iPodClassic

Hi, I am planning a trip from Germany to Sweden, with several stop overs. I've always been weary of renting cars through rental companies like Avis, Hertz etc. Even tho I have never experienced any issues, I know that the amounts I had to pay for to avoid issues, were brutal. At least in my home country.







I am looking to rent something in the Mercedes A Klasse series, since this would also be a test drive before purchasing one.



Mercedes Frankfurt, sadly, has an extremely awful customer care, me emailing them and calling them, and not receiving a reply. Mercedes Deutschland is also not very good at resolving a simple inquiry.







I've been looking up for alternatives, one of them being SIXT, but I've read awful reviews, like them charging for damages that don't exist after the rental.







Does anyone have any respectable trustworthy rental company that rents German brands? Or am I really dreaming for something that doesn't exist?







Thanks in advance everyone!

codfishcandy

Not to minimize anyone who has a legitimate beef with Sixt, but you should consider that people generally speaking are more inclined to leave a negative review if something goes wrong, but on the flipside are not equally inclined to post a favorable review if things go very well, or just as they should. In other words, when looking up reviews for rental car agencies you will find a ton of negative reviews, with only a few positive ones, but this does not necessarily accurately reflect the average experience.

But again, that is not to say things can not go wrong. Personally, I've always been very happy with my experiences with Sixt, also when I had damage to a rental vehicle.

I don't think you should worry too much about being charged for previous rental damage (taking before and after pics/video's of your car at pick-up and drop-off largely mitigates this anyway). Rather, I'm not certain how reliably you can reserve that particular car model. Most of the times you reserve for a category of vehicles, on rare occasions you reserve a specific model, but this is typically for more exotic or rare vehicles.

iPodClassic

Thanks a lot for the detailed info, codfishcandy!

I totally agree with you, I know that people usually just share the negative experiences with a company; however, I also measure the amount of negative reviews a company has compared to others. No here, but on TripAdvisor, I've read many awful stories that seemed legitimate, and also many people who seemed to defend the company with a brutal conflict of interest.

For example this thread [Edit: Sorry , the site does not sllow me to post links yet] : tripadvisor site /ShowTopic-g187275-i116-k4081322-o150-Don_t_rent_a_car_from_SIXT_that_s_all_I_am_saying-Germany dot html , even though the OP seems to be quite personal about his experience, you will find a user named nakagoli using on several posts messages such as "not sure why you are on a german forum." "however, accusing them of fraud is very serious." "t was you who broke the contract, and they were acting correctly." etc etc.

This is not to cause any stir, but to state the reason of why I'm worried about renting with Sixt, and this is why I ask for any decent and honest reviews if possible. Also I would like to know if there are any alternatives to companies like Sixt.

It's almost as if looking for impartial real reviews is impossible, and you are on your own when it comes to experiencing a company. Maybe that defeats the purpose of such sites, or maybe knowing ahead that a company will be poopy kinda takes the excitement from a trip? I don't know.

Thanks again for your review though, I guess that if I can't rent directly with Mercedes, I will go for Sixt and make sure to share my experience!

/iPod.

codfishcandy

Well, just a few things I'd like to note, none of which will really actually help you I'm afraid. But, still. The reviews will by and large be partial because the average person writing a review is more interested in relaying an emotion than what an experience to expect, the average reviewer is not a journalist writing an impartial piece on the topic, and vice versa, even if an average journalist would write a review of their rental experience, it would likely not be impartial.

By extension as well, the reviews typically represent one side of the story, which makes it very difficult to assess what actually went on, when something went wrong. There are a lot of stories out there about fraudulent damage claims, excessive fuel charges, etc. but it's very tricky to correlate these to company practice, it may just be bad employees, or bad decision making, or an unfortunate sequence of events. Or, of course, it may be a blatant scam. The point is, without more information it's difficult to know for sure. The reviews do not really represent the actual experience

So then, it's best to just protect yourself from these kinds of things insofar as you can. As I mentioned before, you can eliminate mostly any damage claims by making a careful record of the way you receive the car, and ensuring any prior damage you notice is listed on the sheet. So at least take the time to do a walk around and check for the obvious spots of damage + document them (pictures/video). A good indicator (I find) is if the damage sheet reports damage that you do not see straight away yourself - sure it means they take a careful look at the vehicle when you return it, but it also means they will not neglect mentioning/hide damage to claim you caused it. Do the walk around again when you return the vehicle, and document that (to be certain), alternatively, get someone from the rental agency to go over the car with you and ask for a copy of their findings (not sure if you can, actually).

A second part is insurance coverage. In Europe, renting through a European Sixt site, I think when you rent a vehicle you typically get a full covered rental (liability and collision damage insurance), this should be noted on the rental form (reservation and/or receipt). I think for an additional cost you can get your own liability to damage to the vehicle reduced to 0. In addition Sixt offers supplemental insurance to also cover flat tires or replacements thereof, under their roadside assistance package. All of this should reduce any impact a mishap may have. At a cost. Not necessarily advocating it, but it's there, and because of European laws (as far as I understand) you already get a quite good base coverage.

Other car rental agencies. Or perhaps ride rental platforms like Turo, though I don't think they're present in Europe.

