Not cheap car rental but exotic car rental

There’s something awesome about some of the high-end cars. It’s not just the look, it’s the whole package of how the engine sounds when you rev it up to the way it moves on the road when you step gently on the gas pedal. Of course, you don’t always get electric acceleration from a Rolls Royce or a Bentley. That’s the slightly different market of luxury and status. But regardless of individual brand, the common denominator is one of these cultural intangibles. Simply being seen in one of these vehicles is good for your ego and many companies have built up a good niche market in renting them out on a daily rate. That way, “ordinary” people can live the dream for a few hours.

For some time there’s been debate in the mainstream rental industry as to whether any of these higher status vehicles should be added to the fleet. As business executives now jet around the world, there’s a move to add small numbers of these vehicles to the collection points at the hub airports or to make these vehicles available on preorder. That way, people can step out of first and business class, and take a ride to their 5 star hotel and business meetings in a vehicle of appropriate status.

More generally, companies like Avis are diversifying their stock at key airports. Instead of focusing on cheap car rental for standard fleet models, they are offering upgrades to specialty cars from stock.

So instead of driving away in something boring, you can be tempted into a Porsche or BMW Z4, assuming your credit card can stand the shock, of course. Indeed, BMW is allowing its dealers to rent out the top models by the hour or day. If you check your local dealers in the major US cities you should be able to find direct rental terms. Why should this be happening? In part, it’s probably a reaction to the continuing lack of excitement in the economy and driving a cheap car rental. When there’s disappointment all around, it gives us a lift to spend an hour or two living the American dream.

Cheap car insurance and those black boxes

Over a lifetime, there’s probably a balance in the good and bad surrounding the children we produce. But there are certainly times when we bitterly regret taking the plunge, as it were. There are those times at school or when early experiments with cigarettes and alcohol go horribly wrong. There’s all that attitude we get. But the worst comes when we’re supposed to calmly shell out on driving lessons and then, to add insult to injury, to buy a cheap car for them to drive and to pay for the insurance. The fact finding cheap car insurance for teens is like winning the lottery seems not to occur to them as they assert the divine right to disappear from sight for hours on end, driving who knows where, while all we can do is sit in prayer the next call will not come from the police or hospitals telling us when we can come in to collect the broken bits of body.

Then, suddenly, we might be tempted by the arrival of telematics – not those fuzzy TV characters with rhubarb growing out of their heads, you understand. The Co-op, we can’t go wrong with them, can we? have been running ads for their Young Driver Scheme. Instead of the usual “the sky’s the limit” approach to insuring the young, they will fit black boxes that will watch our kids like a hawk. If their spy finds our children have suddenly converted into angels on four wheels, we will be rewarded with lower premiums. That sounds like such a good deal until we remember our children are more likely to be recorded hotdogging around the local park at 2 in the morning – a stunt that will ensure we never see a premium under four figures for the next however many years until they leave the nest and start paying their own way in life. So although there’s that terrible lure of cheap car insurance for us to pay, we parents have to remember Big Brother watches and sees both good and bad. And the bad can be very expensive for us, if not for our young drivers of the year.

Common Scams Committed by Car Rental Companies

There are a lot of annoying things to deal with when it comes to renting a car. You are pressured into purchasing upgrades and insurance, and sometimes the car you reserved is “no longer available.” Many people feel like they would be better off taking a cab. Before you rent your next car, look out for these common car rental company scams:

Cheap Upfront Prices

Many companies allow you to reserve a car that is 40 dollars (or more) cheaper than competing companies. This is typically because on the day you show up, that car will no longer be available. To get a car, you will need to pay for an expensive upgrade or leave without a vehicle. Assuming you get a car, you will also have taxes and other fees added on in addition to the initial cost of the car. These fees typically raise the price 25% on average.

Extra Insurance

Most people renting a car will be covered by their current insurance policy. However, many people are still pressured by car rental companies to purchase extra insurance. This is the main way car rental companies raise the price of their rentals. Some companies will ask you to pay a deposit, or refuse to rent to you if you do not purchase the insurance. However, in most states, this is illegal – extra insurance is entirely optional.

Damage Charges

Some companies rent out vehicles that are not in the greatest condition. When you bring it back, they will charge you for damage they claim you caused, when in reality it was already there. After you’ve accepted the car and signed that it was in good condition, it is hard to fight these charges. It is important to make note of any damage prior to taking the vehicle off the lot.

Toll Fees

Some states no longer use tollbooths, and instead automatically mail you (or the rental company) a bill after you drive through a sensor. Car rental companies may take advantage of this and charge you well above what the actual toll was.

Gas Fill-Up

If you fail to return your rental car with a full tank of gas, you may be charged for the fill-up, plus an extra surcharge. Another scam is the “fuel package” which allows you to purchase gas from the rental company; at a much higher price then you could down the street.

Who gets the cheapest car insurance after the Olympics?

Who gets the cheapest car insurance?

You can’t have avoided noticing all the ads for these new black boxes. Low mileage drivers pay the least and get the Nirvana of cheap car insurance. Well, as if you needed an incentive to stay at home with the car in the garage, petrol and diesel prices are due to rise again. So even when the Olympics finish and we recover from the thrill of our great athletes winning all those medals, we might just as well stay on the couch. Before the Olympics, there had been weeks of petrol falls from the peak of 142p per litre in April to the current average of 130p per litre (diesel is averaging 137p). But wholesale prices have been going up and these will be passed on at the pumps.

Did you see the other day that the Bank of England is convinced inflation is not a threat. That’s reassuring, isn’t it! That means there will be no wage increases to cover our driving costs when the price increases trickle through to us. And not just to us, of course. All the goods we queue up to buy in our local shops have come by road, so all the prices will go up when pump prices rise.

Then there’s the slow spread of toll roads to think about. In another triumph for the Coalition, it’s proposing to to start imposing tolls on improved existing roads. Twenty miles of the A14 in Cambridge are now likely to be expensive to drive if current plans go ahead. We’re used to the idea of new capacity in our road system being tolled, but this is another broken promise from the Government. Except this complaint makes us all very old fashioned. By staying home we can really get cheap car insurance . If we insist on using expensive fuel to drive long distances on major trunk roads, we’ve no reason for complaint. If you use public infrastructure, you have to pay for it. The fact we drivers have been paying licence fees with the hope this money was improving our roads is like prehistoric. In our Big Society, everyone stays home and uses Skype to stay in touch.