Car Hire - Winter Tyres

According to my guy at Budget Rent-a-Car, it is compulsory for all hire cars in Germany to be fitted with winter tyres up to February 28th. My question is this - if such a thing is compulsory, why do most hire car companies offer it as an OPTION? What happens if I simply choose not to select them? If the car is meant to be fitted with them already by law then do hire companies just inform you of this compulsory extra cost on pick-up?

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It%26#39;s not directly compulsory. There is a new law since last year (this is the first winter with this law) which states that you%26#39;re partly responsible for an accident if you don%26#39;t have appropriate tyre equipment.

Basically the rental companies want to avoid the extra costs and are hoping that

- courts say their usually used all year tyres are appropriate enough

- courts say the choice of appropriate tyres is only the responsibility of the customers

But back to your rental: it depends where you plan to drive with your rental car: for the Alps, and higher uplands (like the Black Forest) winter tyres are a must. It would be insane to driver there without.

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Don%26#39;t worry - we fully intend to use winter tyres as we are heading to Tyrol to go skiing. I was just trying to find out whether to actually check the %26quot;winter tyres%26quot; box on the hire car booking. This seems like another dodgy money grab by the hire car companies to make you pay for something that should be standard.

In any case, we will probably book through Budget since they are the only ones who have been up front about the issue so far.

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hard to imagine car rental people removing the snow tires for customers who don%26#39;t %26quot;pay%26quot; for it during winter.

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