car rental in the states
 

Hey just booked tickets to New York, and i'm gonna need to rent a car for about 8 days while i'm over there...

what's a good and cheap place to rent cars, i basically just need something with four wheels and an engine that's not going to break down on me, and i'm happy.

any recommendations?

the ones i've tried gives me a price of around 600 USD, which i find rather expensive - but it might just be me thinking USA=Cheap cars :)

also i'll have to bring it cross the border to Canada as im going to spend a few days getting hammered in Toronto with an old friend of mine (without the car offcourse)

is that going to pose any problems?

$600 for 8 days seems outrageous. Of course renting in NYC will be higher than most any other place you try. Some perspective, I rented a car for 3 days last spring in Florida for $74. There are numerous rental companies, I did an online search, compared rates and booked the cheapest.
Good luck!

Hey ertmann. I don't know what the cheapest would be in New York (you could research that online as well as I can), but a useful piece of information might be that the law in New York state is that you cannot discriminate against someone based on their age. So it costs the same if you're 18 or 25 (in most states, if you're under 25, it's more expensive to rent a car, sometimes a lot more, and sometimes you can't).

So New York might just be more expensive in general due to that law. Dunno.

Hi Ertmann, try these two companies:

Enterprise rent-a-car

AVIS

These are the most popular and reliable car rentals in the states. On weekends you can get an economy car (Chevy Cobalt or KIA or Ford Taurus) for just $23/day. On a weekday, the price will be higher.

Second thing to consider is how old are you? If you are under 25 yrs old, the companies charge extra money - Enterprise charges $10/day extra, AVIS charges $25/day extra. If you are over 25, then you don't have to worry about them.

Third thing is that in addition to the regular car price & age surcharge, you have to cover the dreaded auto insurance. At Enterprise, I end up paying like $29/day extra alone for a basic coverage (premium is much more). I heard that in AVIS it is higher.

That is basically all I can tell you for now. Contact the companies and see if you can somehow get a bargain for the rental.

You can try Hertz too, they have the checkin checkout thing down to a handheld PDA thing and its much faster than the other companies. Also look for discounts like AAA.

edit: Dates?, hertz said 300 for 8 days starting tomorrow

laguardia
262.99 USD Per Week
Hyundai Accent or Similar
Economy Car Auto Trans Air Con

JFK
284.99 USD Per Week
Hyundai Accent or Similar
Economy Car Auto Trans Air Con

I'd comment on which car to choose, but really, when you rent, you really don't know what you're going to get in terms of reliability.

Even if the car is rated the best in reliability for owners and leasees, it generally has little coorelation with rent-a-cars.

You might get a super-reliable Kia and a lemon Honda or vice versa. It all depends on who rented it before you.

Good luck finding a car though, and as germain47 said, NYC is one of the highest priced places in the country.

If your going to spend the week in NYC then you may be better off just using public transportation. If you intend on leaving the city for a day or so then a service like zipfly might better serve you. A quick search in google found this service that may help you find a longer term rental at a decent rate.

I'm 26 so i don't assume my age is going to be much of a problem ;-) if i get upstate or to conneticut by public transport and rent a car from there, would that be likely to give me a better deal?

I need the car to get me to Boston and Toronto, and i don't have much time, so i sorta want to avoid spending it on public transport ;) even being a tree hugging european like me ;)