Sixt damage - excessive repair charges
What happened:
I rented a BMW Z4.
When I returned the car there was some "new" damage to the front bumper. It was only visible at the station, after I washed the car myself before returning it.
The front bumper had lots of previous damages, several bigger scratches on top and on the bottom part.
Sixt then send me a repair estimate made up by a contractor company.
Not an actual repair bill.
Apparently they do their repair estimates purely based on pictures.
When I looked at it, it was almost the same amount as the excess with the loss damage waiver, around Euro 1050.-. A bit fishy...
A quick call to a BMW dealer / repair shop made it clear that replacing the whole thing was about Euro 520.- incl. work.
So I asked Sixt to
a. provide me with a list of previous repair bills to the previous renters.
They don`t do that.
b. explain to me why the repair amount is almost equal to the excess.
They don`t do that.
Now they send me a final note before taking legal steps against me.
I am actually looking forward to that as I not only have an insurance for such issues, called Rechtschutzversicherung, but also it will force Sixt to disclose their practices to the court.
My insurance and the lawyer assigned are quite willing to take this up to the european courts. Maybe that will change their practice in the (not so) distant future.