USA Hire Car

[Chris Hinds]

We're going on a honeymoon to California next year and I want to arrange a nice small 4-cyl FWD crappy hire car a Mustang or Corvette Convertible (ideally a V8) to drive from San Francisco down to San Diego and then back to LA.

Anyone have any advice on who to rent from, how much it would cost over 9 days and how to ensure I don't end up with a Chrysler Sebring by accident?

Cheers

Chris

[neiljohnson]

Went to the Usa for honeymoon i got a great deal on fights & car through Virgin, return flights to La car hire for 2 weeks & all insurances came to under 2k

We had this


It wasnt the v8 unfortuneatly but it was the 4000cc v6 model but tbh i couldnt have asked for a better car it was very comfortable fully loaded & drove great

[JulianHJ]

We've had a Shelby Mustang, Corvette and Camaro from Hertz in California and Nevada. Service has not been consistently perfect, however the cars have been top-notch and prices are very competitive. The 'Stang and the Camaro were upgrades at the counter, for far, far less than we would have paid if we'd booked them in advance. A nice smile and a bit of haggling got us a long way, so if you go that route (and it's a risk) then don't take the first price they quote.

Edited by JulianHJ on Friday 12th November 08:41

[Chris Hinds]

Thanks for the replies, I've been quoted £260 for 11 days in a Mustang Convertible and £528 for 11 days in a Corvette Convertible. I think I can hear the bellow of a V8...

[Project C]

Chris Hinds said:

Thanks for the replies, I've been quoted £260 for 11 days in a Mustang Convertible and £528 for 11 days in a Corvette Convertible. I think I can hear the bellow of a V8...

My daughter is getting married in Vegas and I was thinking of doing a similar drive. Where did you get those prices from? I found Car Hire 3000 off the Money Saving Expert website and they listed £405 for a Dodge Charger for 21 days.

[fatboy b]

Chris Hinds said:

Thanks for the replies, I've been quoted £260 for 11 days in a Mustang Convertible and £528 for 11 days in a Corvette Convertible. I think I can hear the bellow of a V8...

It's a gamble, but book a V6, and hope they're got a V8 when you pick it up. I did this is San Fran a couple of years back. It was basically about $50/day more for the V8, which they tried to palm off on me. I managed to chat them down to $25/day extra, and got me a Shelby GT-H.

[JulianHJ]

fatboy b said:

Chris Hinds said:

Thanks for the replies, I've been quoted £260 for 11 days in a Mustang Convertible and £528 for 11 days in a Corvette Convertible. I think I can hear the bellow of a V8...

It's a gamble, but book a V6, and hope they're got a V8 when you pick it up. I did this is San Fran a couple of years back. It was basically about $50/day more for the V8, which they tried to palm off on me. I managed to chat them down to $25/day extra, and got me a Shelby GT-H.

Unfortunately Hertz don't have any more Shelbys - they had a run of coupes, which were auctioned off, and then a run of convertibles which have now also been sold IIRC. They only have the V6 Mustangs at the moment.

[Matt Harper]

Can you imagine buying one of those Hertz Mustang GT's? Every single one of them hammered to the max, every single day of their rental existence.

[tvrolet]

JulianHJ said:

We've had a Shelby Mustang, Corvette and Camaro from Hertz

SNAP!

I had a Shelby Mustang convertable in 2008
Corvette ZHZ in 2009
Camaro this summer since it was the only intersting car left on the Hertz list I hadn't rented.

Corvette by far the best car, but curiously the Camaro got the most positive comments from the 'mercans

[Chris Hinds]

Project C said:

Chris Hinds said:

Thanks for the replies, I've been quoted £260 for 11 days in a Mustang Convertible and £528 for 11 days in a Corvette Convertible. I think I can hear the bellow of a V8...

My daughter is getting married in Vegas and I was thinking of doing a similar drive. Where did you get those prices from? I found Car Hire 3000 off the Money Saving Expert website and they listed £405 for a Dodge Charger for 21 days.

That was a suggestion via Thomson Travel, I don't know who it is with. I have asked for confirmation that it is definitely for a Corvette and not anything else. If they can't assure me of it then I'll book a Mustang from Dollar Rental via Car Hire USA.

[JulianHJ]

Matt Harper said:

Can you imagine buying one of those Hertz Mustang GT's? Every single one of them hammered to the max, every single day of their rental existence.

They went for huge money too, and the weren't much different from a standard V8.

[tvrolet]

Chris Hinds said:

Thanks for the replies, I've been quoted £260 for 11 days in a Mustang Convertible and £528 for 11 days in a Corvette Convertible. I think I can hear the bellow of a V8...

Make sure the Musdang is a V8 (assuming that's what you are after) as the base rental Mustang is a V6. If not actually stated, the clue is usually in the 'unlimited miles' with Hertz; the V8s are all limited mileage while the V6s are unlimited.

[joe20vt]

Had this through Alamo in Philly. a nice change from Camero's and Mustang's V6 or not. it was cheap and Alamo were brilliant as usual.

[Breadknife]

joe20vt said:

Had this through Alamo in Philly. a nice change from Camero's and Mustang's V6 or not. it was cheap and Alamo were brilliant as usual.

Awesome. I'm not getting a hit on it from alamo.com or .co.uk though.

Did you just turn up or did you pre-book?

Now I just need to get julianhj to agree to another holiday in the US...

[JulianHJ]

Breadknife said:

joe20vt said:

Had this through Alamo in Philly. a nice change from Camero's and Mustang's V6 or not. it was cheap and Alamo were brilliant as usual.

Awesome. I'm not getting a hit on it from alamo.com or .co.uk though.

Did you just turn up or did you pre-book?

Now I just need to get julianhj to agree to another holiday in the US...

Oh ...

[Mazdarese]

What I did in September was book a pretty standard car, then when you get to the airport have a look around at what they've got and then go and negotiate.

I had booked a Nissan Antara jeep-thing, and upgraded to an Escalade when we got there. Superb car, I miss it so.

[Terzo123]

Mazdarese said:

What I did in September was book a pretty standard car, then when you get to the airport have a look around at what they've got and then go and negotiate.

I had booked a Nissan Antara jeep-thing, and upgraded to an Escalade when we got there. Superb car, I miss it so.

I did the same thing last year with..i think it was Dollar at Sandford, Orlando, and got this

[joe20vt]

Breadknife said:

joe20vt said:

Had this through Alamo in Philly. a nice change from Camero's and Mustang's V6 or not. it was cheap and Alamo were brilliant as usual.

Awesome. I'm not getting a hit on it from alamo.com or .co.uk though.

Did you just turn up or did you pre-book?

Now I just need to get julianhj to agree to another holiday in the US...

i had an intermediate booked. i saw it in the car park and gravitated towards it. they offerd me an upgrade for $10.00 per day. Hertz were the only company activly advertising 'sports' cars so was happy to find it. Had to put up a couple of other shots of it!

[theboyfold]

Chris Hinds said:

Thanks for the replies, I've been quoted £260 for 11 days in a Mustang Convertible and £528 for 11 days in a Corvette Convertible. I think I can hear the bellow of a V8...

Where did you get this quote from? I've just run a quick test through Hertz online and it's come back at £2600 for 14 days!!!

[m3jappa]

theboyfold said:

Where did you get this quote from? I've just run a quick test through Hertz online and it's come back at £2600 for 14 days!!!

I'd like to know too, as hopefully going orlando october and would like something with a v8 but like mentioned above the prices from hertz at least seem massive for something like a corvette.