Steve Weagant

Is it possible to rent a car and ensure that it has this feature?

FlyinHawaiian

Not really. Only alternative if you get a car that doesn't have it is hope to swap into an Apple Play-enabled vehicle via Gold Choice/Ultimate Choice/Hertz Agent.

cestmoi123

Yup. Some of the Prestige collection may have Apple Carplay as standard, but outside of that, no guarantees.

I should add that MOST (but not all) of the Premium (G) class should have Carplay, since the dominant models there are the Impala and Maxima, and Carplay is standard in the 2017 Maximas, and is included in most trims of the Impala.

flyingcat

I love CarPlay and the best, but ironic choice is to take a GM vehicle especially since Hertz has many domestic makes in the economy and midsize tiers.

Once you get to any other larger class I just refer to this list as the makes are all over the place https://www.apple.com/ios/carplay/available-models/

jackal

FWIW, I actually hate CarPlay...it's slow, the interface is awkward, it takes over my screen as soon as I get in the car and plug my Lightning cord in to charge (making my screen go dark and interrupting whatever I was in the middle of doing, even if I'm just in park), and it disables a bunch of things that should be perfectly allowed ("Hey Siri, open Waze"..."I'm sorry, jackal, I can't do that.") I end up having to touch my phone more than I do when CarPlay is not enabled. If I end up in a vehicle with CarPlay, I break out my 12V adapter and connect my phone via Bluetooth instead.

That said, if you actually want CarPlay, the advice above is good. It's common in the PCAR class, though note the base-model LS Impalas (usually the ones with cloth interiors, 4-banger engines, and the tiny non-touch screens for the radio) don't have it (but those cars shouldn't be legal to be called PCARs, anyway...but I digress). The LT and LTZ models do.

Less common in the smaller classes, especially with the proliferation of Nissans, Mazdas, and Toyotas in those classes, but as mentioned, you can often find GM and Ford cars with them sprinkled around.

gmax58

Rental_Guy

2018 Was the year Nissan made Apple car play and Android auto standard in the Maxima. if you'd toggled to the settings and clicked "Apps", most likely the last customer disabled the USB detection.
I find it hard to believe that a company that doesn't even disable their SAT radio on majority of their cars would purposely take the time to disable connectivity apps.

tb17

Renting an FCA car (Jeeps, dodges, and Chryslers) is a good way to insure that you have Android auto and apple carplay. The UConnect System is one of the best infotainments out there.

gmax58

LIH Prem

I always get prompted on my phone to allow the car play connection or not. Don't you get prompted before it connects? Even if you allow it you can open the phone and resume whatever you were doing.

You can deny the connection if you don't want to use car play, but I find that when I use a USB connection in a car, it interferes with using bluetooth. Hence your 12V USB power adaptor (I carry one also.)

Waze now shows up on the car's display in car play, assuming the car is up to date.

You might want to try this again at some point. I was in a Subaru outback that had the worlds worst car play integration I'd ever seen plus the screen was incredibly hard to read, especially in sunlight .. totally turned me off to the Outback which is a popular SUV. A high end RAV4 had very good integration in a recent rental in Orlando (PC choice.) I imagine other late model Toyotas will be similar. I'm sure there's other makes/models that do it well, I'm just not familiar with them. After the Outback experience I realized there's a lot of variance in the implementations. Maybe it needed an update. Many cars I rent complain that there's an infotainment system upgrade available, which I ignore.

I try to choose cars that have either good bluetooth and/or car play implementations. They really do vary.

-David

noah

It is amazing to me that some high end vehicles I've rented recently like the Infinit Q60 and the Toyota Avalon did NOT have CarPlay -- when GM vehicles often have it standard. CarPlay is not perfect, but I love the ability to get Waze on the screen.

radiolarian

davie355

The original question is more than 2 years old.

CarPlay is on the vast majority of 2019 model year cars.