Originally Posted by sdsearch

It is absolutely not true that SAN is < 2 hours drive to LAX no matter what the time of day or day of week or traffic. Yes, in perfect traffic that's how long it takes, but SoCal traffic is so rarely perfect.

The OP has not explained at which hour they're arriving. I can assure you from frequent personal experience that if the OP is arriving early- to mid-afternoon, by the time they would pick up a rental car, the drive will take way way longer than 2 hours, because there are daily long slow backups around the South Bay curve (starting just south of the 105, which is very soon after you leave LAX), usually continuing off and on to one degree or another through Long Beach at least. (Unlike some other cities, "rush hour" is spread over a much longer time in SoCal that you might expect.)

Check a traffic map on www.sigalert.com at various times of day if you don't believe me.

I don't have much experience with traffic south of SNA -- Orange County Airport -- because that's where my typical journey south on the 405 ends -- but the trip from LAX to passing SNA is no more than half of the trip to SAN, and this first part can easily take 1.5+ hours alone at the time of day I just mentioned (as well as many other times of day, including often on weekends too).