>Hi folks
>
>SWMBO and I are planning a trip around Denver area in August. The flights
>are
>booked and I now need a vehicle for two weeks, first choice would be a
>Discovery. My searches of the internet have drawn a blank. Would any of you
>good folks be in that part of the States? and be willing and able to advise
>if a Discovery can be hired in he area?
>
>I have found a company called Front Range Rental, who can offer me a
>"Montero Standard 4x4" but I do not know what this is. The rental company
>describe it as;
It's a Mitsubishi. I think it's sold in the UK as a Pajero?
Enterprise and Avis used to rent Discos; I don't know if they do now.
Hertz is owned by Ford, so they may be renting them these days.
>"Similar to an Explorer maybe just a bit smaller than the Explorer, but it
>has a sun roof and a lot of fun gadgets."
>
>A little advise on insurance would be helpful as well, the hire company tell
>me;
>
>"Liability insurance is included free on your rental. Collision and
>Comprehensive coverage is extra $19.99 a day."
>
>$280 for 14 days sounds quite a lot to me, when you consider I fully insure
>both my Land Rovers in the UK for the equivalent of $288 a year.
Yeah. It's a rip off. It's a huge profit center for the rental car
companies. Liability is roughly what's called third party in UK
insurance. It covers damage that you do to property owned by others.
They include that in the rental price because they have to. Collison
is collison damage to the rented vehicle (damage to other vehicles
would be under liability). Comprehensive is everything else (theft,
fire, glass breakage, vandalism, and loss of use to the rental
company). Under consumer policies it excludes acts of war, acts of
God and such; I don't know if the rental company policies exclude
these or not.
In theory, if you have an accident that's your fault, you could be
liable for the replacement value of the vehicle, plus all sorts of
other things, like claimed lost income of the vehicle and so on. In
other incidents, you could be responsible for incidental things like
the lost income while the vehicle is repaired or impounded by the
police or whatever. In practice, you often have cover from another
source, such as your credit card company, your own auto insurance,
your home owner's insurance, or your employer's insurance. It's
worth finding out, and if you're not covered by some such thing, to
buy a separate policy that does cover it. They're a whole lot less
expensive then what the auto rental places charge. (It's also worth
checking if you've got health insurance when you're in the US. I'm
not sure the UK's national health covers things here.)
The rental companies can be excessively aggressive in trying to
collect damages. At a past job, a coworker and I had our rental car
totaled (before we'd managed to get out of the airport!) by the
driver of an another rental agency's shuttle bus. It was completely
his fault -- he'd run a stop sign, with lots of witnesses. The
rental company claimed that my coworker owed them 80K for the
replacement of the vehicle, the loss of income on the vehicle before
it was replaced, staff time in doing paperwork, and other ridiculous
things. He refered them to the company lawyers, which was the last
we heard of it. Even in a case like this, where it was a third
party's fault, it could have cost him a fair bit in lawyer's bills.
Of course, the chances of needing such cover are quite small, which
is why it's available cheaply from all sorts of other sources.
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