Various way for making easy money by car rental companies.

Edit: Never mind it's $2.25 per missing liter, not KM. Subject edited.

Posted this in Travel but then moved here as it's more a financial question than travel.



Rented a car at Discount Rental today for weekend. When reading the contract I noticed that they have an item saying that if the car is returned with ANY amount of fuel missing, they will charge $2.25/km traveled. To make things even less convenient the car had about 60% tank full. The agent confirmed that even if I have only several dollars of fuel missing they still will charge me $225 for 100 km traveled (in other words cost of 250 liters of fuel for 100 km traveled, not related to fuel actually missing!!!!). The agent suggested that I could return the car with a little bit more fuel than there was in the tank if I was afraid of a potential > $1k charge and this is part of the contract and I cannot do anything about it afterwards. Are they trying to catch someone who does not notice this penalty? Is it legal at all? I mean if they put in the contract that I have to give to them my house if a couple of liters of fuel are missing, can they enforce this afterwards in court?

Yeah, if its all disclosed, and you freely agree to it, in consideration for use of the car, then its 'legal'.

Deal with another car rental company if you don't like it. I can't count the number of times, for instance, that I've refuelled in, say, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, or even Fremont and then driven to SFO airport (which is like 50km away), and never incurred a low fuel charge. With cars from practically every rental chain that's at SFO (I just use whatever Priceline gets for me, cheap!)

One of these days, cars will be sophisticated enough to provide accurate FOB readouts to car rental fleet operators, for billing purposes. But right now, the car rental industry is pretty low-tech, and they don't appear to, at least in my experience, be doing anything to audit people like me who constantly return cars slightly low of fuel.

You sure its not 2.25/L? Rather than KM...

Ups. It's per liter. Sorry for the confusion. The agent kept insisting its per KM and gave frightening calculations with $1000 charge and I misread after that KM for liter. This was some "Public Storage" location and not actual Discount office, the girl was storage's employee. If I recall correctly on their wall they have per KM charge for missing fuel for their trucks, maybe this was the cause of her confusion.

Originally Posted by crucial

You sure its not 2.25/L? Rather than KM...

I use rentals a lot for work, and this is standard

You have to check the full level during the walk around before you take the vehicle just like you check for damage

As long as the gauge shows full when you return it they won't charge you

One place I rented from can charge up to $100,000 a day if your return the car late! $1k for low gas seem like pocket chage

Originally Posted by high_octane

As long as the gauge shows full when you return it they won't charge you

On lots of the cars, especially GM's (in my experience), 1/3rd of the tank can be depleted and the car can still show full!

And half-empty really means 2/3rds empty.

Originally Posted by crucial

You sure its not 2.25/L? Rather than KM...

$2.25/litre is still a ripoff, thou of cuz not as bad as $2.25/km

They are smart. My car had approximately 60%. And I was told to return a little bit more to avoid possible fuel charges. Another time I rented (don't remember exactly where) the tank was 1/8 th full. They told I could return it the same but it's a lot of complex logistics doing so

Originally Posted by pitz

On lots of the cars, especially GM's (in my experience), 1/3rd of the tank can be depleted and the car can still show full!

And half-empty really means 2/3rds empty.

I was renting a Sixt car in Israel. Was looking but could not find a pump near the airport, returned 20L of fuel missing. Neither before rental nor afterwards they told what is the fuel charge (and I asked several employees). Finally they charged 4x the price of missing fuel (more than $100 for 20L). In addition they charged for $120 for insurance despite it was declined in the contract (used CC). Their manager told that they charge 2-3-4 times per fuel, depending on circumstances. Disputed it with TD visa. Regarding the fuel charges TD told the contract says "current fuel charge" which can be anything. Regarding insurance Sixt lied to TD that it is compulsory in Israel by law, so the fact I declined it was null and void. There was no problem declining it at the rental counter. To the contrary, there was a person with MBNA Platinum Plus from my flight and the agent showed him my Visa and told they only work with Visa (without charging the full cost of a car to CC in case on an accident.) After I sent TD documentation that it was lie, TD said the decision cannot be appealed. After that experience I highly distrust rental companies.

