Saturday, Oct 23, 2021 at 14:48
Ha! Many years ago I hired a Rav4 to drive from
Cairns to
Cooktown along the
Daintree track. On the return journey while on the bitumen highway between
Cooktown and
Cairns a tyre blew out at 100Kmh.
I returned the vehicle and the hire place insisted that I had blown the tyre by "misuse" by spiking on the
Daintree and had to pay full retail for a new tyre. It was about $350 way back then
I was pretty angered by this as the tyre had blown on the highway and any damage could have been existing when I got the car. I also knew that I had driven carefully and had definitely not done anything to damage a tyre.
Luckily I had my wife take photos of the location where the tyre had failed and the tyre itself.
It was evident that I had not "spiked" the tyre as it did not immediately fail.
The rental car company manager was quite aggressive when I said I would elevate it to the franchiser level.
Anyway for a quiet life we agreed 50/50 .
The message here is that the renter is responsible for tyre damage on a hired car if it can be proven to be from misuse which would include failure on a dirt road such as the Mareenie Loop. So the rental company does not care as the renter has to pay!
FollowupID:
916777