Renting a Prius

[notetojenn]

I'd like to rent a Prius for a week before committing to buy, and Hertz advertises that they offer the Prius for rental. When I called them, however, none of the rental locations within 2 hours of me carried one. Does anyone know of any way to rent one?

Thanks!

[tanglefoot]

Some dealers have rental programs. See if one of these is near you.

http://www.toyota.com/toyota/html/sh.../faq.jsp#faq05

[aaf709]

I rented one from Enterprise, but that was back in 2005.

Before I got my previous car (a Ford Probe) I went to a dealer and rented one from them.

[notetojenn]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tanglefoot @ Jun 13 2007, 04:47 PM) [snapback]461086[/snapback]</div>

Some dealers have rental programs. See if one of these is near you.

http://www.toyota.com/toyota/html/sh.../faq.jsp#faq05
[/b]

THere are a couple within two hours, but none have the Prius.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(aaf709 @ Jun 13 2007, 04:49 PM) [snapback]461093[/snapback]</div>

I rented one from Enterprise, but that was back in 2005.

Before I got my previous car (a Ford Probe) I went to a dealer and rented one from them.
[/b]

Yeah, I called them and they no longer have the Pri.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[9G-man]

What an excellent idea, and exactly what I did originally in 2005.

The local Toyota dealers around me in the north Atlanta area all rent through the TRAC program (Toyota Rent-A-Car).

I test drove a fully equippped (Nav) model for two days, on my normal work commute, to see what kind of results I would get, since the reports at the time were so varied.

We'll I got over 60MPG on my commute and was able to duplicate all of the driving techniques I had read about here. I was sold.

Find a dealer that participates in the TRAC program. That is a great way to try before you buy!

[moxiequz]

I rented a Prius for a week before purchasing one. Getting a chance to try it out beyond the test drive actually changed my mind about whether to get one or not (I was originally going to pass it up). For any lurkers in the Bay Area I got my rental at Melody Toyota in San Bruno. I tried calling Hertz and other rental places but they all told me that while they did have Prii as part of their rental fleet I couldn't be guaranteed that's the car I'd get when I picked it up.

[boulder_bum]

If the dealer doesn't work, I think Avis/Budget are starting to rent them as early as next week:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-0...epagetravel-hed

[JoannSolberg]

I just read a small blurb in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which stated Hertz will add 3,400 Prius to its fleet by 2008 AND Avis will make 1,000 Prius available as early as next week. So maybe give Avis a try & see when they'll be getting them in! Good luck!

[notetojenn]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JoJo @ Jun 15 2007, 02:37 PM) [snapback]462460[/snapback]</div>

I just read a small blurb in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which stated Hertz will add 3,400 Prius to its fleet by 2008 AND Avis will make 1,000 Prius available as early as next week. So maybe give Avis a try & see when they'll be getting them in! Good luck!
[/b]

Yup, I saw that too. Thanks for pointing it out. I called both. Hertz doesn't have them yet, and I am not waiting until 2008! Avis' cars are all on the west coast and NYC.

I did have several bizarre conversations with the car rental operators, who didn't know what a pri was and couldn't understand when I explained that it didn't fit into any of their current car rental categories.