On Monday, April 15, 2019 at 6:32:50 PM UTC-4, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 15 Apr 2019 14:35:11 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, April 15, 2019 at 5:29:00 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 15 Apr 2019 20:56:43 +0300, micky
wrote:

I rented a car and bought insurance, but even if I had zero-deductible,
it would not apply at all to the "undercarriage".

What is the undercarriage? The chassis and all the suspension parts?
The exhaust sysem? Dents from below in the floor panels.

What sort of damage can one do to the undercarriage? Other than
busting a ball joint, they seem pretty reliable.

What does one have to do to do that damage to the undercarriage?

And how hard do rental companies check whether there is undercarriage
damage? If it's not creaking when you drive in and not crawling
sideways, are you okay, or do they actually look underneath?

I have never heard them say that. When I buy the insurance they always
tell me, no matter what happens I am covered. You should be since it
is such a rip off.

That's a good point. I almost never take the insurance and I never read
the fine print, but for what it costs, it really should cover undercarriage
damage too.

The insurance definitely doesn't cover the undercarriage. They are
specific and very clear. And there is no limit to how much one can be
charged for damage, though I don't think I did any damage.

One is also not permitted to drive on iirc an unpaved road, and there
are a lot of them here. Today the road started off unpaved but quite
flat, then there were a few ruts caused by water run-off. Then when I
left the park area, it was much worse, where the rain had eventually
washed away all the dirt and only rocks were left. A real challenge to
figure out which side of the road to drive on. I ended up driving 5
miles and almost a mile was just on rocks. It's a amazing the tires
hold up**.

The devil is in the details. Now that we know that, the undercarriage
exception is starting to make sense.