Hertz - Cheapest way to rent a hybrid?

In your opinion what is the cheapest way to rent a hybrid (and guarantee it is one)? I'm not so concerned with whom I rent it from rather price is most important.

I am planning a weekend road trip from Dallas (where I live) to Little Rock from Aug 15-17. I can pick up anywhere that makes sense in the Dallas metroplex, but I live near DFW in the Las Colinas/Irving area.

Is priceline the way to go? Hotwire? Directly though one of the car rental sites?

Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

What's the goal of renting the Hybrid? On the highway the Prius doesn't do much better than other small cars like a Corolla.

What's the goal of renting the Hybrid? On the highway the Prius doesn't do much better than other small cars like a Corolla.

Perhaps for the novelty or to try before he buys.

Hertz will guarantee a model, in theory. If you're willing to leave it to chance, you might pay less to reseve an economy car and upgrade at the counter, but obviously that leaves it up to chance.

Zipcar rents them too.

What's the goal of renting the Hybrid? On the highway the Prius doesn't do much better than other small cars like a Corolla.
huh?

my prius gets 60+ mpg on the hwy. in fact, hwy driving on cruise control is where the prius really comes into its own.

huh?

my prius gets 60+ mpg on the hwy. in fact, hwy driving on cruise control is where the prius really comes into its own.

Although, the Prius does get great mileage in the highway, I beg to disagree on where it comes into its own. Prius's strongest point is city driving, where it can regenerate a ton of enegy, thus why its city MPG is higher then its highway.

One note for people is that there are ways to tweak and drive differently to push the MPG of any car, and the Prius is no different. The real world (without tweaking/hypermilling techniques) is around 48 City/45 Highway.

Do not rely on the trip computer for the Prius..

And I agree - Prius has it just a bit better than the Corolla in terms of gas mileage, but performance is not that great.

You can choose a Hybrid at most major locations such as airports, its one car choices I see online.

Briefly, I don't think renting a Hybrid for a road trip will be worth the extra cost if you're only looking at saving gas. At EWR for example, the Prius is going for almost double the price of regular midsize cars for a weekly rental.

I've rented Prius about a total of 4 week over the last couple years. Without changing my driving style I get about 45 MPG combined, but mostly highway. That's the indicated MPG on the display. Not sure of the actual calculated amount.

I can get close to 40 on a Corolla or my parents Honda Civics (96 and 2005 Coupe EX).

I also drove a Lexus RX400H for a day and got mid-20s MPG, about the same as the Highlander Hybrid (they're basically the same car). Considering our V8 Infiniti FX45 gets about 20 on the highway, I don't consider 20's a great achievement.

Also as another data point, we rented a Corvette in Florida and got 30mpg on the highway. I bet it could be even better if I drove the posted limit.

For comparison, in NYC traficc we really saw the advantage of hybrids. The Prius got us about the same 45mpg, but our Infiniti only gets around 9mpg, our MB SLK350 gets about 17mpg, MB C300 loaner also got around 17mpg.

The goal is to not drive a car that gets a lot better mileage than my car which averages 24 mpg. In the end I don't want the miles on my car and I want to save some money.

What's the goal of renting the Hybrid? On the highway the Prius doesn't do much better than other small cars like a Corolla.

The goal is to not drive a car that gets a lot better mileage than my car which averages 24 mpg. In the end I don't want the miles on my car and I want to save some money.

You may have an extra not in there. As suggested above, a corolla gets 35-40 mpg, thats what I drove before my camry hybrid (which gets 41 lately).
At 24 mpg, for 650 miles round trip, 4 bucks a gallon, I get $108 for using your car. 35mpg corolla costs $74, 45 mpg prius costs $58. If the prius costs more than $16 more than the corolla (bet on it), either the novelty or enviromental consciousness is worth the expense, or you're wasting green being green.

Yes I have a couple reserved in the future and it is for the novelty factor. I am going to be mad if I were to show up and see a Fusion/Camry (gas) in my space. If i wanted that I would have booked a midsize or fullsize.

