Guernsey Hirer is set to sue car rental firm over H-car clutch charge

A CAR hire firm which charged a customer £820 when the clutch on his rental vehicle failed is to be sued.
The first Christopher Pole-Carew, 78 – who had driven the car for just five hours – knew of the charge was when he got his credit card bill.
The former UK newspaper boss now plans to take Value Rent-a-Car to Petty Debts.
Mr Pole-Carew said Value had charged his credit card without his knowledge after the vehicle broke down near Saints Bay.
‘If they had charged me £300 I would have still been outraged, but maybe not done anything about it,’ he said.
‘But £820 is a big enough sum to make big trouble. I absolutely will be taking this to the Petty Debts Court.’ He was appalled that Value had used his credit card without his ‘consent or knowledge’.
Mr Pole-Carew contacted Value and was told that the £820 taken was the company’s ‘estimate’ of the cost to repair the clutch.
He said he had contacted a Ford adviser on justanswer.com who told him ‘a perfectly good clutch is highly unlikely to fail from four to five hours of good, or even very bad, driving’.
A spokesman for Value Rent-a-Car refused to comment on individual cases.(from thisisguernsey)

I cannot see unless the car was seriously abused how they hire car company can do this..

Even i could not wreck a car in that amount of time . Me thinks they are trying it on somewhat.

....and methinks in this case they picked on the wrong person - and they will find out that there is indeed such a thing as bad publicity

I must admit to hearing several reports of hire car driving tourists who have ventured down that particular section of Saints Bay who have burnt out their clutches.

I believe that there is signage in place that should prevent them from going down the particularly steep stretch, but they just ignore it, and suffer the consequences when they try to get back up.

It's not so much about purposeful abuse, rather that the incline and weight of the car is so great that the pressure put on the vehicle's clutch is too much for it to handle, and it gives up.

I know that local vehicle recovery services have 'rescued' several cars from there every year.

Perhaps the driver is not as blameless as would first appear!?

Digger wrote:Even i could not wreck a car in that amount of time

YOU COULD

Charging for wear on a servicable item is indecorous to say the least. If he had crashed the car because the brake pads were worn to the backing pad they [Value] would be the ones who'd be in trouble.


THEN

to go and charge the guy without his knowledge is just taking the p1ss!