Flat tire...
 

Hi! I got a flat tire in the beater Subaru Forester that I rented from Avis this past weekend. I called roadside (no) assistance but after being told the wait time (and after lots of pressure), my husband managed to change the tire ourselves and put the spare on. Well, when I turned in the car, I was required to fill in an accident report. I was a little perplexed, because there was no accident.

Am I likely to be charged for the tire, or what's the deal with this? The car was really falling apart - oil light kept coming on, it reeked of cigarette smoke, the console was missing the cupholder inserts and was sticky and gross. Not a good rental experience overall. I'm still wondering what the benefit of Avis First is...

Thanks.

From the AVIS FAQs:

Country = "USA"
Find a Topic = "Customer Service"
Customer Service, FAQs = "I have vehicle or tire damage, what do I do?"

"You are responsible for any and all loss of or damage to the car resulting from any cause including and not limited to collision, rollover, theft, vandalism, seizure, fire, flood, hail or other acts of Nature. Please call the Avis Emergency Road Service at 800-354-2847 for assistance."

Depending on your insurance and deductible situation, you will probably receive a bill for either repairing or replacing the tire. I have found no benefit to AVIS First; the vehicles are often filthy, poorly maintained, and have 25,000 or more miles on the odometer. I have been renting primarily out of SFO but experienced the same earlier this year at LGA.

Thanks. Had I known that, I probably would have just taken it to the local Firestone and put on the cheapest tire that I could buy. I'm sure they're going to charge me something ridiculous for it, even though all 4 tires on the car were already in extremely poor condition (after the flat, I looked at the others and they were not in good shape).

While you are certainly responsible for any damage while the car is in your possession, whether caused by you or not, mechanical problems are Avis's responsibility. Since tire failure could be caused by either; nail while you have the car=you; tire failure due to under inflation or a slow leak=Avis. The hard part is proving one way or the other. I know I have read threads in the past where renters were not charged for flats or blowouts. If you haven't heard from them in six months you should be fine. If you do hear from them, push back a bit and see where that gets you.

I've had at least a half dozen flat tires in my Avis cars & have never been charged for it. If you took the car to a local place, they will reimburse you for the tire replacement/installation of the spare, etc, so long as you provide a receipt at check-out. You should have told Avis of the smoke/stickiness before leaving the lot. Failing to do that (maybe you didn't notice the sticky console/missing cup holders, oil light before leaving) I would have called Avis immediatly upon noticing that stuff. Without either of those, though, I recommend that you email Avis and tell them of the issues with the car with the comments that you expect to be reimbursed for $x from the rental. I've usually had decent luck with this. If it's not solved to your satisfaction, dispute it with your credit card and/or the better business bureau; that seems to get the best results IMO. Good luck and keep us posted.

I locked the keys in a rental not that long ago and Avis sent a local guy to open the car. I was never charged for the service.

Thanks everyone - I'll let you know how it comes out.

I didn't notice the missing cupholder/stickiness until the next day...I picked up the car on a Friday night, and it was dark. The cupholder thing wasn't noticeable until I tried to put a drink in it the next day! As for the oil light, that started up on Saturday. As to the smokiness, most cars I get from Avis these days are high mileage smoky cars, so I figure there's not much point in complaining.

Thanks again!

Understandable about not noticing the stuff immediately; I know what that's like. Avis also advertises a fully smoke-free fleet and charges up to $250 for cleaning, so if they give you one that smells of smoke, I'd definitely complain and not take the car.

I agree with IAH... There is no point to accepting smokey cars with AVIS's new "smoke-free fleet". Unless I'm in an absolute hurry to make a business meeting, I exchange cars until I find one with no smoke smell.

I completely disagree.

Suppose you rent your car, walk out to get it, put the key in the ignition, and the car doesn't start.

Do you know owe them for "breaking" the car"?

I would say they owe you for having their car fail.

Same with the tire, unless there's obvious evidence of abuse.

I rent a car to get somewhere. If their car fails, they owe me. Tire, or whatever.

Well you can disagree all you want, but its AVIS's contract you're agreeing to when you rent the car. If you don't like their contract, don't rent from them...

In my years as an avis Manager, I have only three times seen a tire charged to a customer that wasn't inlolved in a collison of some sort. Once because it was vandalized (knife in sidewall) in an admitted divorce dispute, once because a customer went off roading and, if you can believe this, a freaking thorn flattened the tire (tough thorn), and a third time when a customer came back with four bald tires. We were a bit perplexed until three weeks later the police came by to inquire about a car involved in a high speed chase.

If someone has had other experiences, I wouldn't be surprised as its often a judgment call. However I never saw the need to charge for a tire for going flat through usage most renters would consider normal. (i.e. your driving it goes flat and you hit nothing on the road).

examples of times where tires were charged almost always involve some other damage to the car.

Rim bent from debris in road/curb.
sudden emergency stop that causes a tire to burst at the bead and impact (I have yet to see an emergency stop that bursts a tire without impact, but that doesnt mean it hasnt happened).

Avis's rental system, last time I was there was called "wizard", has a specific line item location for on the road expenses. This is for lightbulbs, tires, wiper blades, oil, antifreeze, trans fluid, key stuck in ignition, battery. They will reimburse you via check for any item that exceeds the time and mileage cost of the rental and reduce the time and mileage charge of the rental by the receipt amount. As a courtesy before you do this, if its going to cost more than 20 bucks, call avis and explain the situation and tell them what you are going to do. If they insist on a tow, tell them you cannot wait for however long they tell you is the wait and in most cases they will just tell you to keep the receipt and fill out an incident report form explaining reasoning for the purchase (like in a case of a tire. For fluids, don't even bother, just keep receipt and tell them at the time you return the car, bulbs and wiper blades too.)

Heck ive even known cars to get the change oil light go on jiffy lubed by customers while they ate lunch and returned to not only get reimbursed for the jiffy lube for lunch too. Even that is acceptable so long as you make sure avis knows before you do it. (note, the nearest avis/budget location as 400 miles away and after checking records the car had not been properly oil changed in 7,000+ miles on a ford, whose maintenance cycle is 4500 miles. Driving it home was a risk to voiding the turnback criteria, so avis was happy to do it in that instance).

WHATEVER you do, if you get in an accident, do not take the car to a body shop to repair it!!!! get an estimate, yes, if you are inclined to do so. But repairs need to be done by the avis approved process if they are to return the car to the car shop.

Hey ezmonee, I haven't seen you around here for a while. Thanks again for all your wizdom that you provide here! Happy Holidays to you and your family!



That's classic!

sudden emergency stop that causes a tire to burst at the bead and impact (I have yet to see an emergency stop that bursts a tire without impact, but that doesnt mean it hasnt happened)

Airplanes with a sudden emergency and need to abort takeoff can have this problem. They need to apply the brakes fully after just accelerating to several hundred miles an hour and immediately switch to reverse thrust so they don't overshoot the runway. All that heat builds up and can blow the tires. With cars, I don't think such things easily happen.