Renting a car

(Previous versions by Antti Hannula, Finland, 1992 1st updat by Herbert Neugebauer, Germany, 1993 2nd update by Maurizio Capobianco, Italy ,1995. Major changes 1996 by Christoph Jans, Switzerland. Update by Roberto Castagno, Italy, 1997)

General things to consider:

As America is a large and very car-oriented country (drive-throughs all over the place!), you may find yourself wanting to rent a car, either for a part of your stay or its entire length. There are a few issues with that you need to pay attention to:

In general, renting a car is more expensive than buying one. That, of course, is only true if you don't have any trouble with the car you bought. Also, you don't need to make a large investment to begin with if you rent a car. However, if you rent a car by yourself without sharing it (and the cost!) you may end up paying as much for your rental fees as somebody else paid to buy a cheap car. Of course, the person that actually bought the car can sell it again and regain some or all of their money while you just give back your rental and that's it. On the other hand, if you rent a car (if you rent from a good company), you can just take the car back if you don't like it and get another model (don't do that too often, though). The same applies if there's any defect. Most rental car companies have good roadside assistance programs and if you get stuck they usually are able to get a replacement car to you in a few hour's time.

To be able to rent a car from any car rental company, you'll need both of the following:

• A major credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express). This is mainly for deposit purposes, they 'put a hold' on your credit card for the amount of money you are expected to have to pay for the rental, insurance and so on. You can actually pay by almost any means at the end of the rental, such as credit card, check or cash.
  Don't even think of coming to the US without a credit card!
• A driver's license (usually your country's driver's license will do fine, at least with the larger rental companies). If you want to be on the very safe side, you can bring an international driver's license which you can obtain where you got your national one. A California driver's license is not required.

The costs of a car rental usually are made up of four components: The basic rental fee, insurance, additional surcharges, and taxes. Don't be scared away too much by the many and high costs listed in the following paragraphs. Look under 'car rentals for EuroStudents' for a special deal HP has arranged for all its employees with National Rent-a-Car.

The rental fee:

The rental fee covers the cost of actually using the car. It varies with the class (size/luxury) of car you rent. Usually, the price difference between a compact and a mid-size car is small (maybe $50/month) and if you are renting a car for a few people together, renting a somewhat larger car may be a very good idea, especially if you are going to travel larger distances in it.

All cars but the smallest usually come well-equipped (by European standards): all have air conditioning (at least here in California; and you need that, believe me), a radio (careful, some of the radios in smaller cars have no cassette player) power steering and air bags on both sides. The somewhat bigger cars also come with cruise control, power windows and power-everything.

Important: All cars are equipped with automatic transmissions. I badly wanted to rent a car with a manual transmission and didn't find a rental company that would rent cars with manual transmissions. On the other hand, if you have been in traffic jams for a while (and you will !), you may start to appreciate the good sides of an automatic transmission, no matter how much of a 'driver' you are. It took me a while to get used to driving an automatic, but at some time you cease to protest.

Rental Fees can be based hourly (forget that), daily (may be interesting for some trips), weekly and monthly (there's special weekend rates, too). If you plan to rent for a long time (like the entire three months), make sure you are renting on a monthly basis. Sometimes the employees at rental companies don't understand the system and set a three month rental to twelve weeks instead, which is a lot more expensive. Make sure you are paying once the monthly rate (which is 20 times the daily rate) instead of four times the weekly rate (which is 5.25 times the daily rate) if you rent for a month or longer. However , if you rent for a month and a half, you will probably have to pay once the monthly rate and twice the weekly one. Check when you are renting.

You may also need extend or even totally redo your rental contract (which may be a pure formality and you can keep your car if you like it) more than once in the 90 days you are in the US, as most rental companies don't allow contracts over such a long time. But this may also be good for you as this is an opportunity to get another car or to get rid of it altogether.

There's an issue you should be aware of: For car rentals, a month is defined as 30 days and if you, say, pick up the car July 1st and agree to bring it back by August 1st, that's 31 days and the rental company will charge you for 1 month and a day. So plan carefully with the end of your stay in mind when you rent the car or you may find yourself paying extra at the end.

