Originally Posted by MojaveFlyer

I don't know if Hertz still does this but... about 20 years ago I went off with a friend hiking in the desert in California. We had two cars, his 4WD, so we left mine in the middle of nowhere and went off for 3 days. When we got back, mine was totally dead. (Had I left the lights on? I doubt it). We did not have jumper cables. We went into town, about an hour away, and called the Hertz number. They said they would be happy to reimburse if we wanted to buy jumper cables and do it ourselves, but we were worried because for the next leg of the trip, we were going to be leaving one car in one place, driving to another place, and then hiking 3 days to the original car. In either case, we would not have the other vehicle for a jump and would be literally in the middle of nowhere.

So instead Hertz send a flatbed tow truck with a replacement vehicle from 100 miles away, we met up with the truck and drove out to the desert, unloaded the new car, loaded up the old car, and the tow truck drove away into the sunset (well it was already dark by then but you get the idea).

I did not pay a dime for this service, though I did have to argue a bit when I returned a car that I should get credit for the half a tank of gas left in the one that had been towed (really a bit silly of me to argue that after the experience)