I will try to keep this as succinct as possible.in may, picked up a hertz rental in Trapani, Sicily at the airport. the reservation was through auto Europe and I paid extra insurance to them . when I picked up the car I purchased additional insurance offered to me at the counter and I was told this would cover everything. this upped the price considerably but I wanted peace of mind in my travels. the rental was a Toyota with standard transmission for which I an experienced driver. I ordered automatic but none was available at the time of pickup. I noticed when driving that the shifting was sluggish but I didn't think it was worth returning the car for. in the mountains of Sicily the transmission gave out and we had to move the car to the side of the road to avoid passing cars and trucks. some nice folks passed by and helped us get in touch with the local hertz by phone . A flatbed truck came and took us and the car to a repair shop in Siracusa and we found a decent b and b to stay at. we were informed we had to go to Catania airport to pick up a replacement car which cost 100 euro taxi from Siracusa. at Catania we got without asking a nice automatic transmision car and had a good trip for the rest of the 2 weeks . when I returned the car to Palermo airport, my bill showed hundreds of euros in extra charges , even though I paid for every type of xs insurance. including no allowance for being without a car for almost a day. when I returned home , I received a letter saying that I had damaged the car and I would be charged on my credit card 600 dollars . they sent a picture of a broken car part . I swear that I did nothing to damage that car and it probably needed a new transmission long before I rented it. my diners club was not successful in helping although they tried. I would like to know what can I do to prevent this from happening again as I am returning to Italy and Sicily in October . I have seen on the internet there are rental car insurance websites but reading the fine print, there is enough ambiguity to cause concern. auto Europe claimed I was covered but with a 600 dollar deductible and coincidentally or not the extra insurance purchased at the counter also had a 600 deductible . please advise , all you experienced travelers.. thanks.
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