Car Hire in New Zealand

[MarioKart]

Hi All,

My fiance and I will be getting married in Australia later this year then spending 10 days travelling around New Zealand. We're so looking forward to exploring this beautiful country and would like to hire a suitable car to make the trip extra special. We'd be collecting at Auckland airport and returning at Queentown.

Now I'm not talking about anything particularly exotic or 'PH', just something refined and comfortable like a 3-series or an A4. Needs to be automatic, with cruise control and preferably petrol. Maximum budget would be $2000.

Obviously I've searched on the internet and only a couple of companies offer the sort of car we're after, and always with the words 'or similar' in brackets after which makes me worry that we'll end up with diesel Passat or worse.

Having the right car is only going to be a small element of this trip of a lifetime, but being a motoring enthusiast it is important to me, so if anyone out there can offer any recomendations or share their experiences of car hire in New Zealand I'd be most grateful.

Many Thanks!

[lestag]

Your one way trip will command a premium ($200-$300 relocation fee)
hertz, avis, budget, thrifty, maui ,nationwide

Probably a toyota camry, hyundai i45 or ford falcon would be the only options . Won't find many europeans

have fun, 10 days to queenstown.. its long way, only A roads at best

[aucklander]

Mario I do a bit of work with Avis and Budget- you would enjoy a Holden Commodore SV 6 or Ford Falcon XR 6. Both auto, rwd, with 6 cyl engines. They are the only ones who rent Holden Commodores if thats your thing. They are pretty much the only two cars in the class and you wont get stuck with something like a Hyundai i45 or toyots Aurion I can guarantee you. Hertz and thrifty do just Falcons. The next class down from this is a toyota camry/ford mondeo; good cars but not particularly interesting in any respect. Not very ph, especially not for roads like ours.

commodore
falcon

Edited by aucklander on Sunday 22 July 12:50

[Omerta]

The problem you will find is that anyone renting anything interesting tends to operate locally, not nationally. So they would be unlikely to be keen on such a long one-way rental unfortunately.

[aucklander]

Omerta said:

The problem you will find is that anyone renting anything interesting tends to operate locally, not nationally. So they would be unlikely to be keen on such a long one-way rental unfortunately.

One option would be rent something standard like an XR 6 for 8 days, then once in queenstown get something really nice one of the local places. The roads around there are just superb.

[MarioKart]

Thanks for your input guys. A Commodore or Falcon would be more than adequate I'm sure. I'll do some more research and get and idea of costs. Is one any better than the other or are they fairly similar?

I'm like the idea of finishing the trip with something special in Queenstown- small 2-seater perhaps. Can you recommend anyone auklander?

[jatopack]

Falcon or Commodore? Depends who you ask - both are good six cylinder cars.

In normal drving (up to loss of license speeds) - you will not notice the difference.

[aucklander]

These guys have a Boxster http://www.luxuryrentalcars.co.nz/index.html
This co has 350z and Z4 http://www.eurocarrental.co.nz/rentalcars.html
I would reccomend these guys http://www.smartcars.co.nz/fleet.cfm
Used to do a little bit of work with them when they were tied in (not sure if still are) with Avis.

[SkylineObsession]

FORD!

A mate of mine is trying to start up a rental car company in Queenstown which caters to sportier cars (V35 Nissan Skylines and so on), but he's having trouble trying to find insurers last i heard. Probably why not many nice cars are available for hire.

[driverrob]

I discovered a Focus from Apex rentals was plenty fast enough to get me my only speeding ticket :-(