Unmarked Rental Cars
 

We'll be visiting Florida soon & renting a car out of Orlando. Does anyone know which, if any, rental companies make it obvious that the car is a rental? From what I've seen around my home state, Enterprise cars have "advertising" bumper stickers & I'd like to avoid that. We're looking at E-Z Rent-a-Car because of their current price & location in the terminal, but we'll find another company if their rental cars have their name on it.

Thanks....

We have rented twice through Alamo out of Orlando airport and I can't remember anything obvious on either car marking it out as rental.

What problem are you trying to solve? If it's "I'm a tourist and there may be something valuable locked in the car" there's not much you can do about that, marked or unmarked.

A thief looking to find a rental car doesn't need a big ole "this is a rental car" sign.

Here are a couple of ways I can spot a rental car in 5sec or less.

Most if not all rental car co's put a bar code on the window somewhere. Inconspicuous but easy to see if you're looking.

Certain kinds of cars are only (or primarily) purchased by rental car co's. These include many Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, and Hyundai sedans. You'll find far fewer Toyotas and Hondas on rental car lots.

I thought that Florida passed a law requiring that rentals be anonymous after a rash of attacks on tourists.

Bob, the license plates used to be marked as rentals - that is what the legislature changed.

Didn't license plates start with a "Z" a long, long time ago? Or some identifying letter or number on the license plate. Obviously, not anymore. If you get a GPS in a Hertz car, you could tell, but you'd have to look pretty hard. Zipcar, which I'm sure you're not going to use, has their logo on the side door, but Zipcar is more for locals, although I'd use it if I we're traveling.

I rented from Avis in Miami 3 weeks ago and the car was so indistinguishable from others that I could not find it in a mall parking lot - no markings, special plate, etc.

Avis is good for that. There was one time I picked up my rental car, drove to the Red Sox @ Angels game and once I was leaving the game, I walked for a long time trying to find it due to the car being indistinguishable and the parking lot being so boring. I had to go back to my camera and look at the pics I took once I got out of my car to figure out what angle I walked in at. Once I did, I was 100 yards away from my car.

I live in Florida and rent from Enterprise several times a year for in state business travel. I have never seen anything on an Enterprise car that would indicate it is a rental.

I don't understand the problem, but I know a lot of people are very self conscious about this. I know one person who picks up some various window stickers -- like a college logo from another state -- and sticks then in his rear window went he rents a car and just peels them off when he returns it. Kind of funny to me, but it certainly disguises the car.

Living in Florida for ages I thought when standard license plates here had "Sunshine State" instead of the name of the county it meant they were rentals, but then I found many corporate owned cars and many leased cars do that too.

The change in the DC area from marking rentals with easily distinguishable license plates was due to the increase in car jackings and auto thefts... regular tags blend in and operators aren't spotlighted as out of towners, etc.

What sweetblues said about DC license plates applies to Florida for the same reasons, including the murder of two British tourists in a rest area some years back.

Some rentals _may_ have barcodes in windows, but so do many office parks and even condo developments, so it is not a distinguishing mark for a rental.