Also, you may want to turn in the car early (for whatever reason). If you turn it in early because it's gotten too expensive for you, think again. If you turn it in after maybe three weeks of a monthly rental, you will be charged for three weekly rentals instead of three quarters of a month. And the three weekly rentals may be more expensive than the monthly one, so it may be smarter to keep the car for the rest of the rental period. So call first and ask if you plan to do something like this.

Furthermore, car rental fees are changing all the time like stock prices. So you may find yourself calling and making a reservation for a car (always make a reservation by calling the 800 number first, don't just show up, they probably won't have a car for you waiting and you get better prices if you call ahead, too) and getting a price X while your friend who calls tomorrow will be offered $20 more for the monthly rental. The bandwidth of these changes is not too big , though (it won't double in a month or so; but it may change consderately on convertibles and specialties like that), so don't worry too much about it. But don't rely too much on getting the same price next month as you did this month, either.

It's always a good idea to ask for a free upgrade (at the time you pick up the car !), you may be able to obtain a bigger /better car for the price of the smaller/worse one.

Insurance:

The next and very important issue (and cost factor !) is insurance. If you just rent a car form somewhere, usually NO insurance will be included at all. That means that if you cause an accident, you are liable for the damage to your rental car and any other property that you may damage (such as other people's cars). Furthermore, courts in the USA usually award huge sums (millions of dollars) for bodily injury. So an insurance is a good idea. To further complicate things, the insurance comes in at least two parts: damage and liability. Damage (usually LDW or something the like) covers the damage you may do to your rental car. This option costs you around $9 A DAY (that's $270 a month).

The other type of insurance is liability, this pays for charges that may be brought against you from people that get hurt by you or whose property (especially cars) you damage. Depending on the state you're renting in, some liability coverage may be included, but the amount is usually not very high (in California, it's $15000 as far as I know), so if you hit an expensive car or several cars or even worse, injure someone, you may find yourself paying the difference. Liability insurance is also around $9/day.

PLEASE NOTE: These insurances are not a ticket for reckless driving. If you drive in violation of the rental agreement (which you sign at the time of the rental) and things get real bad, you may find yourself not only in prison (unlike in some European countries, American police is usually not willing to argue and you may find it hard to talk your way out of it unless the offense is very minor), but also with charges totaling more than you'll ever earn in your entire work life.

Most rental companies also offer medical insurance. Check with your medical insurance from your home country and with the medical insurance from HP first before obtaining this. Otherwise you may be over-insured.

There's all kinds of names for the different types of insurance (usually three-letter abbreviations), depending on the company you rent from.

A thing about insurance in general: Although it is illegal in the U.S. to drive without having an insurance, there's an astonishingly high number of people on the streets that do not actually have an insurance. If you get in an accident with one of these people, you may find yourself in the situation of having to pay for the damage on your car even if it's not your fault if you don't have an insurance. So, no matter how good a driver you are, consider this issue, too.

You may be able to use the insurance you may already have for a car you own in your home country for a rental car in the US. Check this possibility BEFORE you leave. But don't hope too hard for it, as most European insurances I know of explicitly exclude the United States because of the high sums that are involved.

Surcharges:

The next thing you may have to pay for are all kinds of surcharges for all kinds of conditions. Some of them are:

• Under-25 surcharge: If you are under 25, you'll probably need to pay a surcharge of around $5 a day. This is to compensate for your lack of driving experience, the rental companies say. If you rent with National or Hertz as an HP employee, you don't pay this surcharge.
• Additional driver surcharge: If you rent a car for several people, you may have to sign in additional drivers if they want to drive the car, too. Sometimes, there's an additional surcharge per day for each additional driver. Surcharges are in the $5/day area. No additional fee is charged from National or Hertz if all drivers are HP emplyees. In particular, if you rent from National any employee can drive the car, and no paperwork is required.
• drop-off surcharge: if you drop off the car in another location than the one you picked it up at, you may have to pay another surcharge for that. The amount depends on the distance between the pickup and drop-off locations.
• There's more...

