Being charged by car hire company after car broke down

[afrikat]

Just been on holiday to Europe, booked a hire car from the airport. On the second day the car broke down on the motorway, husband said it seemed like a gear box failure. Mechanical error, not user error. Just had a message saying they are going to charge us nearly E1000 for the failure. Will be charged to the card we used to pay for the car.
Having checked the socials of this company there are dozens of people complaining about being charged for similar things, or tiny scratches, so seems like they have form for this.
Company isn't responding to emails or answering the phone.
Where do we stand legally?? If they charge us I will raise a dispute with the CC company but don't know if it will be upheld?
Surely we can't be held responsible for the bloody car breaking down??

It depends what the fault was and what the garage decides caused it basically, it also depends what your hire contract says.

How could one day of driving (a total of about 1.5 hours) cause a gear box to fail through user error though?

Close the credit card or report lost/stolen so they can’t charge it?

Has it been confirmed it was a gear box failure? You would usually know there was a problem before it failed. 1000euro sounds like the insurance excess if you didn't take the extra cover.

What happened after it broke down ? Did it get towed to a garage & get repaired ? Did you stay & wait yo see the cost or get another hire car ?

Its probably all in their T&C's.

That’s not up to either of us to decide. I assume when it broke down it was taken to a garage and assessed/repaired. The garage provides a report, and that will state what the issue was.

Depending on what insurance you took out €1000 could be the excess, or if you signed a contract stating you are liable then there is also that.

We took the extra cover, but 'mechanical damage' is excluded from this. Along with almost everything else that could go wrong with a car

We thought that but they preauthorised a E1000 deposit for the second car we hired and seem to be charging it against that, even tho they were for two different things. Not sure cancelling card would block this if preauthorised?

That's sounds terrible. Which country and which company?

Just read the invoice document and they are claiming 'clutch burn' which suggests they are blaming the driver. No way he could have burned through the clutch in the short amount of driving he did, and he's a super careful driver, not a boy racer

It got towed. We were told we would be notified if he was found 'at fault'. We got another car the same day

Easy Car Hire, Italy (not the orange 'Easy'). Definitely avoid!

Car hire companies are very quick to withhold your deposit. It’s blocked on your credit card when you sign the contract and and then released at the end if no damage occurs (logical really as they’re giving you a £20,000 car for £100 a day).

You need to check on your contract how much they blocked, if it has been released and, most importantly, what level of insurance you paid for.
I mostly rent cars with
AVIS and their website keeps the customer up to date via the contract number if there are any outstanding problems. No language barriers.

The paperwork says 'clutch burn' but am assuming the garage says whatever the company wants them too since there is no way he could have caused that

I mean there’s not no way, it is possible to burn a clutch that quickly if you’re in an unfamiliar car and so riding the clutch too much.

You need to check your contract with the hire place but if it is stated as user error then it will be yours to pay unfortunately.

He's a very careful and experienced driver, he doesn't ride the clutch

The contract is very vague and doesn't explicitly mention car break down and liability. Just says that 'mechanical error' is excluded from the insurance we took out

A clutch burn after 1.5 days? If that was the case, the clutches of 100000s of cars around the world would be failing right, left and centre after a day or two whenever anyone drove a car that was new to them. That's just nonsense.

It sounds like the clutch was ready to go, hadn't been properly maintained, and burned out that way. I'd speak to my bank immediately and look at stopping the payment.

Is this the company, OP?

Exactly! It wasn't even 1.5 days of driving, it was 1.5 hours of driving, it failed on the second day of the holiday and we had barely gone anywhere

CC said we couldn't stop the payment but can raise a dispute once they charge us

No, this one

Hertz did that to us a number of years ago - automatic car broke down few days into holiday in Italy. Towed to garage, swapped into a new car but when we got back to Rome Airport at the end of the holiday Hertz wouldn't let us leave until we'd paid £1000 for the clutch we'd 'broken due to our driving style'. We paid so that we (and young children) could catch our flight but raised it with our credit card as soon as we got home. They held the payment and demanded an investigation. The investigation showed that there was no way we could have broken the clutch. They refused to authorise the payment but gave Hertz the right to appeal. They didn't and therefore couldn't claim from us for the repair.

Was it an automatic car? What type of car - sorry if you've already mentioned this.

Thanks, I'll try credit card company again and see if I can get it blocked

Manual. An Arona

Will you be able to show that you only or mainly just drove on the motorway? Were there and big hills or heavy traffic? How many miles were on the car?
I'm not sure what the best thing to do is but what about writing and saying that you will be disputing the charge and that you consider it unfair. Explain that your husband is an excellent driver with XXX years of experience, that you'd only driven for XXX amount of time/miles along XXX roads and that there were zero signs of anything being wrong with the car before it broke down (If that's true) all of which shows it practically impossible for your husband to be at fault. I'd also ask for proof from them that there was no existing fault with the clutch when they rented it to you. (Which they won't be able to provide) Ask when and where it was last serviced too.

There will be template letters online which might give good suggestions about what to include and to phrase it. Even if it seems a bit pointless trying to negotiate with the hire car company having everything in writing will help if you have to go back to the credit card company.