Spec me... an American rental car

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

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Joined
17 Oct 2002
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160,221
Right guys, its spec me a car time... with a difference. It's only a hire car!

I'm off on an American road trip in September and although I've done the boring stuff like booking flights I'm struggling with the most important decision of the trip.

What car to hire?

The rough route is as follows:

LAX > San Diego, CA > Pheonix, AZ > Las Vegas, NV > Death Valley > Yosemite National Park > San Francisco, CA > Big Sur, CA > Los Angeles, CA.

I'll be doing about 2,500 miles and as you can see the route is quite varied and encompasses everything from twisting, beautiful Costal highway to scorching hot Desert freeways, inner cities and national parks. This wide variation is why I'm having trouble picking a hire car.

A lot of people think a car is just a car but as you all know I'm a bit obsessional with the whole car thing and beleive that the car can make or break the trip. It needs to be something recognisably American and for once dashboard plastics are not important. Last year in Australia having a Falcon XR6 in all the photographs just really made the trip great, and i Want some sort of similar effect really.

It goes without saying that it needs at least 6 cylinders.

So....

Convertible Mustang or 'Luxury'?

The convertible would be amazing for natioanl parks, cruising around the city and doing Highway 1. But whats the refinement like on a 6 hour highway drive in the heat with the roof up and the AC on? I'm also a bit worried about luggage space with the roof down. Now obviously the Mustang is a bit crap but.. its a Mustang! The base Mustang for 2011 MY also has 300bhp so it should be reasonably potent. Has anyone hired the Mustang and done more than the odd bit of boulavard cruising with it? How did it hold up?

'Luxury' - something like a Cadallic STS or a 300C Touring by the look of it. Wallowy and barge like and a pain when cruising around national parks but I'd imagine they'll soak up the hot miles really well, have lots of kit and bags of luggage space. Anyone rented one of these? Did you find yourself wishing the roof would come down?

And the next question...

Who to rent from? My research so far has led me to find that in the convertible class most hire companies have either Chyrsler Sebrings or Ford Mustangs and you get to pick your car from whats on the lot. So a pretty good chance of getting a Mustang. Netflights are offering a Mustang through Thrifty for £430 for 17 days. Carhire3000 are cheaper but its a 'PT Cruiser or similar' :eek:

As for luxury though I can find no indication of what cars the various rental agencies have on the fleet under 'luxury'. It seems some of the rental companies think Luxury is a Mercedes C class and charge £2000 - yes, two thousand pounds - for a rental, yet others charge only a few quid more than full size and supply a Chrysler 300 with some cheap leather seats. Who offers what?

What I'm really after then is any advice based on real experience of renting cars in the states.

Plus once we've had about 30 posts of useful advice you can all **** me off for not wanting a Sebring or something and we can have a big fight about grammar, so everyone wins.
 
Mustang, the V6 should be enough as your not going to be racing about and speeding is a bigger deal over there.

I once went on a 4 hour drive as a passenger in a 1996 Mustang and it didn't feel any worse than a Mondeo or something would.

I can't imagine a reason why you wouldn't get one, it's not going to be terrible on the long drives and you'll be enjoy the drive for at least part of the journey instead of just 'accepting' a 'luxary' car and being bored the whole time.

Nothing you rent is going to be as good as your 530i at eating miles so get the Mustang and enjoy yourself!
 
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bah, £430 for 17 days, bloomin old fogey! Cost me £600 for 21 days for a Chevvy Cobalt.....roughly half of that was an u25 charge.
 
I went LAX to San Diego to LV to Grand Canyon (the proper bit) back to LV to Death Vally to San Fransico to Santa Barbara to LAX all in a PT cruiser convertible it was great fun and the convertible was a good bet but on the freeways it's roof up also in Nevada and DV it's so hot it's roof up and AC on, also LAX to LV they suggest turning the AC of as the climb is massive I didn't bother and watched the temp guage rise until I turned it all off and cooked, try driving there at night.

