Thanks you for your comment and I apologise for the delayed response.

With regards to your question about damage costs you are correct that we do not charge for scratches that are less than 25mm which do not penetrate the paint surface, as we understand that all cars with receive these through every day wear and tear. Anything larger than this we needs to be repaired to an agreed standard and method or repair as advised by vehicle manufacturers prior to being returned to the manufacturers. Therefore, I am afraid it is not as easy as purchasing a touch up pen and doing it ourselves. We need to take the cars off fleet and send them off to be fixed/resprayed, thus the repairs costing more than it would for a touch up.

If you email at comments@avis.co.uk with your rental agreement number I will look into this for you and follow up with our customer service team.

Vicki

I returned my Matiz with some small scratches on the rear bumper ( looks like someone misjudged their parking and clipped the corner of the Matiz ). They did take some paint off the bumper and the scratches were a couple of inches long so are bigger than
“- Scratches less than 25mm which do not penetrate the paint surface” for which Avis wouldn’t charge. As there was no dents, then I would expect the cost of making good to be approximately -
* Purchase of touch-up pen £10
* An hours labour £30
so I was expecting, and was happy to pay, up to £50 for the damage.

What I received was an invoice for £246 which seems totally out of proportion to the couple of scratches incurred – especially when a weeks hire only cost £143. Apparently this charge was put on by the hiring office as an ‘averaged’ charge, and so the next step is for an engineer to look at our particular case and look at our costs. Avis should be back to us this week or early next week.
Staff have been helpful and polite, so it’s not all doom and gloom!

I know that things go wrong – that was never my issue – it was the fact I could not get an explanation or response.

I hope that lessons are learnt.

kind Rgds

I have spoken to our customer service team and they have informed me that you have been contacted about your complaint.

If this is not the case please let me know or if you would like to contact someone from customer services please call 08445446666.

Vicki

I have just checked with customer services and they have assured me that this is being looked into and they will get back to you soon.

Vicki

Thanks for sending through your rental number. I will look into this for you and follow up with customer services. If you haven’t heard back by the end of next week please let me know.

Vicki

This is the first time I’ve ever used a ‘blog’ but reading the comments it seems that things get actioned this way!.

I originally contacted your company on the 14th September by phone and Email regarding our experience with our car hire in Spain, I am now fed up of chasing for a response, I still haven’t received anything in writing.

During our holiday – we called the breakdown service. We had gone to a local fiesta and on the return to our Car we discovered all the lights on the right side of the Car were on, very scary as the switch was off. We managed to get the lights working after switching the ignition on and off a few times. We proceeded to start the car but found there was very little power and the engine seemed to be smoking we thought there might be an electrical fault. This car had never had much power even though it was new. (It was only after we received our replacement which was a smaller engine that we realised how bad it was.) As our journey home was about 20 minutes through empty countryside and we had two children with us, we didn’t want to risk driving and breaking down completely in the middle of nowhere – seems it was the right decision as we would have been stranded. So we rang the breakdown company – we were told someone would call us back within 20 minutes to arrange transport – we never got a call – and couldn’t get back in touch with the breakdown service as their lines were constantly busy. After 2 hours we managed to get a taxi home. The next day we spoke to the breakdown service again who were shocked we’d be left – arrangements were made to replace the car & we got another taxi to go and meet them.

That would have been the end of the saga….. We’d paid out 60Euros in taxis – but we’d got a replacement and no real harm had been done – we’d managed to find our own way home and got a story to tell our friends.

However on our return home we received a bill for £700.00, to say I’m shell shocked is an understatement – I work in travel and have always believed that if the car broke down or was in need of repair that would be sorted free of charge! Seems I was wrong.

I look forward to you comments and hopefully this will be sorted quickly

Thank you.