We're bringing 9 children and grandchildren to NYC for T-giving week. To make it special I want to arrange car & driver to pick them up at JFK. Do any of you have particular recommendations for car companies, or more importantly, those to avoid?

You can check out Carmel and Dial 7. They are frequently mentioned here. Search this forum for NYC Car Service, more recs will be posted.

Your group will require a some kind of van or limo i order for you to ride together.

You must tell them in advance how many of you there are and how much luggage since regular sedans won;t work for you - unless you take at least 3 of them. Offhand it sounds to me like you might need 2 vans - if you mean 11 people plus luggage.

Realize that Dial 7 and Carmel are fairly basic - driver owned and not fancy - essentially private replacement for cabs - not the kind of limos you use for weddings or proms - or rich/famous.

If you're looking for something fancy like a big stretch limo, Carmel and Dial 7 are not who you want. I've heard that Strusser is good and give that you would need probably 3 taxis @ ~ $60 each, their price of $210 for a 10 passenger limo is very fair. Not sure that all the luggage will fit though.
http://www.strusserslimousineservice...ort-rates.html

Bermuda limo is another upscale co.

I went online looking for reviews of Carmen and Dial7 and the impression I got is that their service was spotty. There were enough negative reviews to keep me from depending on them.

To clarify one thing in the posts. Dial 7 is 212 777 7777.Sounds to me that you could just go out of the terminal and get a couple of cabs. There's another service called Northside.

We used Carmel for two trips from LGA with our two young children. It was fine. Our flights were really delayed and they monitored that and had us call them once we picked up our bags and they were there within five or ten minutes. The only problem was that they went to the wrong Hilton for the pick-up and since we were running late we took a cab instead. It was a really bad taxi ride...too fast and swerving in and out of "traffic" at 5 am. I was sick when we got to the airport. I will take a car service or train from now on.

I think you'll find most of the complaints about Dial 7 and Carmel are due to the fact that people don't understaand the difference between a car service and a limo company.

A car service is simply a private alternative to a cab - at the same price. the cars are privately owned sedans, usually not new and in decent - but rarely pristine condition. Since most people don;t order "meet and greet" service -which costs extra - if there is a lot of traffic or accident or special event - you may well find yourself waiting for a car to turn up (up to 20 minutes or more).

If you want a pristine stretch limousine with the driver waiting for you with a sign when you land - you want a corporate limo company - which costs about twice what a car service does.