It surprises me to hear you can't get Mercedes Frankfurt to return your e-mail or call. Are you inquiring with them about renting a vehicle? I'm not sure they do, they would probably offer you a test drive free of charge, though. Depending on the dealer this can mean you get the vehicle for (a portion of) a day, to get your own impressions.

iPodClassic

Thank you so much codfishcandy for the reply again! And I would like to continue elaborating based on your reply, as it seems not only useful (perhaps it's not to some, to me it is) but interesting topic to discuss, and I reckon it's naturally pleasant to exchange points of view with you!

I totally agree with you, but that doesn't make the reviews less true, right? I mean, I've given good and bad reviews on hotels/services, etc; and I trust my own partiality when it comes to describe what happened. For example, I left a great review on a hotel I usually visit, where service is excellent, and that's what I said. But also, I went to a restaurant where pasta was raw, and the quality was extremely bad, the sauce was extremely sour and overall experience was terrible; so I explained that in detail; that doesn't make it true?
Of course , you could argue "well, the cook was having a bad day because he's been involved in several family problems, etc etc" but that is not really for me to understand as someone who sits down and pays for food to be served as advertised / charged, which implies food is good.

Being partial doesn't mean we're not objective. Being partial means only one side of the story, but doesn't make that side necessarily not true.



Again, agreeing with you, but would like to add. Bad employees, bad decision making from the side of the company, or an unfortunate sequence of events not being compensated by the company as customer care (whenever possible), doesn't that correlate to company practise ?
I work for a company that caters customers, and if an employee acts disorderly, that means that the company is failing in filtering employees that act in such manner, and if the company fails in that, it takes responsibility for such employee and compensates the customer for such failure to being QoS.

Will definitely do that, and also print some accounts from online forums by customers who had the same issue, should any problems arise (crossing fingers they don't!)

I will be getting insurance by Mastercard Gold, which they instructed me to decline any CDW or LDW (sorry if I spelled that wrong) and inform I am insured by my credit card.


My idea was to rent an A Klasse as well as a test drive before purchasing one in my home country. I contacted Mercedes Benz Hannover, they said it was totally possible. Then I realised my flight landed on Frankfurt, so I contacted them, and that's when the ordeal started, I contacted them via facebook, they said totally possible (they even have a website mieten punkt mercedes-benz punkt de) which if my scarce German doesn't fail me, that's rental. I emailed them , no response, Icalled them, no response, I email Mercedes Deutschland, no response ,I speak to the chatbot AND I GET HELP, haha, their chatbot sent my inquiry to an email where I was greatly assisted. But going back and forth emails and calls to Germany, Frankfurt kept giving different and clashing accounts as to me being able to rent a car from them.

After more than 3 weeks, they finally told me "you have to be a german citizen in order to get insured", which I wasn't very convinced, but I decided to give up due to this taking a lot of energy from me.

But oh well, I will go for Sixt or Europcar and see what I can do.

Again, thanks a lot for the nice message, and hope you have a nice weekend!

/iPod.

codfishcandy

It indeed doesn't make it less true, on the face of it. But I was mostly (loosely) referring to the Monte Carlo fallacy. You have 1 chance in 6 to roll a 6 when you throw a die, but it doesn't mean that if you roll 6 times you will get a 6 once. By that same token, you have x% of bad reviews on a website, that number doesn't necessarily correlate to your own actual chances of suffering a bad experience. I was loosely referring to the Monte Carlo fallacy because the problem I see here isn't so much that the statistics cannot predict (singular) future outcomes, but more that we don't really know the true statistics.

Indeed. The company should do something about it, but how certain are we of exactly what is going on? Being in a service oriented business, I'm sure you can also imagine the flip-side where what someone writes was just written out of spite and greatly exaggerated because they felt personally wronged e.g.. The other side is of course also true. If your pasta is raw or your meat is undercooked, or if you've spent 30 mins waiting for your order to be taken after being seated, etc. you are more than in your right to be mad and rate accordingly. The thing just is, it's rarely as black and white, things are I think often embellished, and the internet is a great place of anonymity where twisting words or views can be done free of (serious) consequences.

Good luck with your rental/experience :-)

iPodClassic

Ah yes, I get where you're going now, and yes, you're right. I guess it's my tendency to see companies as more sort of, organic-like entities, than rather a machine or something else that can be predicted. Again, I don't think I'm negatively predisposing myself to a bad experience, but I am just cautious, you could say. But yeah, maybe I'm being a bit too harsh on Sixt, just like you say , 5, 10 or 20 bad experienced on 2000 I guess does not make a number, but I also guess if you're within those 20 you're gonna be [Edited by Moderator]! xD Again, I hope for the best.


Yes, I agree with this too. I see a lot of exaggeration on the internet when reviewing, which brings me to that point where you end up seeing the customer saying service was [edited by Moderator] and the rental company saying they were always on the right side. And then you feel confuse and ask yourself "what is the purpose for this site then?" *confused emoji*

Why do we call them emojis anyway? I liked them better when they were called "smileys"! xD

Thanks codfishcandy, on the weekend I decided to follow your advice and just go for Sixt and not Europcar. And I also wish for a nice experience.

Again, I send you warm regards.

iPod.

ng1265

Truro is indeed present in Europe, and a dummy Frankfurt search yielded some results, though at a quick glance I can see no A-class available. Check with your dates, you might be in luck!

iPodClassic

Thanks! I will