MisterBruce

Hey

I'm from Australia and I'm planning to hire a car in San Francisco from December 7-10 to drive down to LA. I've been looking around and so far everything seems really pricey, national quoted me at over $1000 US!

I don't need insurance because travel insurance covers me. Does anyone know the best car companies? Or could I wait til I get there and find a cheap car for sale on the road (someone suggested this to me, I didn't take it seriously though).

Any help would be much appreciated

Michelle

J62

I like to use www.orbitz.com for rental car comparison shopping, then go directly to the rental car company website to book.

In my experience dollar.com is the cheapest rental car co in SF, either at the airport or downtown. You won't want a rental car while your are in SF, so if you are in the city you can just rent one in-town when you're ready to head to LA - no need to rent from the airport. All of the big rental car co's have multiple in-city locations.

You can also check www.autoeurope.com, and book through them.

I would not advise buying a car. You will need to get it inspected, repaired if it fails inspection, registered, and insured.

You can also sign up for email specials - I get weekly emails from Alamo, Thrifty, and Dollar. Each of them often has last minute specials, so if you find a better rate as Dec 7 approaches you can always book the better rate.

One last thing to try is Fox rental car. www.foxrentalcar.com. They are a smaller West coast/CA based company. Cars aren't brand new, but the several times I've used them they've been just fine. I don't know if they have city locations, or just SF Airport.

A quick check on the fox website I see a 3 day compact car rental, SF to LA for $318 total, which includes a $120 one way drop off fee. That price will be hard to beat anywhere.

starrs

Are you spending any time in the city? It's cheaper to pick up at a rental counter in the city (any rental company) than at the airport.

sf7307

It is possible that a large part of the price is the drop-off fee (for picking up in one location and dropping off in another). This is very provider-dependent, and also dependent on the time in question --- if they need to get cars from SF to LA, they're not going to charge as much, but if they don't, they will charge a hefty fee.

That said, I just checked Dollar's O'Farrell St. location in San Francisco, and they have cars for $40 a day.

razzledazzle

I just got this quote from Hertz-Dec.7-10, 2010
for a mid-size Nissan Sentra
Pick up at
550 OFarrell Street
San Francisco, CA,

and drop off at
450 North La Cienega
Los Angeles, CA,

$508.16

https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/reser...eQuoteView.jsp

Although there is a mention of a
miscellaneous location fee....

R5

J62

I see the same rate sf7307 saw on www.dollar.com. $40/day, but when you go through the booking process there is a $400 one way drop off fee, total rate $573.

easytraveler

As you can see from the above responses, the major cost of a one-way car rental is the drop-off fee. Picking up in one city and dropping it off in another can get really expensive.

The best thing to do is to go to every large car rental website and input your dates and all relevant information and see what comes up. If you can get something with a drop-off fee of about $100, that's good. No drop-off fee is even better. If you don't get anything reasonable on the first try, keep trying.

The major car companies are Hertz, Avis, Budget, National, Alamo, Dollar, Thrifty, and Enterprise. Enterprise is the largest car rental company in the US. It offers free both pick up and drop off service (from your home, office, hotel), which no other rental car company does.

Picking up or dropping off at an airport involves the added airport fees, which used to be about $3 but now average around $30, so try for an off-airport location if possible. Many of the in-town car rental locations are either in or near big hotels.

As J62 has said, it is inadvisable to buy a car just because you want to drive from SF to LA.

Have a great trip and welcome to California!

razzledazzle

hi et-
Hertz offers free pick-up and return services
https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/byr/i...nited%20States

We use Hertz from our town in Sonoma County
to do a one way drive to SFO and have
never been charged a one way fee by them.

R5

SOCALOC

It never hurts to check flight/car packages with your airline, if you haven't already.

sf7307

razzle, how do you get home?

easytraveler

R5: that's good to know. Guess the competition from Enterprise is forcing the other rental companies to offer the same free services.

You're very lucky in the North Bay. I have never been able to get a free dropoff with pickup in San Jose and dropoff at SFO. Life would be a lot easier if I didn't have to get up at 4 or 5 am and be chauffeur to SFO!

sf7307

>>

Living less than five miles from SFO has its advantages!

Razzle, I just realized you said one-way to SFO, I was thinking one-way into the city, and couldn't figure out what you did after that. I assume you just rent another one-way car to get home from SFO?

razzledazzle

LOL ! sf7307, gosh you made me laugh !
I had a mental picture of you wondering
"How the heck do they get home ?" :-?

yes, we either take the Sonoma County Airport Express
bus or rent another car and drive back.
It usually works out to be similar in cost
with coupons, CSAA, etc.
The bus leaves so extra early for the early AM flights,
that we can sleep another hour if we rent
the car. On the return, it depends on how late
we get back and if we are too tired to drive.
We've gotten some very nice rentals
on the return leg-seems people reserve
them for touring the wine country and
we drive them up there.
We think they should pay us !

The only time we take the car into the City
is to the museums in Golden Gate Park or the
Legion of Honor. We use the ferry from Larkspur
for everything else when we visit in the City.

R5

AshleyWilis

Hi,
I am new in this forum, and also new in San Francisco and want to Hire a Car for me and my family want to drive down to California. Does anyone know about the car hiring companies?
I have visited sites like this http://www.travellers-autobarn.com.au/ very impressive but looking something like this in San Francisco

Thanks

NeoPatrick

Ashley, welcome to Fodors. But with all due respect, have you read the thread you posted to? All your answers are right here. What more questions do you have? Or are you actually looking to rent a camper van?

weimarer

OP, check at Hertz off-airport, but be sure and select Australia as your country of residence (upper right on the page), hit go, then put in the dates and location. There is one right near the airport (South San Francisco), otherwise the downtown one mentioned above will work. It'll be about $70-80/day total incl taxes, fees, (no separate one-way charge) plus they include suppl liability insurance and LDW in that rate. I know you said you are covered, but you may want to check again on that. Most travel insurance policies I've seen in Aus, like Allianz, have 5 million personal liability, but if you read the policy (it was on page 10 of the one I looked at), it specifically excludes use of a motorized vehicle of any kind. The CDW they have is usually for the "excess" (deductible), which you won't have in the US anyway when the insurance is included in the rental like it is.