Lost hubcap experience
 

I recently had a rental in LAS and on my last day noticed a hubcap missing; I'd hit a pothole on a rough road and probably lost it there. I had no idea how this would be handled on return so I thought I'd describe it here. They noticed the missing hubcap, asked if I'd put on the spare, then said "We'll have to charge you for that'. No surprise, I'd expect to pay for the loss I caused. The return agent then looked something up on her mobile tablet and said "$21, should I put it on the card". No problem, reasonable price, great solution. It showed up on the receipt as "mobility aid" but whatever.

Yep, Hertz has a whole schedule for these things.

Only the cheap ones. :p

$21 sounds pretty reasonable. My VW stealership charged insurance $100 to replace a hubcap on my Jetta.

No, they charged you.

Wonder why premiums are what they are?

Thanks, I had not known that. I did fret a bit about possible hassle and not knowing until much later what they would have wanted to charge me, whether to notify the credit card (rental damage coverage), etc. Fortunately I lost the hubcap only on the last day so I did not fret for long. Had I lost it earlier, I might have gone to a Napa or Autozone store to see if I could just buy it myself.

An auto parts store would probably sell you a clearly generic hubcap from inventory, not one that matches the manufacturer's design. The rental company would immediately see the difference, and charge you to replace it with original equipment parts anyway.

Depends on the agent checking in the car LOL when I had a flat tire, I exchanged my car, pointed to the tire, the lady just wrote the mileage and 8/8 gas and told me to go into the gold booth, and went to the next person.