After checking, it appears a few other folks have had some dodgy issues with SixT in Frankfort, Germany. I guess I should've Googled them before booking. Hoping to spare anyone else such trauma...
I have a fair amount of experience renting cars in Europe. About 3 times a year, we rent cars in different European countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, and Portugal, often for 1-2 months. I’ve dealt with accidents, breakdowns, dead batteries, flat tires, pretty much all the things that happen with cars. But this SixT experience from the Frankfurt airport was something new. I rented an Audi A5 Avant Wagon diesel. Nice car (so it seemed), great mileage, and we needed the space for my family and luggage. We get in around 19:00, by 19:30 things seem to be going smooth and we load up, get going on what we expect will be a 2 hour drive to the Mosel region.
The car doesn’t cooperate. About 10 minutes from the airport, only 8-9 km into our drive, the overheating warning light comes on. OK, not great, but we pull off right away and park at a nearby petrol station. We make sure to purchase something from their store since we’re parked there, and get on the phone expecting a prompt resolution. I call SixT, only to be put on hold, then cut off after about 10 minutes. My wife continues to try to call then on their German customer service lines, while I contact the roadside assistance number. I get a human on the line who tells me that I shouldn’t drive the car, that they’ll send someone out right away, and that it’ll take about an hour. OK, a small delay, but at least something is happening. During this time, we get our bearings, realize that we’re on the edge of industrial area and there’s not much within walking distance. A fitness center’s about it, and they’re kind enough to let us use their clean toilets.
In a little over an hour, the roadside assistance guy arrives. He opens the hood and sees that there’s almost no coolant in the reservoir. He has a tiny amount with him and pours it in, but it’s not nearly enough. After some pondering, he says that the car needs to be towed, it shouldn't be that dry so quickly after getting warm. As it turns out, he’s not from Sixt but from the roadside assistance firm ADAC that Sixt contracts out to. His attitude is that when a car is not driveable, it’s on SixT to take care of the problem and not ADAC since they can only tow the car. All through this time, my wife has continued to try to reach SixT with no success. I let him know that we’ve tried calling SixT like 60 times (OK, not 60, but 15-20) and were never able to reach a human. Same thing every time: a bunch of prerecorded question prompts, about 10 minutes on hold and then the line cuts. My wife and I tried SixT corporate, the Frankfurt airport SixT, any SixT number we can find. At one point an ADAC agent on the phone tells my wife that that’s pretty common—SixT just doesn’t answer the customer service line.
It’s now 21:00. My family has been stuck at the petrol station for an hour and a half. I finally get a call from the tow people and they tell me that it will be “3-4 hours” before they get here. That would mean we’d be here until 1 or 2 in the morning, possibly longer because they’re pretty vague about the time. That’s not happening. I’ve done my part to cooperate with this dud of a car, my family is tired and hungry, it's hot out, and the petrol station doesn't have any water. I make sure the rental car is locked and safely parked, load all our stuff up into an Uber to head back to the airport.
That’s when the fun begins at the SixT counter. We arrive back at the same counter with the same agent, hand him the keys and explain the situation. No apologies, no “what can we do to fix this” and no quick new rental car so that we can finally be on our way. None of that happens. Instead, they tell us that they will take us back to the petrol station where we should wait for the tow truck.. for 3-4 hours… which should be towed back to SixT at the airport, at which time they will THEN give us a different car before we can then head off on our 2 hour journey to Mosel. Hell no. The agent even tells me at one point that I made him wake up their manager and she’s now upset. We are both angry and arguing, with SixT adamant that they won’t do anything unless we sit at a petrol station 10 km away with their broken car for another 3-4 hours.
The situation at the counter ends like this: The Sixt attendant tells me “OK, you’re done” and then refuses to tell me anything more. No details as to what we can do, where to go from here, or even any details of any refund or anything. He only says: “You will receive an e-mail about this tomorrow”. It's around 23:00.
We look around. The Hertz counter is out of cars even though my wife is a President’s Circle member. The Avis counter is right next door. They have a car for us and, while pricey, at least we’re on our way, finally reaching our place in the Mosel region at 1:30 am, 4 hours later than expected, but a solid 3-4 hours earlier than Sixt would have had us arrive.
This morning I awaken and check my e-mail. All I have is 8 identical e-mails that say nothing and are just 8 copies of the rental agreement. Still no apologies, no information, no anything.
We attempt to call SixT again this morning, this time to a SixT number for international service we found online. This one answered. We explained the situation trying to get some kind of resolution. What we learned was that the counter agent had recorded that we had left the keys at a police station and nothing else. WTF? There weren't any police involved in any of this. No idea what is going on there, but we were then connected with SixT's security department to whom we again explained what happened and the situation.
As of right now, they still appear to still be attempting to charge us for the full price of the rental. We'll be contacting our credit card company to dispute the charges should they not reverse it. It sounds like the local Frankfort Airport bunch might be up to other shenanigans as well. This whole thing was beyond unacceptable for a rental car company, and now it seems really dodgy on top of that. I'll post any updates in the comments.