Car Hire NZ

[WelshAL2025]

Hi, I hope you can help with this odd question.

We will be going on holiday in New Zealand in April and as we have a bit of traveling to do around North Island we were thinking about hiring a car.

Looking at comparison websites, there are huge differences in prices as normal for the same vehicle but what gets me is when they say 'or similar' .

Are there any companies which offer better choice and reliability?

We hired a car in South Africa once, and got properly stitched up by the hire company. What was supposed to be a seven-seater car turned out to be a converted car-derived van. It ruined the holiday.

I don't want to be stuck at Auckland airport arguing over the fact that a Hyundai i10 is not the same as a Volkswagen Golf or that when I booked a double cab pickup, I wasn't expecting to get a single cab.

Are the 'or similar' options usually quite close?

Current choices look like the Mitsubishi Outlander, Kia Seltos or Niro and Toyota Camry. The outside bet is a Ford Ranger for the gravel roads and exploring beaches.

Thanks for any help

[WyrleyD]

We used to go to NZ (Auckland) each winter as we had family there and always rented from Go at AKL, never had a problem and they swapped to a Toyota Corolla from an awful Chinese MG thing after a few days when we complained, they've always given good service on handover and hand back. No problems in recommending them.

[WelshAL2025]

Thank you very much.

[WelshAL2025]

The lovely Fara from Dollar was most obliging. I was surprised and delighted.
I case it helps anyone, as of the end of January 2025 the equivalents are:

MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER
MAZDA CX5
TOYOTA RAV 4
KIA SPORTAGE
VOLKSWAGEN TIGUAN
HYUNDAI TUCSON
NISSAN XTRAIL

FORD RANGER
TOYOTA HILUX
MITSUBISHI TRITON

TOYOTA COROLLA
HOLDEN ASTRA
KIA CERATO
VOLKWAGEN GOLF
HYUNDAI I30
NISSAN PULSAR

TOYOTA CAMRY
NISSAN ALTIMA
SKODA OCTAVIA
KIA OPTIMA
HYUNDAI SONATA

[Cristio Nasser]

Been traveling to NZ for years now and always use Avis as I get a corporate discount with them. Always rented their full size suv or sedan class and they’ve always been decent. Toyota Highlander, Hyundai Santa Fe, Toyota Aurion, and my favorite was a Holden Commodore wagon. Their NZ stock seems to be pretty good in the grand scheme. Certainly much better than the ste they have the cheek to hawk out of Heathrow.

[WelshAL2025]

Thanks.

[WelshAL2025]

Well, we went, we conquered and we returned.

We used an online comparison site for the hire, which ended up with Dollar.

In case anyone reading this is as thick as me, don't forget that you lose a day travelling to NZ. 24 hours of travel starting on Saturday actually finishes on Monday, which I didn't learn until we got to the hire desk. They were about to send our car away...

Apart from the indicator switch being on the wrong side, which has been a constant theme both there and when we got back, there was almost no difference between driving in NZ and in the UK.

When returning the car, I drove to the domestic rental return point, rather than the international return point, at Auckland airport. They still took the car back, but it meant a 10 minute walk with a trolley and all of our bags.

Our car was damaged by someone reversing into it. As the hire car didn't have a dashcam, and the car park owner said they'd only release footage to the police, I couldn't trace who dunnit.
We got our insurance online, which is a bit of a pain as the hire car company will now charge us £500 until they determine how much the repair is, then refund the difference, only then can we reclaim the amount from the insurance company. If we had gone through the hire company, we wouldn't have paid anything until the bill got to £2.5k

In NZ the insurance company wanted us to get a police reference number, you can report minor accidents online. It took 30 minutes with a dodgy mobile signal but was easy enough to do.

Other than that, NZ was a delight to drive in and the roads were so very familiar. I'd love to bike there but the border of Wales is indistinguishable.