Tickets (parking, speeding, ...) with a rental car: Be aware that if you get a ticket with a rental car, especially a parking ticket, you should absolutely pay that ticket. If you do not do so, the rental company will gladly pay it on your behalf and put SOME surcharge to your credit card. Remember, they still have all your billing information.

Taxes:

As almost always in America, "taxes are not included". So you will need to add a sales tax of somewhere in between 4 to 10% to what you pay for the rental, insurance, and surcharges.

Car rentals for EuroStudents

'Car rentals' was one of the big concerns of the 1996 Euros, as we were quite unsure about what to do and heard many contradictory stories. Some of us also paid A LOT OF MONEY for lousy service (see 'what can happen to you if you rent from the wrong car rental company' further down). It took us a while to figure out what to actually do. As of October 1997, the policy is as follows:

Hewlett-Packard has a number of contracts with car rental companies that enable HP employees to rent cars from them at lower rates than you normally would pay. However, only the agreement with NATIONAL allows you to use the car for anything else than company business (strictly measured!), such as trips on the weekends. There is no other exception: no matter what your manager says about your trip, this is not an entirely business trip. In other words: don't even try to explain that "on that saturday evening in Napa Valley I really was on a business trip........"

If you need a car to go somewhere for business, most sites have cars available to the employees at that site and you can check one out at the front desk. Talk to your manager about this before checking out a car. Usually, the cars need to be back at a certain time the same day you checked them out. If you already have a car (rented/bought) and would rather use that car to go somewhere on business, talk to your manager about getting some money back from HP for the miles you drove. However, if you use you car for business use and you have an accident, your personal insurance would be required to pay. The bottom line is: "It is best to use a HP car for company business".

The only companies you may rent from under an HP agreement are National rent-a car or Hertz. If you still want to rent from another company you may do so (it's a free country!), but then you are on your own and may NOT make use of any special agreements that Hewlett Packard may have with that company. There's NO EXCEPTION to that.

Good News: the agreement with National

Here's a few things about the deal HP has with National: HP has arranged a contract with National that is not based upon the question whether your use of the car is entirely business, partly business, or not business at all. As long as you are an HP employee (but no longer than that!), you may benefit from the following arrangement HP has made with National:

National will rent a car at about the normal rental fee that everybody pays, but for HP employees, it INCLUDES the insurance (National calls it LDW - Loss Damage Waiver) for damage you may cause to the car. That's a $9/day savings. Furthermore, if you are under 25 (but over 21), you will not be charged any additional fees. Talk to Audrey Hemphill (phone 857-5104/ fax 857-6705) if you are under 21. You can also add any (reasonable) number of additional drivers without paying extra for them, as long as they are HP employees. Make sure to sign them up at the time of rental as additional drivers - in case of an accident, this may become important.

With regards to the insurance issue, the 1997 update of the agreement between HP and National states: "For rentals at U.S. locations, when the rate at the time of rental is a rate or discount specified by this Agreement, National will provide automobile liability insurance or a qualifierd self-insurance arrangemenet protecting the renter on a primary basis with respect to other insurance, for bodily injury or death to another and for property damage other than to the rental vehicle, provided the renter and any authorized driver have complied with the terms of the applicable standard Rental Agreement. In these instances, the limit of automobile liability shall be $500,000 Combined Single Limit, or the minimum limits required by the automobile financial responsibility or compulsory insurance laws of the state in which the vehicle is rented, whichever is greater. If the selected and effective rental rate at the time of rental is not a rate or discounts specified by this Agreement, the limits of liability described in the paragraph above do not apply. In these instances, the limit of automobile liability provided to the renter is at the minimum limits required by the automobile financial responsibility or compulsory insurance laws of the state in which the vehicle is rented, which ever is greater."

