Has anyone ever had an accident when using a rental car, tell us your horror stories.
 

I have come so close many times, but never actually had a real accident with a rental car. I understand that many rental car agencies try to make it as expensive as possible if you do have an accident.

Someone once told me even if your insurance will pay for the repairs, minus the deductable, the rental agency will charge you hundreds of dollars a day for "loss of use" while they take their sweet time fixing the damaged car. Is this true?

Also, how many of you have been surprised by a charge on your credit card for some damage to the car the car rental agency found a few days after you checked the automobile in? How can you fight this?

I actually have 2 stories, both with happy endings...the first was when I was renting a car in Chicago and I was visiting my cousins at their home. I was parked in their driveway, exactly where they told me to park in order to give them enough room to get out of their garage. At one point, I went with my cousin in her car, which was parked in the garage. As she pulled out, she sideswiped my car, having completely forgotten it was there. Luckily, her husband is an Allstate agent, and so we all lived happily ever after, since he (quietly) took care of the whole thing! :)

The other was last year in Kauai, where we were renting a minivan and somewhere along the line, someone must have hit us and dented the rear fender. The rental company certainly saw this when we returned the car and told us they were going to assess the damages and bill us. It has been a year and a half, and there has never been any bill or follow-up on this incident. [-o< :-$

We've had an accident with one a rental, and though not our fault it became a hassle. We stopped to pay our toll on the Maine Turnpike and were rear-ended by a gal coming into that toll booth behind us and lost her brakes. How could it be anything but an open and closed case, right? Stopped paying toll, turnpike authority employee witness to the entire event, please report taken? It became a headache when I reported it to our company, USAA, and they told us if it turned out the other party didn't have insurance (it was questionable as she couldn't produce anything but thought she had it), the damage to the rental would be covered under our collision coverage, which carries a $500 deductible. As it turned out, she did have insurance, fortunately, but the story doesn't end. My husband got a letter from the state of Maine saying that his drivers license would no longer be valid in that state as we had not provided proof that the damages to our vehicle had been covered. We didn't even know they asked for it and we had no way of having that info anyway, seeing as it was a rental vehicle. That was straightened out, we assume, with a phone call to the state. Heck what would have happened in a more complicated case?

They absolutely can charge you for loss of use, yes. It is a legitimate loss for them if that car is out of service. Try having a wreck with a cab if you think that is bad!! :(

I worked as an adjuster for Amica Ins...Amica covered losses such as our under the liability section of the policy, meaning no policyholder deductible necessary, because when you sign for the rental car, you are *legally liable* for returning the car in the same condition in which it was rented. How two companies can interpret the same wording so differently is beyond me. USAA used to be the "be all to end all" of insurance companies....still far better than the rest of the litter, but no longer what they used to be!! Much as I hate to say this because I still have loyalty to the industry, you have to fight the companies today tooth and nail for everything you are owed!!

Never have had a problem being charged for damages after turning a car in, but am picky picky picky about listing every nick and rub before ever taking it out. Our last rental this spring in Dallas when we found some minor scrapes and dings, we were told "oh that's nothing to worry about, no need to list it" but had her mark them despite...never never accept that "it's nothing to worry about". It is. If you are charged for something you don't believe you did, turn it over to your insurance and let them duke it out with the rental company.

We were given some sort of a tin can to drive in England. It was an unbelievably cheap sort of VW that I'd never heard of before nor seen since. We were in Wales and had pulled off the road to get a picture. All the roads around Snowdonia are lined with rock walls, and this was no exception. As I was taking the picture the wind caught the door and blew (flung?) it open into the rock wall, putting an unbelievable dent in the door. Geez, had we been in a wreck in that car there would have been nothing left of us!! It was so noticeable, I was sick, but as it rained and rained more, and we drove through muck, and the car got filthy, the big dent eventually got hidden in all the dirt, and no longer stood out as it had on the clean car. So...we turned it in good and muddy adding a little more for good measure, then ran for our lives, hoping the rental agency wouldn't track us down across the pond. Kept expecting to hear...but never did.

OliveOyl,

I liked reading your interesting stories about your rental car nightmares. I especially liked the last one about the tin can in England. :-D You never know when a litle extra mud might come in handy.

NOt an accident, but I did have a rock kicked up from a truck hit my windshield putting a good size crack in it. I paid for it with my credit card and filed a claim through them... no troubles. Got reimbursed fairly quickly.

My brother on his honeymoon flipped a jeep in St. Thomas... no idea how much trouble it was for him to deal with that though.