Take a sat nav the price to rent one you may as well buy

We hired from Hertz just outside LAX, easy picked the cheapest and no hassle

There is no big 5 lane freeways apart from LA whihc was chocca anyway so don't expect movie type journeys
 
My main cab experience is the z4 which is rubbish with the roof up. Mustang is bigger though so I am hoping its a nicer place to be with the roof up and the ac on?
 
Also fuel in california is very expensive not the same as the rest of the US all californians drive a prius now you have to go to Nevada / Arizona to see big 4wds
 
Also there is about 5 levels of insurance where the hire companies make their money so research what each one is offering as my travel insurance covered some of the same

what else errrrr........
 
Mustangs are pap. If you're doing a lot of miles, get the biggest and most comfortable car you can afford.

Check out Holiday Autos to get some decent rates. It appears to be much cheaper than booking from the rental companies direct.

I had an Infinti G37 last time I was in CA and it was brilliant.
 
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Convertible, without a doubt. I've driven around California both with and without a roof, and the sans roof experience is so, so much better when you are endeavouring to enjoy yourself.
 
Can't say I longed for a convertible when I was there tbh. It would have been nice in the cooler parts (Yosemite/San Fran/Monterey etc) but in LV/DV/LA I would have just given myself sun-stroke with the roof down. I simply can't take that much sun/heat for very long.

As for the car, we had a Camry which was a bit rubbish but tbh after a while I stopped caring. It was comfortable and soaked up the miles well, but honestly driving seems like such a non-event over there that you just eventually relax. I'd have liked to have had something American with a V6 and better autobox (like I had in Florida, Chevy Malibu > Toyota Camry) but it's what we were given so ho hum. It handled in a very boaty fashion but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting when carving through the crazily tight mountain roads.

Fox, when you had "crap" cars in Aus, how much of the time with them did you spend actually bothered about this? :p
 
The only drive where you'll really want the roof down is the Pacific Coast Highway, having the roof down in Death Valley won't be much fun unless you like 3rd degree burns.
 
I rented a Dodge Ram 1500 Quad-cab when I was in LA, it was so different to anything I've ever driven, loved every second of it. My god it was big inside, no quality but LOT of room!

Can't see you getting one though, correct?
 
Are you staying in DV, we left a day early, one night is enough unless you like walking around in a furnace, we come accross a load of bikers in leathers with their other halfs pillion absolutley roasting crossing DV, looked like a big mistake
 
i always took the luxury, always got a Cadilliac DTS normally see some CTS's and STS's there too but they are always V6 versions.

Suits american highways, big very soft suspension and at 65 its barely ticking over.
 
[TW]Fox;16778447 said:
The Camry I had for a day in oz drove me mad with how nasty it was :D
Click to expand...

Just quickly searched out your Australia and cars thread about it and it's identical to ours bar the colour; I'd agree with most of what you said tbh :p I didn't let it bother me too much though!

The good points about it I thought were that we could cover a lot of miles to a tank of petrol (2Krpm at 70mph) - useful IMHO, and it was comfortable :p


maccapacca said:
Are you staying in DV, we left a day early, one night is enough unless you like walking around in a furnace, we come accross a load of bikers in leathers with their other halfs pillion absolutley roasting crossing DV, looked like a big mistake
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We drove through, stopping at various points for a short while. In the summer it's the best way unless you want to become a namesake to the area ;)
 
I have had a covertible out there but it got annoying on long runs

I tend to just book a 300C now through airline netwotk ( car is from Dollar )
 
maccapacca said:
Are you staying in DV, we left a day early, one night is enough unless you like walking around in a furnace, we come accross a load of bikers in leathers with their other halfs pillion absolutley roasting crossing DV, looked like a big mistake
Click to expand...

It's good for driving through, and stopping off to look at things and then moving on again.

I see you're doing LV > DV > Yosemite, stay somewhere like Lone Pine for the night and then leave early for Yosemite now that the Tioga Pass Road is finally open. You genuinely won't find much to keep you in Death Valley for more than a day.
 
Try and arrange your debit / credit card to work in the pumps it's irritating using cash and having to go in and pay first especially if you need change.

Get a policy that you bring the car back empty and play the last day roulette :D
 
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