Car Rental

We have a gang coming in to visit for a week at the end of the month. They're asking about car rentals.

Are they generally better off to rent at the airport or at Lakeside?????

Any recommendations?

Thanks

SunFan

Notice that I finally found an avitar that truely reflects my appearance and personality.

SunFan

I would rent from Mark Turford. His rates (all in) are about $30 to $40 USD per day. The "majors" charge a fortune for insurance (something like $58 per day) plus the rental cost.

BTW....there are a few other car rental threads here if you do a search.

Mark is a nice person to deal with. Prices based on year and model.

Totally agree that I'd be checking with Mark. He's not only a nice guy, but he's as honest as they come and he takes care of his customers.
I rented from him for 3 months when I first got here and he also helped me buy a car at the end of the 3 months.
Definitely send him and email or give him a call -

markturford@yahoo.com
376 765 4341 or 376 766 1776

Rates are cheaper at the airport. Insurance is covered for a flat rate if you have that service thru American Express and use the card for the rental. I usually end up having to pay about $10/day for Optional Liability Insurance which is bogus since by law Mexican Liability Insurance is carried by the car, not the driver. Just look in the glovebox for a copy of the car's liability insurance. I just tire of arguing with the car rental agents.

Three different friends have tried to get car rental companies at GDL to accept the AMEX coverage within the past year and all refused.

I have never had a problem using the insurance via Amex, save for the aforementioned optional liability coverage.

Tomgates:

Given the amount of time spent with emails and phone calls prior to our trip last August, I would give myself a "B" for understanding the "Rental Car Cartel" at GDL. From my research, you are partially correct about the Liability Insurance. When one digs into the liability aspect, you should find that in order to comply with the Mexican Govt. regulations stating that Liability Insurance must be included in the daily rate, a very minimum amount of coverage is actually included in the daily rental rate. From the varying coverage amounts I have seen - there is no way I would drive around the block with such minimum coverage. Depending on company, the add on liability coverage may be called either Supplemental Liability Insurance or Third Party Liability Insurance. To my knowledge, none of the credit card coverages will address liability insurance. While a few companies will allow you to decline this coverage - watch out for the horrendous deposits required to do so. It is better to bite the bullet and agree to this charge. I also found out that when one declines this coverage, you won't have legal assistance, which I consider to be essential in Mexico!

As for comprehensive, theft and personal injury - I only found one company willing to waive these policies and that was Payless Car Rental and that was only because we carry the AMEX Premium Car Rental Policy for which we pay $24.95 for any period up to 42 days rental. I am unsure of the standard insurance that AMEX offers with their card. Note: Payless corporate could give me no answers in this area and it was only after I talked to Juan at the GDL location (Hotel Casa Grandes) that I was able to find this out. By going this route, we were able to keep our 16 day rental costs within an acceptable range.

A Couple of Comments on renting from Payless: We rented a standard sized car and the cars shown on the Payless website have no correlation with actual vehicles. In our case, we ended up with a three or four year old Chevy Optra with quite a bit of wear and about 60K in miles. Our pickup time was at about 10pm which made taking photos of vehicle condition virtually impossible. We had no problems with the vehicle although, I thought twice before rolling at really high speed on the cuotas basically keeping it around 90mph. Juan did try to pull a slight fast one about a scuff on the rear bumper but I basically told him that if he tried to pull a fast one, I would protest the entire charge. After all the BS, they never ran any kind of charge for a deposit and then it took them exactly two weeks from the day we turned the car in to actually submit the rental charges to AMEX!

SunFan wrote:Notice that I finally found an avitar that truely reflects my appearance and personality.

SunFan

Change your name to "Cabeza Olmeca"! What gang? Salvatruchas?
gm

Gracias Gringomojado!

Salutos

SunFan

I neglected to state that when doing my research, I checked out: Budget, Avis, Alamo, Dollar, Thrifty, National, Ace, E-Z, Hertz, Sixt, Autoeurope, Europcar and a number of locals. These are all franchises and they get to make their own rules!

Thanks all!

Seems like they'll rent from Mark with full insurance.

Mucho gracias

SunFan

SunFan wrote:Thanks all!

Seems like they'll rent from Mark with full insurance.

Mucho gracias

SunFan

Plus Mark will come and get em from The Aeropuerto ...