On a trip to New York, the hubcaps were stolen off my mother's rental car when it was parked at night. When the car was brought back to the agencey, they commented on the missing hubcaps and wanted to charge $100 for each one. Everyone played dumb and said the car didn't have hubcaps in the first place. What a cliche--getting your hubcaps stolen in NYC!

Once got a bill from the city of Santa Barbara California for a speeding ticket in an Alamo car.
Problem was, I had rented a car in LAS VEGAS that weekend, not Santa Barbara. I sent in the ticket with my hotel receipts and car receipts, and since I had returned the car to Las Vegas airport about 4 hours after the time on the speeding ticket, pointed out that there was no physical way that I could have been in SB at the time. Funny part was that the license plate on the ticket was the same as the one on my car rental receipt. Perhaps Alamo had been registering two cars under the same plates!
Never heard a word from SB Police after I sent in documentation. Hope there's not a warrant out for me up there.

Made a dent in an Avis car once and they sent the bill. My credit card paid the $500 bill but didn't pay a "$100 processing fee" that Avis tacks on.

A stone was thrown by another car and cracked our rental car windshield. We had to pay for it when we turned the car in. It was in Ireland and they also have those stone fences. The left side of our car became pretty scratched. Also, the hub cap. They didn't catch it when we turned it in,(must of been the mud :-), but a few weeks later it appeared on our Mastercard.

Got rear ended(twice in same accident) while stopped at stop sign in Fla...Car hit me and another car hit the car that hit me, pushing me into the car in front of me. Pretty much demolished the car "Neon"...front and rear damage was massive...no injuries involved.

I had the car rental company's insurance "collision waiver cover"....so the rental car company simply hauled the one car off and gave me another rental. Other than a tel. call from my "liability" insurance company I did not hear about the incident again. The two drivers of the cars behind me were given traffic citations.

Just a note: Did some research about "credit card" rental car insurance coverage; in reference to collision coverage. Usually the credit card coverage is secondary to your primary carrier. Would suggest that people read and understand. If you do not carry collision insurance the credit card insurance can become primary, if you follow the rules as described under their coverage.

FYI: I take the rental car companies "collision 'waiver coverage mainly for "peace of mind" I don't want to spend time doing paper work, and/or worrying about the deductible limits while I am on vacation ........just a personal thing.

I didn't have an accident, but the car they assigned to me had clearly been in one. I always walk around the car before I get into it, just for this sort of thing. There was a substantial dent below the license plate and some missing paint. I walked back to get another car, but they were out (this was one of the majors, btw), so the supervisor came out and wrote a full description of the damage on my rental agreement, signed it and dated it.

When I brought it back in, I made a point of showing the check-in person the damage and the notation on my contract. He said ok, checked me in and I was off to check baggage. But I had to wait to meet a colleague also returning a car to the same agency. While I waited, I saw the same car being driven back from the carwash and parked in the "ready" line!

Two months later, I got a letter from the rental people claiming I'd caused the damage. Fortunately, I'd kept the rental agreement with the notation on it, so I photocopied it and sent it back to them. Not a word since, but I'm guessing they never did find out when, exactly, the accident happened.

Obvious moral of the story about inspecting a rental before you drive away. Best not to accept a damaged one at all, but if you have no choice, document everything. Frankly, I wish I'd taken a photo of it.

Chabber you scare me. If you have "come so close many times" to having a wreck in a rental car, please do the rest of us a favor and use taxis more often.

Well, I guess you could call it an accident. My husband and I were living on Oahu and were spending a long weekend on Maui, so of course we had a rental car. We parked it in a marked parking spot on a side street in Lahaina and left for a couple of hours. When we came back, the sidewalk side of the front corner panel had been smashed in, obviously by something soft since no paint was missing, it was just smashed in.

Just then, a couple of huge local guys came out of a shop a few doors down and made a comment about "haole tourists" loud enough for us to hear, then walked down the street laughing. There was no doubt in our minds one of them had done it, but we were also glad they had picked on the car and not us personally.

The rental car company was very fair about it and charged $487 to have it fixed, which had to be paid before we left Maui since our insurance deductible was (conveniently) $500.

It was one of about five times we were obviously the subject of discrimination in our three years in Hawaii, and what I learned was to always buy the outrageous collision waiver from the car rental company!

I've had a close call or two also, that is why I always make sure I am covered. (Not with the expensive car-rental company insurance either.)
Read: www.travelcouponsonline.com/insurance.html for some hints & make sure you are covered.