large scratches on rental car
October 24, 2013 9:28 PM   Subscribe

I'm not very good at parking, and wound up brushing my rental car against a support pole. Now there are several big, white scratches against the dark gray of my car's paint. What should I do?

I don't know what layer of paint I scratched off to, or how much it would reasonably cost to repair. I also don't know if it's urgent for this to be repainted (or if it might rust?); I plan to have the car out for another week or so.

I rented from Hertz without any extra insurance, I have Geico for my normal car insurance, and I did pay for the entire rental on my credit card.

I admit the damage is my fault, and will happily eat the reasonable cost of repair. I just don't want to be charged exorbitant fees, nor do I want my insurance premiums to go up. Should I take the car to a repair shop and have them fix it? Will they look at me funny when they see the rental barcode in the window?

What would happen if I called Hertz up and told them I scratched their car?

The scratches are fairly large and fairly obvious.
posted by segfault to Travel & Transportation (21 answers total)
 
Most credit cards give insurance on rental cars just by using the card. Although I'm not sure exactly what GEICO's policies are, they might provide coverage as well.

My thought is that it would be better to go through your CC company or GEICO ... in other words, refer the rental car company to either of them (after checking to see the hows, whys and such about your coverage and how they would like to proceed) and then stay out of the middle.

Oh, and sorry this happened to you.
posted by Relay at 9:39 PM on October 24, 2013


go to a body shop or two and get an estimate. depnding on how bad and deep the scratches are it may be easily repairable. you'd be impressed at what will buff out. then you'll have a better idea what you're on the hook for.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:50 PM on October 24, 2013


I have a pretty standard Geico policy and when I called them to ask, they assured me that I was covered as a rental-car driver through them, and that I did not need to buy any extra insurance. It might depend on exactly what your coverage is, but I'd suggest calling them first to see if they can set your mind at ease. Ditto your credit card company. If either of them says you're covered, they can probably give you tips on how to proceed.
posted by Mothlight at 9:56 PM on October 24, 2013 [5 favorites]


This happened to me and the rental car company screwed me on a very, very small dent on the bumper.

At the very least get your own quote to repair the damage.
posted by cowmix at 10:01 PM on October 24, 2013


There's a big difference between a scratch (which has dug into your car's paint) and a scuff (where paint from something else has transferred), If it's a scuff, the go to AutoZone or PepBoys and ask what they recommend. Scuffs are easily removed with commercial products or even petroleum jelly.
posted by 26.2 at 10:02 PM on October 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Credit card rental insurance is very common. However, it is uniformly secondary insurance, which means your credit card will only cover you if your car insurance doesn't cover you.

If your car insurance is liability-only or if you don't have car insurance, then you will use the credit card rental insurance.
If your car insurance is comprehensive, then you will use your car insurance.
If your have neither comprehensive car insurance nor credit card rental insurance, you can either get the rental car repaired by yourself or have the rental company do it. Hertz is more reputable than other companies, however that isn't saying much. That said, my one experience with damaging a rental car (windshield crack) surprised me; the rental company ended up repairing it for even cheaper than I thought I would have been able to repair it for.
posted by saeculorum at 10:06 PM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Don't get it fixed yourself, they could come back to you for considerably more than the cost of fixing a couple scratches if it turns out whoever does it does a shoddy job. Call the rental company. Tell them what happened. I have seen people go to ridiculous lengths to avoid filing insurance claims, and it is not at all unusual for such schemes to come back and bite you later--just see how going through the right channels works, argue with them about the cost of the repair later if you have to.

The rental company will have a process for handling it once you report it to them. Obviously call your own insurance to figure out how much they can cover of such things, but otherwise just stay calm and see what the standard procedure is.
posted by Sequence at 10:14 PM on October 24, 2013


I'm pretty sure it would not go over well with Hertz if you went off and had a body shop work on their car without their permission. Buffing out a scuff is one thing, but actual paint work is not something I think you should have done. I also highly doubt they're going to allow you to choose how or where the car is fixed -- surely that's in the fine print of the contract.

I actually did a very similar thing to a Hertz car a few years ago. I just told them about it when I returned it. The damage was obvious, including a crack in a tail light and a bit of a dent in the bumper. I just paid them for it out of pocket rather than involving insurance. If I recall correctly, it was under $500, so it wouldn't have met my deductible anyway, and I didn't see a need to risk an increase in premiums for a relatively small amount of money. It was definitely cheaper than I expected (and far cheaper than any body work I've ever had done on my own cars).
posted by primethyme at 10:20 PM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


The purpose of seeing the body shop yourself is not to get the repair done in a sneaky way, but rather to get an estimate on what the repair would cost. You then have a better measure of whether any fee the rental company wants to charge is realistic.
posted by whatzit at 10:35 PM on October 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


CREDIT CARD! CREDIT CARD! WHICH CARD DID YOU USE?

