Osprey
Ultra Nomad
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Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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About Car Rentals
THE COMMANDMENT
You wouldn't think it to look at me but I'm not really a world traveler. I guess I haven't rented a car more than two or three times. The occasions
were memorable. One time that sticks in my mind was perhaps in the late 80's or early 90's. I'm almost sure it was Hertz. For the first time, when
I checked the car out, a woman in a uniform came with me. She had a form on a clipboard; a diagram of the outline of a car was part of the form. The
young woman insisted I inspect the car, taking particular note of any damage to the car -- together we walked around the car looking for cracked
windows, dents, scratches, dings and ruined body paint. We found a small dent in the trunk. She made a note, marked the location on the form, tried
to duplicate on paper just what we had found. The interior was next; a small rip in the covering of the rear seat (near the door), marked on the
form.
I signed the form, she tore off one copy for me and wished me well. There had been little conversation but very little was needed. Hertz was going
to have the same form I signed very handy when I turned the car in. They had my signature on the Mastercard receipt. The rental contract was
airtight -- court-tested a million times with renters and their insurors in every state.
I've always been careful with the car when I needed a rental but this time I was extra careful; how and where I drove it, parked it, stored it. I
even had the damned thing washed before I took it back -- watched every move of the guys at the car wash.
A simple, yet powerful concept and contract: Enforceable Stewardship. Screw it up, cough up. Take reasonable care of it, return to the freedom you
enjoyed before the contract. The threat of Hertz charging huge auto repair bills to the bottomless pit of a hard-earned credit limit forced me to
take better care of the car than I took of my own. Just for kicks I took the car rental papers out of my coat pocket, laid it on the bar at the
hotel. I ordered another scotch, put on my cheaters and read "the fine print". There were 21 parts, all of them Greek to me. As to the vehicle, it
all boiled down to the rock bottom basics of stewardship. They needed the form for legal reasons but I thought, after my third scotch, in the real
world, all they really need is the one commandment, "DON'T CHANGE THINGS THAT DON'T BELONG TO YOU".
That's not all I was thinking. I was thinking "The Best Western chain can't buy a scotch/rocks after I've bought four of them at $5.50 a pop?" I
was thinking that God could have used such a powerful injunction. The Ten Commandants are simple, they cover all the really bad things, but people
forgot them, abused them, twisted them, found loopholes so their sins would be hidden, diminished or forgiven -- the Catholics have their
Confessional; Methodists, Protestants, Baptists hire Jewish lawyers.. God is in control, he's in control of time. He could go back, back to the time
of the Tablets. Maybe the whole earth would be better for it. After all, we don't really own the planet or any of the other things hanging (so
tenuously) on to it. The imperialists, the conquerors, missionaries, usurpers, interlopers would be under very different orders. Just like with
Hertz, if you change things that don't belong to you "You'll catch hell."
Maybe when Moses asked the Lord "Shall I go forth over the land, spread the gospel, read the tablets?"
Moses might hear God's Holy Reply, "Nah, use the Hertz thing."
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scouse
Junior Nomad
Posts: 95
Registered: 8-17-2012
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Rented cars all over the word and never had any bother. Sometime 2 or 3 a year.
I'll be picking one up in Cabo in a couple of weeks. I'll be driving the east cape road as well...that's a test.
You are who you pretend to be.
Kurt Vonnegut jnr
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Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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Better read your rental contract. No coverage for road damage or road service charges if you take the East Cape Road. It's gonna be more than a test.
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scouse
Junior Nomad
Posts: 95
Registered: 8-17-2012
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Osprey
Better read your rental contract. No coverage for road damage or road service charges if you take the East Cape Road. It's gonna be more than a test.
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I do it every year.
Good story of yours though.
You are who you pretend to be.
Kurt Vonnegut jnr
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Iflyfish
Ultra Nomad
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Registered: 10-17-2006
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Sub-paragraph 2 revision 4.5 inclusive of subsection 3b "including all vestigial anomalies to be found on said rental are the sole responsibility of
the party of the first part".
Bet you missed that!
IflyfishlawbookinhandandMosesonmymind
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thebajarunner
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3713
Registered: 9-8-2003
Location: Arizona....."Free at last from crumbling Cali
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Mood: muy amable
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Rented a car in Santo Domingo, DR
Got talked into taking out the "all inclusive, everything possible" insurance (something I never do in the US- my credit card covers it nicely)
Went to the symphony- came out to find a rear window busted out
Took the car back and they freaked out,
started calculating the cost that I would have to pay.
After major and rancorous hassles we agreed on $100 US to "cover the cost of the car being out of service while getting a new window installed"
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QUETZALCOATL
Nomad
Posts: 118
Registered: 8-1-2012
Location: coming from or going to Baja
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Mood: nublado
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Thought the purpose of rental cars was off roading.
in otin ihuan in tonalin nican tzonquica-Aztec saying for \"here ends the roads and the days\"
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thebajarunner
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3713
Registered: 9-8-2003
Location: Arizona....."Free at last from crumbling Cali
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Mood: muy amable
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We had a local guy that leased his truck
| Quote: | Originally posted by QUETZALCOATL
Thought the purpose of rental cars was off roading. |
Back in the day... we built race trucks from real trucks
Local guy went to the Ford dealer in Escalon, leased a pickup, gutted it, installed all the legal stuff and wrecked in the first race he ran.
Man it was fun watching that dustup from a distance.
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Udo
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6343
Registered: 4-26-2008
Location: Black Hills, SD/Ensenada/San Felipe
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Mood: TEQUILA!
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I have yet to experience a "BAD EXPERIENCE" rental...even in Mexico.
My rental experience has been on a world-wide level, South America, Europe, North Africa, Greece, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Fiji islands, etc.
I was most paranoid about the rentals in SJDC, but it turned into a non-event. Just be firm with the agents there, take lots of photos of every part
of the car that shows what could be damage already there.
However, I was freaked out the first time the rental agencies memo-charged $750.00 US. It was refunded when I returned the car.
I would not rent a car without my American Express card!
I neglected to mention that my wife and I traveled to each foreign country with inly the car reservation...we had no idea where we were going
(although we had maps), or where to stay. We always traveled in that country's off-season.
[Edited on 11-22-2012 by Udo]
Udo
Youth is wasted on the young!
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durrelllrobert
Elite Nomad
Posts: 7393
Registered: 11-22-2007
Location: Punta Banda BC
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Mood: thriving in Baja
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I was Hertz's worst nightmare
Back in the 80s I cought a redeye flight out of Washington National to LAX for an early morning meeting with TRW guys at Noton AFB in San Bernadino.
Picked up a Hertz car (no inspection) and took off. There were 2 left turn lanes onto Century to get to the freeway but some jerk in the number 3 lane
decided to turn left also and cut me off. I flipped him the bird and he stopped his truck in front of me and got out with a baseball bat in his hands.
I thought to myself "screw this" (I was tired and had a few drinks on the plane) so I swerved around him to get by. Fortunately he jumped out of the
way but his door was wide open and I took it completely off.
I just proceeded on my way as if nothing had happened but kept thinking that someone must have got my plate number and that I would be arrested for
hit-and-run or that as a minimum I would be in trouble with Hetz for damaging the car.
When I parked at Norton I checked the damage which was minimum to the bumper (it was a full size Mercury) and when I returned the car the next
morning nobody said a thing and I never even got a letter from Hertz or the police.
[Edited on 11-22-2012 by durrelllrobert]
Bob Durrell
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