Holiday rental car - excess and repairs

Kai_63

I have a rental car issue in Portugal. I booked through Holiday Autos (broker) and Centauro rental cars and have a damage excess refund insurance from Axa. The excess is quite significant.

The front right tyre was scuffed badly when I kerbed the car. I checked with a garage and the car is fine to drive but the tyre sidewall has been grazed as have the alloys. I have two options - drive the car back to the rental place as is for them to repair (1 hr away) or replace the tyres (front ones) and drive back. 

I already know the rental repair will charge a premium.

Apparently here tyres are generally replaced in pairs on the same axle for safety.

Which is better - repair myself or via rental? I think mainly it comes down to whether Axa will cover the repairs in which case I might as well let Centauro (the rental do)? Any other considerations?

MyRealNameToo

Have you actually read your excess policy? Historically some would only pay out if the excess was charged, if however your damage was below the excess or its damage to part of the car not covered by the insurance (which wheels often arent) then as no excess was paid the excess policy didnt respond. 

If its safe to drive your options really are either replace the tyres and still have to pay for the alloy or just return the car at the normal end of the hire and deal with the charges for all the damage afterwards. Dont see any advantage of returning the car mid hire for damage. 

Changing tyres in pairs is recommended here too, if the tyres were recently replaced and you get another puncture etc then you can get away with just changing the one. The fact that people dont replace in pairs doesnt mean that they shouldn't be. 

Kai_63

The policy is a little light on details as it's via the third party rental broker. They have a £160 limit per tyre and the rental company will definitely charge more than that from speaking to them.

I think we'll just get them repaired ourselves.

I didn't know that about UK law, good to be aware.

MyRealNameToo

Kai_63 said:

I didn't know that about UK law, good to be aware.

Its not law, its a strong recommendation