Translated in more down-to-earth terms, this means that if you rent a car from NATIONAL and use the special HP rates, you will get two basic benefits:

1. You don't have to pay the LDW insurance, i.e. if you or somebody else damages your rented car, you don't have to pay for the damage. (in Europe this is sometimes called "KASKO" insurance").y
2. You are provided with up to $500,000 in liability coverage in case of an accident for both business and personal rentals. This means that if you cause damage or injury to somebody else, you are quite reasonably covered and you don't have to pay yourself (with a limit of $500,000). Clearly, if you break the terms of the rental agreement (drive drunk or recklessly or other major violation etc) then the coverage is not provided. If you accidently run a stop sign or otherwise have a minor violation you are still provided coverage.

To get an idea of what kind of cars there are in the different classes, look at the following URL form AVIS, one of National's competitors (as of October 10th 1996, National's website (http://www.nationalcar.com) did not have any descriptions of the cars they have available):

Avis has many of the same cars as National available, but check first before you get too focused on any specific car. Also, not all kinds of cars may be available under the rental agreement HP has with National or at all locations , so check first. You can reach National Toll-free at 1-800-CAR-RENT (1-800-227-7368).

To be eligible to benefit from the HP-National agreement, you will need to prove that you are an HP employee, so you will at least need the letter you got from HP in your country stating that you have been accepted as an EuroStudent. If that doesn't work, your HP plastic batch (picture ID) that you will receive in the first few days of your stay will certainly do.

A very valuable source of information is the HP corporate travel WEB page: HP corporate travel WEB page. Find there information about the agreement and the prices for the rentals. If you are not sure about which category you fit into, just call 1-800-CAR-RENT an say that you are an HP employee and you want to hear about the rates for long-term rental.

Hint by Roberto: always call at least twice when using these 1-800 numbers to find out important information over the phone, not only for car rentals. Repeat the process until you get twice the same answer from at least two different people. You will have a higher chance to get the appropriate answer.

The contact person in HP for car rental related issue is Audrey Hemphill (phone: 857-5104, E-mail: audrey_hemphill@hp-paloalto-om4.om.hp.com), who kindly made herself available to answer your questions.

Other things to know:

Gas:

Gas a gas station at Rengstorff crossing Central Expressway in Mountain View not very far from the City Limit to Palo Alto, where you get a free car wash if you fill up your car.

The prices for gas are fabulous here in the USA, you pay around $1.30 for a gallon that's almost 4 liters) . It's about one fourth of the price in Germany, and Italy is even more expensive than Germany. You can drive a really big car here without worrying about the price for gas.

Usually, rental cars come with the tank filled up when you pick them up and need to be returned the same way. If you return them with a less than full tank, the rental company will fill it up and charge you about three times the normal price. That's why the following may be interesting: you may be able to purchase a tank full of gas (at the time you start your car rental) for a price that is usually lower than average. This will enable you to return the car with an empty tank (but you don't get credit if the tank is not empty). As the price they charge for this service is usually cheaper than what it would cost you to fill the car up at the gas station around the corner, this is a good deal. But check prices first.

Renting a car together with somebody else:

If you want to spend as little money on the car as possible, it makes sense to try and rent a car together with somebody else (or several somebodies). That way, you can split the cost and then it becomes really affordable. Usually, you won't be able to find out about who may be a good person to share a car with as long as you are in Europe (you may not even know if there will be a possibility to share cars), so you may want to first rent a car for yourself for, say, a week (if you want a car at all in the beginning) until things are a little more clear and then give your first car back and rent one for that group of people that rents the car together. This makes most sense if you live at the same place, we've had five people rentig a car together for the entire three months in 1996 that way. But plan this one well, we've also had combinations that didn't work...

Phone numbers:

Here's the phone numbers of a few large rental companies (remeber, if you for example want to travel after your work at HP, you will not be eligible for the special prices HP employees get through the contract with National, so you may want to call some other companies, too):

Alamo 800-327-9633	Hertz 800-654-3131
Dollar 800-800-4000	Budget 800-527-0700
Avis 800-831-2847	National 800-227-7368