Originally Posted by HoratioXXXXblower

there are 2 types of vehicles in a rental fleet --- cars that hertz buys and owns outright, which are typically known as 'risk' vehicles, as hertz bears the market risk of depreciation, and 'program cars', which are essentially leased from the manufacturer and returned to them to be sold as used cars at the end of the program term.
the program might be as short as 3 months, or maybe as long as 12 months, and will involve mileage caps.

the program cars are to be returned in basically the same condition as hertz got them, with both keys, etc, so any seat rips, or whatever, need to be fixed whether or not they're under any warranty.
the owned cars might be run into the ground and either pipelined to the public, or sold 'as is' at auction --- they will spend as little as possible fixing these.

ordinarily, I'd be surprised if wear and tear or abuse is covered on a typical warranty, but maybe mercedes has a broader umbrella than your run of the mill toyota, or whatever.
also, the guy above has it right --- if you can't be bothered to take the minute to complain to somebody about something like this, you can hardly expect the guy who doesn't speak english to make an issue out of it while he's cleaning it, when they're on his ... to get one done every 15 min.