A Prius, a Keying and the Cape
Last Thursday night, my beau and I went to Cape Cod for my good friends' wedding. We flew into Boston on AirTran - only a few minutes delayed! - and made our way to Hertz to pick up the car I'd rented through Hotwire. Unfortunately, the agents at the counter said that my reservation was in the system, but it had been cancelled earlier that day.
Whaaa?
After a futile call to Hotwire (I'd stupidly forgotten to bring my reservation number, so the Hotwire agent couldn't find me in the system), I finally gave up and decided to re-book, since it was past 9 p.m. and we still had a two-hour drive ahead of us.
Fortunately, the woman at the Hertz counter didn't just re-book me; she went above and beyond to find us hidden discounts -- through AAA, through my credit card -- and even got us a deal on the car we both really wanted to rent: A Toyota Prius.
Figuring we'd save money on gas in the end, we ponied up the extra $7/day for the hybrid car and hit the road for a terrific weekend on the Cape.
We got some honks and some "Nice Prius!" comments over the weekend, and we ended up using far less gas than we normally would have, just as we'd hoped.
What we hadn't bargained on, though, was getting keyed.
Now, I don't know what actually happened. As we were getting into the car after breakfast Sunday morning, we noticed the scratch: One long, thin, white line along the passenger side from the rear wheel to the front door. We couldn't figure out how it had gotten there, and neither of us remember seeing it before that moment.
When we pulled into the Hertz return lot at Logan, the attendant took one look at the car and said, "You got keyed!"
Now, we've got insurance that will cover anything Hertz might charge us, but what's troublesome about this incident isn't the scratch; it's the fact that maybe, just maybe, someone deliberately keyed that Prius. Was it some act of anti-enviro violence? Or was it simply an accident? We may never know.
We reported the scratch to the Hertz agent and figure that's the best we could have done. But what would you have done? Have you ever had a rental car mysteriously damaged?
By Christina Talcott |
September 29, 2008; 9:46 AM ET
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Christina Talcott
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Posted by: Tom | September 30, 2008 10:57 AM
Not a rental, but my parents had a Mercedes-Benz in the 1980's. They had countless "Buy American" flyers posted on the windshield, and several times, my mother caught the same people distributing flyers about to key it.
Though it doesn't have to be malicious. If someone carries their keys on their belt and walks too close, you can get a car-long scratch that looks like a mild sine-wave that represents the gait of the accidental-keyer (that happened to one of our other cars).
Posted by: Anonymous | September 30, 2008 4:01 PM
Yes, definitely get the insurance. I've rented cars in Europe twice in the last year, and both times the paint was dinged by another driver in a parking lot. The rental companies didn't charge me, fortunately. But it was worth the extra bucks to know that I was covered if (say) someone pulled in too close to me and knocked off one of the side-view mirrors -- and that can easily happen in those medieval streets.
Posted by: PLozar | September 30, 2008 5:17 PM
PLozar, your story reminded me of a piece Cindy Loose wrote in the spring about renting a van in Italy to supposedly save money: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040401426_pf.html
Posted by: Christina Talcott | September 30, 2008 5:38 PM
if it was long and continuous, then it was most probably on purpose.
Posted by: redrocket | October 1, 2008 9:53 AM
Obviously not a random act. You were probably stalked. The Prius is so rare that a GM or Ford employee probably followed you from the airport in order to attack the rare ane elusive Prius.
Or it was a random thing.
Posted by: Paranoid | October 1, 2008 10:47 AM
Thanks, Christina -- that's funny (when it isn't you!). My cardinal rule when traveling is: Make No Assumptions. Obviously it isn't Cindy's rule.
Posted by: PLozar | October 1, 2008 1:42 PM
One time I rented a car in Minneapolis because I was doing some training for a government agency there. The rental company gave me a Nissan--I didn't care, I just needed wheels. Little did I know there was a United Auto Workers convention at the hotel I was staying at. When I pulled into the parking lot a bunch of them were standing out in front and they booed me en masse as I parked to register!
Posted by: Jeannie | October 1, 2008 4:19 PM
I was keyed in Santa Barbara. I went to Staples and bought a colored marking pen matching the car's color and filled in the scratch. No one could find any scratch but it was really upsetting.
Posted by: vicky | October 2, 2008 7:42 PM
When did a Prius become rare? They're pretty much ubiquitous now. You see them all the time in the left hand lane doing 35mph.
The Prius is a great vehicle, and has a great spot in today's world. Unfortunately, many Prius drivers, are actually Pious drivers (credit to Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson), and unfortunately, it seems as thought he rental car became an unwitting victim of the backlash.
Posted by: ??? | October 3, 2008 10:24 AM
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Stuff happens with rental cars. That's why it's a good idea to get the insurance. I wouldn't spend another second worrying about why somebody would key your car. You will never know. Maybe they didn't get their WaPo delivered on time:)