taking the haul road with a damage waiver

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chewypjb74

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Has anyone taken a rental truck from places like enterprise, alamo, avis, on the haul road? Most of these places have damage waivers and in writing saying not to go on the Dalton Hwy/Haul road. Sooooo the question has anyone done it and had issues? Or is it an ask for forgiveness and if there is no obvious major damage its fine?
 
Rental cars here are all tracked and you will get busted. Only several companies allow their vehicles up the haul road. And only one company actually has a location in Prudhoe. Look into Alaska 4x4 Rentals or GoNorth. I can't speak for GoNorth, but I know AK4x4 allows you to go up north and has a location in Prudhoe with some support offered along the way. I, myself, will be running the highway for a couple weeks during hunting season checking in with our customers and hopefully flinging some sharp pointy things at some meat.
 
I rented cars for 15 years in Colorado but that was a handful of years ago. If you are specifically asking about the damage waiver then most likely it would not cover any damage that occurs to the vehicle as they all have stipulations and you would most definitely be following under at least one stipulation being on the haul road. As for trackers people always thought we had them but no car in the lower 48 had them except for some exotics. First and foremost I would call your insurance agent and verify they would cover a rental in that scenario. Last thing I would check is if they specifically write in the rental contract that it isn't allowed on that specific road and if you are caught what are the consequences. Past that it is up to you on what decision you make. Good luck!
 
Hunter26 said:
I rented cars for 15 years in Colorado but that was a handful of years ago. If you are specifically asking about the damage waiver then most likely it would not cover any damage that occurs to the vehicle as they all have stipulations and you would most definitely be following under at least one stipulation being on the haul road. As for trackers people always thought we had them but no car in the lower 48 had them except for some exotics. First and foremost I would call your insurance agent and verify they would cover a rental in that scenario. Last thing I would check is if they specifically write in the rental contract that it isn't allowed on that specific road and if you are caught what are the consequences. Past that it is up to you on what decision you make. Good luck!
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Every car is tracked. I literally just ordered another 100 trackers for my rigs. I work in the industry. They also all have the specific stipulation of "no gravel or dirt roads" and some even specify "Denali Highway, Dalton Highway, and McCarthy road" except the 2 I listed above.
 
We are renting a truck from the same place that rented us the jet boat. We looked into the traditional rental places and it isnt worth the risk.
 
When we visited Alaska a couple years ago we rented a suv through GoNorth. They were easy to deal with and allowed us to go on gravel/dirt roads. We didn’t take the haul road but a few spots we went were not exactly nice roads. If I remember correctly the cost was a little higher but worth the peace of mind.
 
One other thing to note is we did just rent a jeep specific for off-roading and it had a dash camera. I was a little surprised to see it. We didn't bother messing with it because I wasn't concerned but not sure if it could be turned off or not without issue.
 
Try Turo... you know exactly what you're getting. No showing up expecting a 4x4 and they have an AWD or something like that. People that put 4x4s on there do so usually expecting you to take them off the pavement. . We didn't go on the haul road, but have used them several times on trips (including March in Alaska) where we flew in and then wanted something we knew was off road capable in case a storm blew in or we ended up on a bad FS road.
 
I drive by the enterprise truck rental location in Fairbanks almost daily. You can tell when a truck has been on the Haul Rd. During August and September I see a few trucks in there every week that have clearly been up the haul rd. Plenty of people do it but it would suck when you have an issue.


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I have rented from Go north and Alaska 4x4 rentals with out an issue. People also rent from U-haul also talked to people that use Turo.
I never wanted to risk using hertz or enterprise.
 
Even if they don't have a tracker, it's almost impossible to hide the fact you went way up the Dalton with a vehicle.

For a moose scouting trip we rented a truck and took it up to Coldfoot and back in fairly dry conditions. Before returning it we washed it off at my place (used a pressure washer), then took it through a car wash twice. The owner of the vehicle was still unhappy with how dirty the underside of the truck was. Even if it's back in one piece with no new windshield chips, it's difficult to get a vehicle "clean" after running that road.

If you use Turo, make sure that the host is OK with it ahead of time, or at a minimum doesn't have the same prohibitions that Big Rental has. Turo isn't perfect - they can also cancel at the last second and you could be left high and dry (happened to me).
 
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