Civil Disobedience: Rental Car Key Edition
July 17, 2018 1:34 PM   Subscribe

When you rent a car (at least in the US), it is common to be given two keys or fobs, fastened together on a key ring that cannot be opened non-destructively. This is a major pain. If I were to cut the ring open, would I catch hell?

Supposedly rental car companies do this so the keys stay together when the car is rented in one office and returned in a different one. (And, so if you lose a key they can charge you twice as much.) That's nice for them, I suppose. What isn't nice is for me to have to carry around this spiky katamari of stupid keys that's at least five times as bulky as would be a single key sans ring.

Suppose I were to take my handy Knipex cutters and solve the problem. Would the rental company notice or care? More to the point, would they try be sufficiently affronted to try to hit me in the pocketbook? (If so: how hard? It'd be worth ten or even twenty bucks.)

I'm especially interested in hearing reports from folk who have actually tried this. (I know this is likely a YMMV situation, and that the plural of anecdote is not data.)

Assume I would return all the keys I was issued, bound with a normal cheap keychain or a zip tie.
posted by sourcequench to Travel & Transportation around United States (10 answers total)
 
I've never had a problem separating the two keys I've been given. Interesting question. Where have you been renting?
posted by JimN2TAW at 1:47 PM on July 17, 2018


I habitually twist the keys until the metal clasp pops, and then explain it as "this came apart!" when I return the vehicle. No one has ever cared and I have never had a fine*.

* I present as female and this may work for me due to this presentation
posted by some chick at 1:51 PM on July 17, 2018 [5 favorites]


Best answer: Anedotes in this reddit thread. Per a few rental employees and people who have done it, it's not a problem.
posted by neda at 1:53 PM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


Can't you just ask the rental agent to separate them on two rings? Enterprise did that for me. Such an innocuous issue for vitriol that could be solved by a polite request.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 1:54 PM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


Nthing that I always break them apart and have never had a problem.
posted by nicwolff at 2:04 PM on July 17, 2018


If you don't feel like discussing it, bring an extra zip tie so you can put them together again when you return the rental. (Extra zip ties are often a handy thing to have around anyway.)
posted by asperity at 2:05 PM on July 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


Best answer: I routinely do this every time I rent a car for longer than a weekend.
For unattended drop-off situations, I'll put them back on a another cable ring (99 cents at a hardware store) so they don't get separated, otherwise I just hand both to the attendant.
Never had any objections in over 20 states and 6 countries with every major rental company.
posted by madajb at 4:42 PM on July 17, 2018


I rented a car a year ago now and had two keys that were metal-chained together. I asked the rep if I could break it apart and he told me it wasn't a problem, just that noone had felt the need to do so. I took a pair of pliers with wire cutters on them and broke it apart to give a key to my partner and keep a key for myself. It wasn't an issue when I returned both keys with the car.
posted by Carillon at 5:13 PM on July 17, 2018


I cut them all the time, with perhaps inappropriate glee and an internal shout of ‘fuck THE MAN’.

Never a problem. I asked once, and the employees told me it was no problem too. This is basically just low key discrimination against people with some lack of cutting tools and rebellious spirit.

Enjoy your two key lifestyle and don’t look back!
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:15 PM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


A friend of mine used to work at a major car rental company and I asked him about this annoying practice. He said the companies bind the keys together because they intend to sell all of the rental cars after maybe a year of use (that's partly how CarMax and the like get their huge selections). Since it's really hard to sell a car that doesn't have all of its keys, they lock them together to avoid losing one.

Which is to say, as long as you return both keys, they won't care that you've separated them.
posted by cyclopticgaze at 5:38 AM on July 18, 2018


« Older Struggling to work without headphones   |   Renting an apartment in New York with mixed credit Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.