I was returning the near 6 meter long van (in good condition) to the same parking place that I had originally taken it from earlier that morning. I got out of the van to give the keys to the female receptionist in London Battersea offices and was informed that I would need to reverse the vehicle in the small parking bay area and back out to a narrow side lane, through some dark blue/black gates for further inspection.

I explained to the receptionist that although I had been comfortable driving the van about that day, I was uncomfortable with performing this manoeuvre in such a tight space and explicitly asked for a Sixt driver to perform this for me as I returned the van to the original, allocated space.

The receptionist informed me that she didn’t drive herself and that no drivers were available, and despite my concerns I would have to move the vehicle, I reluctantly did this and subsequently sustained damage to the rear, driver’s side panel by scraping the vehicle on the parking bay gates.

Currently, I’ve been invoiced over £500 (lucky I took out further excess) for this paintwork scratch and on inspecting the other vans in the parking bay I could see similar (dark blue paint marks from the gates) in approximately the same location, so a word of warning to anyone renting from there in future!

It was only because the re-inspection had to take place outside of the Sixt’s parking bay (at their staff’s request) that this damage was sustained, and as yet I haven’t received any reply from anyone at Sixt about the complaint that I logged with them last week…

It doesn’t look like I’m the first person to have done this but hopefully with this post and more to come until I get a decent response from them, I may be the last!