Originally Posted by angel_wing0

$2.25/litre is still a ripoff, thou of cuz not as bad as $2.25/km

Originally Posted by volodyan

I was renting a Sixt car in Israel. Was looking but could not find a pump near the airport, returned 20L of fuel missing. Neither before rental nor afterwards they told what is the fuel charge (and I asked several employees). Finally they charged 4x the price of missing fuel (more than $100 for 20L). In addition they charged for $120 for insurance despite it was declined in the contract (used CC). Their manager told that they charge 2-3-4 times per fuel, depending on circumstances. Disputed it with TD visa. Regarding the fuel charges TD told the contract says "current fuel charge" which can be anything. Regarding insurance Sixt lied to TD that it is compulsory in Israel by law, so the fact I declined it was null and void. There was no problem declining it at the rental counter. To the contrary, there was a person with MBNA Platinum Plus from my flight and the agent showed him my Visa and told they only work with Visa (without charging the full cost of a car to CC in case on an accident.) After I sent TD documentation that it was lie, TD said the decision cannot be appealed. After that experience I highly distrust rental companies.

This happens all over the world. How are you going to get back to complain? A thrifty in Ft. Laud. came up with a whole bunch of fees when I returned the car, after I specifically inquired as to what fees there were before I rented. I made sure to make a very loud register of all of my complaints in a very crowded office and eventually had a manager come and reverse most of them to shut me up. Wrote a nastygram to Thrifty's head office but had no response.

Originally Posted by pitz

On lots of the cars, especially GM's (in my experience), 1/3rd of the tank can be depleted and the car can still show full!

And half-empty really means 2/3rds empty.

Yes well GM went bankrupt for a reason

I wouldn't try returning a car with 1/3rd empty, but you can drive for awhile without the needle moving at all

I stopped trying. Had e-mail correspondence with Sixt, regarding fuel Sixt told lame excuses like it is expensive to tow the car, like 7/8 of a tank is not enough to drive 700 meters to their pump. Regarding insurance, they told to send an e-mail with links that TD covers CDW, but then when I called to inquire, they kept insisting they did not get my emails, until finally lied in reply to Visa dispute that the contract was void as it was against the law. There is no appeals on Visa disputes, at least according to TD Visa, I can only sue them in some court in Israel. After spending countless hours and neurons and unsuccessfully trying to get Sixt HQ in Germany to respond (they were just forwarding all my e-mails to the local Israel airport branch) I just gave up. $200 not worth going to foreign court.

Funny, next time I tried renting in Israel was with Budget, at pick up they tried to give me a rate $100 above what was in my reservation. After some arguing they reduced the premium to $50 and gave the reservation rate only after I had shown them the printed copy, like they did not have it in the computer. Fortunately, they did not try to pull the trick with insurance.

Every time I deal with a rental I'm looking where they try to scam and usually find.

Originally Posted by florch

How are you going to get back to complain?

Yeah, Sixt is junk. I reserved an automatic in Vienna and only chose them because they offered automatic, then showed up and was told I couldn't have an automatic because it was premium and I was dropping it off in Prague which is considered Eastern Europe and too high of a theft risk (never mind Czech is in the EU and west of Vienna...)

Of course the Hyundai SUV they gave me instead was obviously far less conspicuous as a rental than an automatic sedan...??? Oh well, it was a pretty fun time learning manual on the fly, apart from the $100 fee for dropping it off at the "wrong location" according to them, even though they took the car and it was what it said on my rental agreement. Not worth my time fighting once back in Canada...

I hate it when rental places give you cars that are half full. It's impossible to predict how much gas you'll use and how much gas you need to put in it to get it back to half full. Either you end up giving them some free gas or you end up getting charged double for missing gas.