Anyone travelling to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico for a holiday can now arrange their car hire through Sixt, thanks to the company’s recently-opened office in the island’s capital, San Juan.

The branch provides a free shuttle bus service to and from the nearby interational airport and can also arrange to pickup and dropoff cars at various other points around the city. A wide range of cars and SUVs are available and Sixt’s franchise partner in Puerto Rico, Quality Car Rental, has more than 20 years experience of providing car hire in Puerto Rico.

CLICK HERE to get a Sixt car hire quote for Puerto Rico

Holiday car hire often means driving around in a new-but-dull little runabout. No disrespect to such cars – they are practical, easy to drive and cheap to rent – but sexy, they aren’t.

Of course, you can usually choose a slightly large model – a fleet favourite like a Ford Mondeo, VW Passat or perhaps a C-class Mercedes, for example.

But what if you want something really special and have a bit of money to blow? What if you are visiting places like Malaga and Marbella, where bling is king, and you don’t want to look like you’ve just escaped from the M25?

Sixt may have the answer. The German car hire giant is now offering Porsches for hire at its Marbella and Malaga branches. Drivers can choose between the pure sportiness of the Porsche 911 and the high-speed-luxury-for-4 appeal of the new Porsche Panamera.

Prices start from just £140 per day for a 911 and £330 per day for the Panamera (based on a two-week rental). The Porsches are available for both short and long-term hire.

Visit Sixt’s website for an instant quote:

A lot of people can quite honestly say that they would love to own and drive a more environmentally-friendly car – but they simply can’t afford to change their current car. I know that’s true for me.

However, one solution for light car users who live in towns and cities is not to own a car at all – something I’m quite keen on! Car hire companies are making this easier and easier for ordinary mortals by increasingly offering free delivery and collection services and the like.

Several car hire companies are now also offering special low-emission ranges of rental cars. Two such companies are Hertz (with its Green Collection) and Avis (with its Avis Eco Collection). Both offer genuinely low emission cars – such as the Toyota Prius, VW Golf Bluemotion and the Seat Ibiza Ecomotive – available for hire – at very ordinary rates.

To learn more about either companies’ offerings, click on the banners below:

Following neatly on from my last post about Sixt’s deployment of electric hire cars in London, Renault has announced that it has received an order from Europcar for 500 electric cars from its forthcoming Z.E. (Zero Emissions) range of electric cars.

A prototype of the Renault Fluence Zero Emission electric car

The cars are due for delivery from the third quarter of 2011 and will be available for hire in cities across Europe – the primary market for electric cars at present. Renault’s Zero Emission (Z.E.) range will initially be made up of three models:

• Fluence Z.E. (pictured above) – a four-door saloon
• Twizy Z.E. – a small, city car
• Kangoo Z.E. – an electric version of Renault’s popular Kangoo small van

Car hire company Sixt will be offering electric car rental in London, stating from the 4th March, 2010. Sixt’s Fulham branch will be offering the Citroen C1 Ev’ie for hire – an all-electric version of the popular C1 supermini.

The C1 Ev’ie apparently has a range of up to 75 miles, a top speed of 60mph and can be charged for as little as 95p in electricity costs. Drivers of electric cars in London gain access to a number of benefits, including:

• Exemption from the London Congestion Charge
• Designated parking spaces and recharging spots

The electric C1 will be on display at Sixt’s Fulham branch and will be available for rent from 4th March.

Click here to visit Sixt’s website.

If you would like to try an electric car and live in or near London, then help may be at hand. GoGo Electric Car Rentals is based in Brixton and has a fleet of Mega City electric cars that are available for daily rental.

Benefits of electric car use in London include free parking, exemption from the congestion charge and even free parking at specified points in the City of Westminster, according to GoGo Electric Car Rentals. To find out more, visit GoGo’s website or give them a call on 0845 299 7260.

One of the most common problems that car rental firms and their customers experience is disputes over damage.

The rental firm claims – often after the car has been returned – that certain damage has been caused by the renter. The renter disputes this but is unable to provide evidence to back his or her claim up – apart from the notes from the walkaround inspection at the beginning and end of each rental.

The problem with a walkaround inspection is that it is not always very accurate or comprehensive. The last two times I hired a car (from a major international car rental firm), the pickup walkaround inspections were flawed:

• One the first occasion, the car I was collecting was black and was still wet from being washed after its last rental. On top of this, it was dark outside. You try finding minor paintwork damage or small dents on a wet, black car in the dark. I just had to take a chance that all was okay.
• On the second occasion, the agent from the rental company did not notice that both of the car’s wing mirrors had been badly scraped and then touched up (also badly!) by a previous customer. I pointed this out and it was recorded – but otherwise I might have been held responsible.

Hertz’s solution is to start taking high resolution ‘before and after’ photographs of each car. The scheme has been trialled for the last month at a US car rental location and Hertz is positive about the impact it has had.

Hertz hopes that the scheme will help reduce customer disputes and lower its repair bills, which run to $170m a year at present.

I can see the benefits of this system. Hertz will be able to produce before and after photos to prove that a car was damaged during the rental period. However, in the cases I mentioned above, photographs would only really have helped in the second instance. A wet car photographed in the dark will still not show up damage like a dry one in daylight.

Has anyone had any experience of this system in practice, yet? If so, leave a comment below, I’d be very interested to know more about how it works in reality.

Car rental firm Sixt has just opened two new car hire offices in Brussels South station and Maastricht Central station.

This follows the highly successful opening of a rental office directly opposite Amsterdam Central Station last year. It seems that long-distance railway travellers want to hire cars at their destinations! According to Sixt’s Thomas Walters, the “opening of the Sixt branch at Amsterdam Central Station proved to be an enormous success”.

Sixt expects this trend to continue, especially as Brussels South is one of the key international interchanges for rail travel in Europe.

Click here to visit Sixt’s website for a quote or to book a hire car.

International car rental company Avis has just opened its first branch in Vietnam.

Located in the capital, Hanoi, Avis’ first Vietnam office has been opened in response to “overwhelming demand from our corporate and leisure customers”, according to Eric Brun, General Manager of Avis in Asia.

Avis is planning to open a second branch, in Ho Chi Minh City, before the end of 2009 and a further branch, in Danang, in 2010. The company expects its Vietnam fleet to grow to over 300 vehicles by the end of 2011 and is working on partnership arrangements with various airlines and hotel chains.

Customers can choose from a wide range of vehicles, including Mercedes saloons, 4×4 vehicles and minibuses/minivans.

To learn more about Avis or get an instant quote for Vietnam car rental, click here.

Although the cost of car hire in America is rising, it seems that the opposite is happening in Europe. That’s right. In many European countries, car rental rates are falling.

According to the Post Office Travel Services Motoring on the Continent Report 2009, car rental costs in many European countries are lower than this time last year. For example:

• Greece car hire costs down by 36%
• Sweden car hire costs down by 32%
• Portugal car hire costs down by 21%
• Portugal is also the cheapest place to hire a car in Europe

One of the biggest surprises to me was that the UK rated as the second-cheapest place in Europe to hire a car – with only Portugal coming in cheaper.

Heading to Florida?

Any heading across the Atlantic for some Florida sun will be in for an expensive shock. Rising US costs and a weaker pound mean that the cost of car rental in Florida has risen by a whopping 64% since this time last year. Ouch.

Note: Car hire costs were calculated based on a 3-day hire with 200 miles of motoring. Figures published by Post Office Travel Services.