In December I'll be flying out to Denver, CO for my daughter's graduation in Boulder. Now that I own a Prius, I'd rather be driving another one than any other car. Does anybody know which rental companies offer Prii and how much extra might I be expected to pay?
The car sharing companies Zipcar and Flexcar have several of them around DC...most of them at or close to Metro stops. You can get it for a few hours or a few days. Check their websites. They may have something similar in the area where you're travelling.
I got one from Enterpise. Don't know if they still have them. They could not gaurntee me a Prius. Just a "mid-sized" car.
Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I need to wait until closer to the tiime to find out what the rental companies might have. I'm not sure I could rent one from a Toyota dealer -- it will depend on whether the dealer would bring it to the airport. On a recent trip I saw another Prius parked at a rest stop and asked the driver how he liked it. He said it was a rental -- I should have asked him then how he got it.
I called Enterprise before I flew to Nashville last month, and they said they don't have them available anymore, as I believe was reported a few months ago by others trying to rent them. I tried several other namebrand rental companies, but finally gave up. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised by the gas mileage of the Malibu that Thrify gave me. Even with the A/C on at 70 mph it got 33-34 mpg. At one point, heading up into Virginia on Rt 81, the car was AVERAGING 39.9 mpg without the A/C!
Try a google search with "Prius rental car" - I just did it and came up with a few eco-friendly rental car companies. One of them is called Fox, but the only location they have in Colorado is at Aspen Airport.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(keydiver @ Jul 20 2006, 05:56 PM) [snapback]289618[/snapback]</div> I'm not too worried about the gas mileage, although it would be nice to get Prius mileage -- I'm more afraid that I might have forgotten by then how to drive a "normal" car! "Where's the Power button on this darn thing??!!"
I just took a quick Google as well--it seems some Toyota Dealerships also rent cars. Could be worth a phone call or 2!
The Hertz rental car office that rented me an Avalon (on Toyota's dime of cou rse) for a couple of days while my wife's '02 Prius was in the shop for 40G commented that they have several Prius rental cars in their local fleet. Ironically he said many people either *only* want the Prius, or they get into it and state they want a "regular" car as they're intimidated by the controls of the Prius. So check w/ Hertz - you may get lucky.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(htmlspinnr @ Jul 22 2006, 12:38 AM) [snapback]290334[/snapback]</div> Thanks, I will. I can see how many people who drive regular cars would be totally intimidated by the Prius.
