offers with zero excess, that will be for a car that has already had a rough life. If you want to drive a tidy car, be prepared to take a share of the financial risk with a non-zero excess, or pay a lot for total cover when you rent the car. I did the latter as I picked up a brand new rental car at Palermo AIrport, and headed, wide-eyed in to a city where few motorists seemed to follow the rules at roundabouts, and only the coaches appear to glide through the automotive nightmare unscathed. A week later, I returned it, still unscathed.