All Brian Dunn needed for his business trip was a reliable rental car. Instead, he got a Nissan Sentra from Sixt that was unsafe to drive. And when he tried to return it, the car rental company slapped him with a $794 tow charge he never authorized. 

Dunn says that after he picked up the car at the airport, he felt a troubling vibration. 

“The steering wheel shook violently at highway speeds,” he says. “I didn’t feel safe.” 

Dunn made it to his hotel and called Sixt to request a new vehicle. The car rental company towed the Sentra and replaced it with a working car.

He assumed he was done. But he wasn’t. 

Weeks later, a $794 charge for tow services appeared on his credit card statement. Sixt says he was responsible for paying the bill.

“I didn’t request a tow, and no one mentioned one when I exchanged the car,” Dunn says.

His battle with Sixt raises thorny questions about consumer rights, rental company policies, and how to fight unexpected fees:    

• Can rental companies charge customers for services they didn’t request?  
• What should you do if your rental car develops mechanical problems?  
• How do you fight a car rental bill that isn’t your fault? 

But first, let’s unpack Dunn’s ordeal, a teachable moment for your next rental.  

“My car had a front-end shimmy”

Dunn’s rental was undrivable almost the moment he started using it.

“When I took it on the highway, it had a front-end shimmy,” he explains.

A front-end shimmy is a shake or wobble that you feel in the steering wheel when the vehicle is in motion. A problem with the car’s steering, suspension, or wheels can cause a front-end shimmy, and the consequences can be serious. You can lose the ability to control the vehicle.

“I was concerned that I was driving a damaged and potentially dangerous vehicle,” he says. 

Dunn was more than halfway to his hotel in Pleasant View, and weather conditions were deteriorating. So he decided to press on and called Sixt when he checked in. Sixt showed up a few hours later with a new rental.

“My initial rental was towed back to the Sixt location at the Nashville International Airport,” he remembers. 

A few weeks later, he received a claim from Fleet Response for $794 for towing his rental vehicle.

“Since I was provided with a defective and potentially dangerous vehicle, I do not feel

that the cost of the tow service, which I did not request, should be my responsibility,” he adds.

So does he have to pay for towing a car that never worked to begin with?

Can rental companies charge you for services you didn’t request?  

Yes, they can.

Rental contracts typically authorize charges for services like refueling or tolls. But a closer look at Dunn’s contract with Sixt suggests he may be responsible for more.

“When you rent a vehicle from us, you are responsible for damages to the vehicle,” it says in his contract. “You may also be responsible for other losses resulting from damage to the vehicle. You may be covered for damage and loss by your personal motor vehicle insurance. If such coverage exists, and is confirmed by us, you may require us to submit any claims to your insurance company.”

Translation: Even if Dunn wasn’t directly responsible for the damage to the car — as in, the front-end shimmy — Sixt’s contract can hold him responsible for other expenses, such as towing the car back to the airport.

Case closed? Not exactly. Under most state laws, companies must have to prove you requested or directly caused the need for services like towing. Dunn may have called Sixt to request that it tow the faulty vehicle back to Nashville and replace it, and that recording would be all that it needed to show a court that he wanted a tow — even if he didn’t explicitly ask for it or sign an authorization. But Dunn merely requested that Sixt replace his defective car and left it up to Sixt to handle.

Dunn might have been covered if he had purchased an optional roadside assistance plan. But his contract shows that he didn’t.

Still, Sixt failed to show he either damaged the vehicle or requested the tow. 

What should you do if your rental car has a mechanical problem?  

The best advice I can offer about mechanical problems is to spot them early. Conduct a thorough inspection, and if you see anything that’s out of place — a red light or a wobbly wheel — make a U-turn and ask for a different vehicle.

If you’re already out the door, here’s what to do:

Document everything immediately. Never assume the car rental company will take care of the paperwork. Take a cellphone video of the shaking steering wheel (if you can do it safely) and get written confirmation of the vehicle swap. 

Ask for a written incident report. Most rental locations will create one if you cite safety concerns. Get it in writing and save it.

Don’t assume that no news is good news. Follow up in writing, asking for verification that your bill is settled.

When I review Dunn’s case, I can see a few problems. There was no incident report, no video of the mechanical problem, no confirmation of the vehicle swap. In the heat of the moment, he had made some assumptions that allowed Sixt to bill him for a service it shouldn’t have. 

How do you fight a car rental bill that isn’t your fault?

There are some easy steps to fighting a charge like this. But the most important one is to act fast. Dunn waited several weeks to dispute the charges and contact my advocacy team. 

He clearly wanted to give the process time to work, but time was not on his side. Sixt had referred the case to a third party that handles car rental claims, and their notices to him suggested that they would go to court to recover the towing fee. He didn’t have much time.

He did, however, have some room to negotiate.

For example:

• Sixt didn’t furnish him with the actual towing company invoice showing the $794 charge for returning his faulty Sentra. He could have asked for that before considering paying the bill.

• Also, Sixt didn’t provide him with any evidence that he had requested a tow or agreed to pay the tow. It just charged him based on vague language in its rental contract, which does not explicitly say he is responsible for the tow on a faulty vehicle.

• Finally, Sixt didn’t cite any state law or contract provision that definitely shows he is on the hook for the tow.

In short, he could have attacked this problem sooner and asked for paperwork from Sixt that probably didn’t exist. Had he done so, Sixt and its subrogation company probably would have either dropped the case or offered to settle for a lesser amount.

I have more strategies in my guide to fighting unfair car rental charges. 

“Occasional service errors may occur”

After Dunn contacted my team, I reached out to Sixt. I was curious about this case. In hindsight, Dunn should have turned the car around and driven it back to Nashville. But he had never explicitly authorized a tow, and Sixt had arbitrarily charged his card. That seemed unfair.

A Sixt representative responded directly to me.

“At Sixt, customer satisfaction is at the heart of everything we do,” she told me. “While occasional service errors may occur, we are committed to addressing and resolving them to the satisfaction of our customers – as we have done in this case. We are pleased to confirm the matter has been resolved with no charge to the customer.”

Dunn confirmed that Sixt had dropped its charges.