Car Hire 'hurtz'! warning £56 GB for a puncture despite paying for repair

rcly123

A very well known car-hire company have just charged me GB £56 because I got a puncture: this hurtz!

I followed all their procedures, rang them immediately, told them that the puncture occurred on the main N-class Scottish roads, and inside the first 5 hours of the hire; I was told that it was my responsibility to repair the tyre. Then this happened..

I took it to a professional tyre-repair centre and paid the full cost of repair. The tyre was working perfectly when I returned it. I told them about it on return and nothing was said except 'that'll be allright'. 12 e-mails later and they say that "the charges placed are correct".

To make matters worse - I was given a car without a spare tyre!; one which came with a 'tyre inflation kit' which meant I had to spend 3 hours getting the tyre repaired.

TIP 1: Always ask and demand a car with a spare tyre.
TIP 2: If hiring a car - make it from a company that doesn't hurtz you; I know I won't any more!

peanuthead

Omg!! Was it Hertz??

lol

That's crap OP, I can't believe that their service was so bad, over a crappy tyre. But I thought you HAD to take out insurance with a hired car, and surely this would have come under said insurance??

rcly123

Nope - this I was told by an official service representative whom I phoned the moment I realised I had a puncture - was "damage" to the car; which I had obviously been adjuged to have carried out.
Hence they took it out of the CDW excess (I didn't pay to reduce that, but then I'm not sure if I had that it would've covered it: i'm awaiting an answer from them on that).
It is that painful sounding company that hurtz!

undo

Reducing your excess would not have helped much. As long as there is any excess, they take your money up to that limit. Insurance only kicks in above that. Since they charged you £56, even with an excess of £100, you would have had to pay the full amount. Zero excess does exist with some companies but tends to be massively expensive.

Personally, I often book through AutoEurope. They are a broker, a middleman between you and the car hire company and they provide additional insurance which lowers your excess to €0.

finty

Best not to tell them anything, methinks! Just leaving yourself open to getting charged for it.

Dinkie

Another tip with 'hurtz' is to look over the car properly. They tried to charge me for a flat spare tire which had to have been in the car before I had hired it (as I didn't use it).

Another time they tried to charge me for a tear in the back seat. As I was the only one in the car - I was no where near the back seat.

Both times however they hadn't given me that form with the picture of the car and its scuffs to sign, so they couldn't make me pay for it.

I go with Budget now. No problems at all (I hire a car fairly frequently).

rcly123

undo wrote: »

Reducing your excess would not have helped much...

undo - I just got this official comment from hurtz...

"Unfortunately Hertz insurance does not cover wheels/tyres. Even with Super Cover insurance in place which reduces the excess amount to zero, wheels/tyres, keys and fuel contamination are not covered and any costs associated with these items are reviewed and billed following the rental if applicable."

So, basically...
'With Hurtz - a puncture will cost GB £56 no matter what you do!' (wonder if they'll make that their new slogan?)

Satts

rcly123 wrote: »

A very well known car-hire company have just charged me GB £56 because I got a puncture: this hurtz!

I followed all their procedures, rang them immediately, told them that the puncture occurred on the main N-class Scottish roads, and inside the first 5 hours of the hire; I was told that it was my responsibility to repair the tyre. Then this happened..

I took it to a professional tyre-repair centre and paid the full cost of repair

I don't understand why they are charging you if you had already paid for the repair.

Do they scrap tyres with puncture repairs ? And expect the customer to pay for a new tyre ?

This just encourages me to keep using ferries and bring my own car.