Originally Posted by
blufish312
Again, without seeing what you're talking about it's hard to speak definitively. But I will say that most of these rental car places have the off-road exclusion in their contract, which I imagine gives them pretty broad range for charging in the event that a car returned covered in mud, underbody scrapes, things like that.
Try driving here in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest during the winter. Your vehicle will be covered in red cinder dust/mud, and you don’t even have to leave any major paved highways. And a quick run through a touch less car wash won’t make much of a difference (and a non-touch less car wash will grind the cinder into the paint, so at least with my own vehicle I wouldn’t do that).
But yes, without a photo it is hard to comment on the OP’s situation.