Door Ding/Gash on a Loaner

[shelbri]

How can we structure this to mitigate the responsibility?

Buy insurance for your car and make sure they cover loaner vehicles when yours is being worked on. Transfers the risk to the insurance company. Then don't worry about it and enjoy the car.

 

[bhzmark]

Tesla does it just like any rental car company does. But they don't mark things down often saying it's too small, smaller than a quarter, minor scratch doesn't count, etc. I take the pictures to protect myself in case the person who's doing the walk around has different standards for what should have been written down and decides something that was there should be my fault because it wasn't on the sheet.

I've done this for rentals ever since digital cameras became common place in the late 90's and it's saved my by almost a dozen times by now.

The worst case was when I rented a Dollar car in Seattle one way to drop off in Vancouver, WA. The car had literally hundreds of door dings, scratches, and dozens of windshield chips. The Dollar guy refused to mark a single item down on the list because he said they were all smaller than a quarter. I took a video of him next to the car saying that and about 50 pictures all the way around time and gps stamped.

When I pulled up to the Vancouver airport to drop it off, they looked at the damage assessment form and told me that none of the damage was listed and that they'd need to make a claim against my insurance. I showed them the video and the pictures all proving that every bit of the damage was already there at the time of pickup. They told me it didn't matter because it wasn't in the contract.

They made a claim against my insurance and charged my credit card $4K. I turned over the video and photos to AAA and they of course denied Dollar's claim and said that I was not at fault for the damage that was already present prior to me renting the car as evidenced by my video and photos. They also said they'd provide me an attorney free of charge if Dollar per sued this in civil court(unless of course they sued me in small claims). I took AAA's letter and provided it to my credit card company which promptly reversed the charge. I was seriously considering suing Dollar for fraud. I was pissed. But in the end, they didn't pursue it most likely because they had an insurance company and credit card company telling them to eat ****.

Great story. Dollar sucks.

 

[MP3Mike]

The worst case was when I rented a Dollar car in Seattle one way to drop off in Vancouver, WA. The car had literally hundreds of door dings, scratches, and dozens of windshield chips. The Dollar guy refused to mark a single item down on the list because he said they were all smaller than a quarter. I took a video of him next to the car saying that and about 50 pictures all the way around time and gps stamped.

Hertz tried to give me a car like that once, and didn't like that I was asking them to mark the entire car as pre-existing damage. I refused it and made them give me a different one...

 

[grichard]

Have it so the loaner is a rental that cost $1 and charge it to a card?

This won't work, probably. Any credit card insurance that I have seen excludes very expensive cars. Some even exclude full sized SUVs.

Your own auto insurance is likely to be helpful.

 

[CHG-ON]

I am always paranoid about loaners for that reason. Not as much as I am about my own car, but close.

 

[JanetM]

The mom and I agree on this one. She agreed to pay the repair bill and will be calling Tesla today to coordinate the payment.

Glad to hear it's going to go down this way! A very young child hit my husband's MS about a week after he got it <cringe> and, when he very politely pointed out to his mother what had happened, she got very snippy with him and said something to the effect of "Are you serious? He's only 3! Big deal!" You got lucky that it was someone with a sense of responsibility. I hope your repair is quick and painless.

 

[Max*]

While I think Tesla's clearly entitled to repair costs, I have to say I'm a little surprised they're going after people for door dings (even ones that are, admittedly, bad). I wonder if they got more strict once the CPO program launched? I've had loaners with huge dents and scratches, curb rash over 100% of the wheel, etc. And here they're making a fuss about a door ding.

That said, since they are looking to be reimbursed, they are being relatively nice about it. Most rental companies charge you loss-of-use in addition to the repair. Seems unlikely that measly $500 would cover both, so they probably are just charging repair costs.

This. Seriously? A door ding?

- - - Updated - - -

Tesla does it just like any rental car company does. But they don't mark things down often saying it's too small, smaller than a quarter, minor scratch doesn't count, etc.

Maybe your Tesla branch does that, mine does not. Last time I had a loaner, the guy pointed out (and recorded) a pen-tip sized dent in the hood. I asked how can he even see that? He said it's his job.

When I brought the car back, I noticed it had a minor door ding (probably just clear coat, but visible to the naked eye, no dents), so I pointed it out to him thinking I have to pay for it. He said not to worry about it, the loaners have come back with much worse, and they wont charge me for a scratch.

What threw me off is that he recorded something MUCH smaller than the scratch I put onto the car, but didn't care about a scratch

 

[Beryl]

Glad to hear it's going to go down this way! A very young child hit my husband's MS about a week after he got it <cringe> and, when he very politely pointed out to his mother what had happened, she got very snippy with him and said something to the effect of "Are you serious? He's only 3! Big deal!" You got lucky that it was someone with a sense of responsibility. I hope your repair is quick and painless.

The response should have been, "He is your 3 year old who you did not properly supervise. You are responsible, not him."

We should not let parents get by with that.