Are there any pitfalls to be aware of in renting a car in Buenos Aires? Our plan is to rent for three days to drive to Colonia and Montevideo in early December.

Check with whatever rental you are using if it is OK to drive it into another country.

Anyway, wouldn't it be better to cross the River Plate in the Buquebus and rent a car in Uruguay?

To avrooster:

Thanks for the reply, but it appears the cost for four people to take the Buquebus there and back is quite a bit more than a car rental and hotel rooms in MVD.

Four people can go to Colonia R/T for 240 dollars.

I am not aware of the other costs.

I get 250 Pesos or 83 Dollars per person to Colonia from the Buquebus web site, that's $332 for four and gives us about 8 hours there. I'm waiting for a quote from Alamo, but it looks like a three day rental and rooms in MVD would be about the same and we'd get to see more of the country.

I agree with avrooster I do not think that you can rent a car in Argentina and take it to Uruguay. I might be wrong so check carefully.
Besides Buquebus there is a cheaper way to get accross to Uruguay and that is a service between Tigre which is in Buenos Aires and Carmelo in Uruguay. Then you can rent a car? Gas in Uruguay is expensive too.

We rented a car in Argentina (didn't take it out of the coutry). The only surprise we had is that when we returned it, we got charged to have the car washed... never had that happene b4.

Car washed? this is amazing, in SOuth America it can also happen that they gave you the care without the spare tire and then wish to charge for it. So check it carefully.

I confirm that the slower Buquebus to Colonia costs 181 pesos per person (about 60 dollars). There are even cheaper alternatives, crossing over to Carmelo, as Graziella5b already pointed out.

Charging to wash a rented car is quite unbelievable. Could we know who did that, yestravel?

Wish I could remember the name of the car rental company that we used. It was not Hertz, Alamo, Thrifty or any of the common US car rentals. This was several years ago and Cinitia at Wow made the car rental arrangements for us. Glad to hear that the car wash doesn't appear to be a norm.
We'll be renting a car in the NW in November and it had passed thru my mind that we might need to figure out how to get it washed to avoid the outrageous charge from the car rental company.

Thank you, yestravel.

I suggest asking forum member and Salta expert Flintstones for her suggestion about what car rental company to use in Salta.

I'll e-mail her this thread.

i have been working in a car rental until I got my own car, and I never heard that it should be back clean, that is part of the service of the car rental to give the car clean and to receive it as it comes from the customers...
But be careful about where you park, if you get a car rented get a hotel with parking place, thieves usually break a glass for a CD player and do not leave belongings in the car. DO not rent at EURO rent a car (different from EUROPE rent a car), and control you have the necessary to change a tyre in case you have to, Control you have a tyre in conditions to change and... something I saw in some foreigners, Do not drive So slowly in winding roads, I mean extremely slowly... and do not park on the road to take a picture. English people, take the right remember...
Any other question?
Flintstones