Unless you only travel within driving distance of home or are willing to spend the time and money on shipping, we will all end up in a situation where renting a car is a necessity. There may be plenty of cities with fantastic public transportation systems, but you just need a car to venture out and explore the countryside. Many of us are far more care-free behind the wheel when the vehicle is owned by an abstract corporate entity and not a person with a face.
What’s the worst way you’ve abused a rental car? I’m not talking about returning it with an empty tank. That’s just a surcharge that rental companies are more than happy to add to your bill. Abuse is real, lasting damage that’s an absolute nightmare to reverse. Let me use a hypothetical beach day in the South of France as an example. You and a few friends take a decent Peugeot 408 to a sleepy village on the Mediterranean. After a fun day of sand and surf, everyone piles back into the sedan right off the beach, covering the interior with sand. That’s the appetizer. On the drive back, you get impatient sitting behind a truck on a two-lane road. You pull into the oncoming lane but don’t get entirely clear, and you sideswipe the truck. The 408 is far worse off, with its entire right side scratched up. That’s abuse!
Abusing rental cars is a NASCAR tradition
Besides outright crashing a rental car, the worst thing you could do is race a pack of them. Rental car racing actually is a significant part of NASCAR lore. The mischievous tradition has endured stock car racing’s evolution from a moonshiners’ pastime to a billion-dollar sport. Several current Cup Series drivers have admitted to racing each other and their team members. In many instances, rental car racing is just a fun way to salvage a rained-out test day. Everyone just piles on to the track once the showers stop and run laps to dry the racing surface. On race day, it’s pushing the limit on the drive out of the track. Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe told The Athletic in 2025, “Honestly, the craziest thing, I think, is watching the team guys leave a racetrack. It is like the best racing and just the most chaos you’ve ever seen in your life.”
Remember to leave your stories of rental car abuse in the comments section below. Be sure to mention the make or model of the car that you returned to be someone else’s problem.