Sorry for the over-excited all-caps, but the same exact fucking thing happened to me a long time ago, and the only reason I wasn't able to use the damage waiver via credit card was that I had been renting the car for longer than two weeks. I ended up taking the car to a fairly shitty, cheap-ish body shop in North Hollywood and[REDACTED CAR RENTAL COMPANY] was none the wiser. Still cost me $700. Call your credit card company! Car rental companies deal with some of the most obnoxious insurance people you can imagine - do not go down that rabbit hole unless you really, really have to.

I would not worry about the ethical considerations of getting a paint repair done on a rental car. Yes, Hertz might not like it. But these cars get put through a lot, and you might really fuck yourself over if you go through their insurance. They are in the business of nickel and diming for luggage scratches, more or less.

But, none of this matters if your credit card company will provide the damage waiver.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 10:49 PM on October 24, 2013


I am covered from the first dollar through my car insurance [this may be a state requirement here in MN] and rental car claims will not affect my rates. Call Geico and ask them about that aspect.

On the "Do I tell XXXX" front. I returned a rental car in Texas that had been keyed all down the drivers' side the night before. I didn't say anything, the XXXX agent asked how the car had been [as usual], and neither I nor my insurance company have heard anything after a year.
posted by chazlarson at 11:24 PM on October 24, 2013


In the future (not helpful now, sorry), consider getting the insurance when renting a car. I had a parking mishap in a rental, panicked about it all night, and was told to relax by the agency when I got there in the morning. They said I had insurance, they'd get it fixed, that sort of thing happens all the time, etc. for your own sake (if parking is a problem to the point of hitting things) get insurance next time.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:59 AM on October 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


When I scratched a Zipcar (I drove too close to a short street sign, which scraped the entire driver's side), they told me it cost $1500 to repair. Just so you know what a "reasonable" cost might be for that.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:33 AM on October 25, 2013


My ex did this about once or twice a year with the opening to our garage. I just buffed them out with compound. Obviously without pictures or seeing the car, I am speculating, but I suspect it is a transfer of paint rather than an actual scratch and removal from yours.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 5:00 AM on October 25, 2013


One other thing to consider: depending on where you live, the rental car company may have the right to charge for any income lost as a result of the car being out of service while it gets repaired.
posted by CathyG at 6:10 AM on October 25, 2013


Get some cut polish at an automotive store and scrub the scratches with a soft rag.
I bet 95 percent will disappear. Gel Gloss is meant for fiberglass, but I have used it on my car, and it is amazing.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:14 AM on October 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Pretty much exactly this happened to me. We wound up losing out on the credit card insurance because we didn't report the damage within 48 hours.* The damage was about the same as what you've described, with the same cause, and it cost $800 to fix when we returned it to Enterprise. (NB: Canada.)

So yes, I would suggest you start by calling the credit card insurance number ASAP and doing what they tell you.

*We did, actually, but we called the number on the back of the card instead of the number you're supposed to call for insurance purposes. I wasn't pleased with how this turned out.
posted by Clandestine Outlawry at 1:47 PM on October 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


Um, different plan here:

1. Take photos of the damage.
2. If the damage is really bad, take it to a body shop and get a repair estimate and have them take photos. But don't get it repaired. You're certainly not authorized by your rental contract to have work done on their car.
3. Return it to Hertz and SAY NOTHING about the damage.

IF hertz notices the damage, which they may not, and IF they come back to you with a much bigger estimate of the repair cost, your photos and estimate will come in handy to refute the charge.

But there is a significant chance Hertz will never even notice. I got side-swpied by an Alfa Romeo in Italy, which totally damaged the body panel and two doors of my rental car, and Hertz never noticed. Seriously. This was major damage, and I never heard a word from them.

I can't guarantee they won't notice it, obviously, and I've had car companies freak out over a paint chip the size of a freckle. But there is definitely no reason to alert them to the scratches !!!
posted by Capri at 4:20 PM on October 25, 2013


I did the same thing earlier this year with a different big rental company. I was going to buff it out, but was able to do a decent job scraping the scuff off with a pocket knife. They I returned it when they were pretty busy and said nothing. No problems at all.
posted by hey you over in the corner at 4:34 PM on October 25, 2013


I did the same thing to a rental car in LA a couple of years ago. Bright green paint on a white passenger door, plus a bit of a buckle. I fessed up on return, had to spend a few extra minutes inside at the counter. They treated it as completely routine. Within a week they told me the cost to repair it ($225), I paid and it was history.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 5:26 AM on October 26, 2013


What should I do?

Short term: Pay up.

Medium term: Do the fifty hours of focused and deliberate practise it's going to take you to get good at parking.
posted by flabdablet at 10:46 AM on October 26, 2013


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