The total bill was only about 20 cents more for the hybrid than full size and 7 bucks more than midsize on both bookings.

I booked and received a Prius for two weeks last month out of SFO. It was horribly expensive (450/week). Even though I put 2,000 miles on the thing I knew I wouldn't end up saving on gas. I got it for the novelty factor. I always wanted to buy a Prius in the past, but couldn't justify spending all the extra cash (I ended up with a Honda Fit). So renting a Prius got that out of my system.

Plus it was fun to drive from one side of Blue Lake, CA to the other on just the battery! :)

(Regular gas in Humboldt County, CA last month was $4.79 gallon too. Ouch!)

I booked Std or Full at LGB. This was last year, 2 day weekend rental. With coupons, the rate was pretty low. They were going to give me a Grand Prix. :mad: I try to get something else as this car eats gas. I asked what else they had. Prius came up. I asked how more more. They said $10/day more. Done. ^ I seen alot of Prius on their lot that day.

At the time, the Prius used about $25 less gas so I came out ahead. I wanted to try out the car so the upgrade was well worth it. I averaged 55 mpg. :) Over 60mpg in town.

I did have an extra "not" in there. Good catch.

So has anyone ever rented a Hybrid anything off of priceline and the name your own price model?

You may have an extra not in there. As suggested above, a corolla gets 35-40 mpg, thats what I drove before my camry hybrid (which gets 41 lately).
At 24 mpg, for 650 miles round trip, 4 bucks a gallon, I get $108 for using your car. 35mpg corolla costs $74, 45 mpg prius costs $58. If the prius costs more than $16 more than the corolla (bet on it), either the novelty or enviromental consciousness is worth the expense, or you're wasting green being green.

I did have an extra "not" in there. Good catch.

So has anyone ever rented a Hybrid anything off of priceline and the name your own price model?

re: not -- got to be sure we give you advice in the right direction!

If you're really just looking to save wear and tear and save money, I'd reserve a compact or economy. The other way to play it is to surf the frequent flier and rental care forums here for coupon codes -- maybe there's one for a hybrid. Alternately, hertz has crazy good codes with southwest (even if you dont fly them). When you get to the counter, talk your way into the prius for cheap, or free if they're out of your car. I think you'll save money that way. You'll pay more guaranteeing it in advance -- only helps if you're trying to drive before you buy or something.

I'll be away on vacation; be sure to post what actually happens, your mileage, and such!

I have rented a Prius twice from Hertz in the past year.

First time was in the spring, low season for PDX, and I booked using coupon codes I found on FT that gave a great discount off of hybrids (no surprise: those coupons are gone). This was an insurance replacement, though, so I wasn't all that too concerned with the price, since I only paid a small deductible.

Second time was two weeks ago in Vegas, again not high season there, but this time was with Gold 5* status on a super cheap A class (econ) rental. The Gold reps at LAS were very accomodating (2 out of 3 were) and didn't blink at upgrading me to "any car you want", so I asked for and received a Prius (no charge).

HLE's here in PDX never have Prius available. And IME HLE are much more reluctant to give good upgrades on cheap rentals (exception below: exchanges).

So, my tactic would be to:

get #1 Gold if you don't already have it (not noted in your profile; there are free offers all over)
reserve the cheapest car you can at DFW (probably economy)
pitch for the best upgrade for you

When you get to the airport you'll probably find you've been upgraded to a big un-fuel efficient car or SUV. This actually works in your favor, because now you can "downgrade" with no issues. If you can't get a Prius, I would look around for a Mazda 3 or a Subaru Impreza, as well as the Corolla.

One last tactic: Hertz is generally very good about exchanges mid-rental. The policy seems to be that if you come in for an exchange, it is an inconvenience and you should be accomodated through upgrades. I have gotten some very nice upgrades by doing exchanges at both airports and HLE's. I've even been known to leave the airport and drive straight to an HLE to see what they have on the lot.