Enterprise Car Hire Tardage

[Jaris]

Someone drove into the missus the other week and she had to have a hire car whilst the repairs were being done to her car. Enterprise Car Hire provided a 2014 Corsa and all was going fine until the day before when the missus came back to the car after a day in work and found a crack in the windscreen (approx. 6"). No idea how it happened but either way was not the missus fault.

Took the car back to the hire company, fully expecting some kind of charge based on an excess. However, they kindly informed us that their policy when this happens is to charge the overall excess of the individual's car insurance i.e. not the windscreen excess amount but the main excess amount on the policy! So instead of having to pay what we thought would be £75, we were kindly charged £250!

We're in the process of challenging this as the fine print is so vague and open to interpretation that we feel the manager at the branch basically bended the wording once they realised the damage was more than a chip.

Anyone else here had experience of this company?

[FROSTYBALLS]

Usually when hiring a car I pay extra for a Damage Waiver - which provides additional protection for the hirer in case something happens to the vehicle. Not sure whether hire companies have the same type of glass cover as one is used to with one's own car insurance.

I've hired vehicles from Enterprise in the past, but not had any damaged.

When we hired a car in Germany a few years ago, the one door received a large stone chip. On returning the car to the airport, the vehicle checker noted the damage and said this was chargeable. However when we went to the rental company desk, they waived any fee as we had bought a damage waiver when booking the car.

[Heidfirst]

Most large vehicle rental companies self-insure.

[Jaris]

^They said they would use their own insurance company for the claim...which is why I don't understand why they are going off our excesses.

The missus didn't take out the waiver, which of course is always a gamble, but had we known we would be liable to pay £250 for ANY damage then we probably would.

They tried to make out we were getting some kind of good deal as it would cost "around £600 to replace a Corsa windscreen"!