Tanya934

Have never had to use GPS in New Zealand as the roads are very well marked on the paper maps and the country is well signposted even in the rural areas. We've bought a new AA road-map book for our next trip as our old copy was still showing some roads such as the 'forgotten highway' as being unsealed. The rental company will issue a basic free map and, as previous posters have said, use Google maps and print out what you may need before you travel. Most hotels and B&B's will be able to help with directions and will have more local knowledge that will be more valuable than GPS. Enjoy your trip.

Mountain Trader

With an unlocked U.S. device (eg. Many IPads, IPhones through Verizon), which are generally unblocked, a company called Spark has an attractive package which can be bought at their retail stores in towns of some size.

49$ NZD (about $37 US) gets you 2GB of data, plus a bundle of voice and text. We have been using the data mostly for Google maps as a GPS, plus checking email, for 17 days and we have only used about 1GB. If you dig in and start surfing a lot, that 2GB allotment will go down much faster. We use WiFi at hotels for surfing and others for serious Internet work.

This Spark package is good for 30 days from purchase. You can add time-19$ NZD gets tp you another 500 mb. Be sure to get details on all this when you are at retail store, including phone number to call for topping off.

Spark also has an "Aussie Pack" which allows you to use the same SIM card for a week's worth of use in Australia for a second fee. There are cheaper ways to go in Australia, but for us it is great as we wil only be there for a few days and this allows a street-free way to stay connected and have GPS capability.

Mwenenzi

The new spark is the old NZ Telecom/NZ Post office This was the government owned monopoly telco since day 1 until it was privatised.

sokolov

I ended up renting a "Medium" from Scotties in Christchurch. It was best option, where Amex was accepted. I received an automatic Nissan Bluebird (and was told that it was larger than what I had paid for). They said it was 5 years old, I didn't check. It worked fine. The motor was weak for its size.

However, the battery in the key/remote control was dead. There was no cruise control, but I had never been promised one either.

The price was about a third of what Hertz would have charged for a tiny car.

You should know that many Kiwis buy used imports from Japan, usually 10 year old cars. Also, I've never seen any Western country with so many really old cars driving around. And I mean several decades old. They are not show-off oldtimers, but used for everyday driving. So 5 years is not old by any measure in NZ. :-)

For mobile service, I went with 2degrees. Some iSites offer free 2degrees sim cards (not at the airport), or buy one for $5 at the first gas station you find of the airport (AKL news stand sells them for $10).

Antonio8069

I asked for a quote from Ace and they automatically tack on a premium of + 41.5 % for CDW on a 3-day rental in ADE. Yikes!

im-headed-west

Ace has an office in Yemen ?

My experience has been renting compacts from them in NZ where I used a credit card that includes rental car coverage ... never paying more than low $20NZ/day AI on multiple separate trips.

Additionally, for the times I've rented from Ace ... there were discount coupons out there that were good for about 25% off ... don't know about right now though

Mountain Trader

Which USA issued credit cards cover car rental in NZ?

im-headed-west

I've used Visa Signature cards in the past ... the current benefits still appear to NOT exclude NZ:

http://usa.visa.com/download/persona...aSignature.pdf

... but all these CC coverages are not comprehensive and have many exclusions/provisions such as rentals of certain vehicle types, rentals over a certain # of days, etc, ...

dagaetch

I rented a car for one month through Apex. Picked up in Christchurch, returned in Auckland. They covered the ferry fee for the car, I just paid the passenger portion of the ticket. I confirmed with World Nomads (travel insurance) beforehand that NZ car rentals were covered, so I declined the reduced excess option.

Car was a 7-8 year old Nissan Tiida. Was in perfectly acceptable condition. Worked great for the full month. The only complaint I had was that radio reception was terrible :-). It was bumpy on the gravel roads, but handled pretty much everything without trouble. I did spend a ton on gas.

Google Maps worked fine the entire time. On the south island, you generally don't have a choice of roads, so gps isn't really necessary (but handy for knowing how much further to go).

sokolov

Gas is very expensive in NZ indeed. The most expensive I found in March 2015 was at the Franz Josef Glacier - about NZD 2.25/litre. Avoid buying there - the gas stations in the closes settlements up and down the road are about 15-20 cents/litre less. The cheapest I saw was in Auckland, about 1.74/litre. Given the current oil price, this price level is shocking. I was able to save 4-10 Cents per litre with vouchers from various super markets.

The bad radio reception I can confirm. My NZ friends told me that radio reception is generally poor in NZ, outside the main cities. He blamed the hilly landscape.

The radio situation may be exacerbated by the fact that many cheap rental cars are used imports from Japan. (As are many of the cars used by locals.) Japan uses different FM frequencies. When a car is imported to NZ, they usually install some sort of converter. But the antenna is still the same, so it is not ideal for the FM frequencies used in NZ. You may have noticed that the radio display shows weird frequencies, that do not correspond to the actual frequency used. :-)

dagaetch

Yes, the north island in general had cheaper gas. And you could usually get a coupon from the markets as you say.

I assumed the hills had something to do with it. I was also wondering if maybe they underpower the radio towers, at least compared to the US. I didn't know that about the converter, but it does explain the frequencies - I couldn't figure out what was going on there! :-)

cavemanzk

The maximum age for importing a car from Japan is 10 years old, typically in the South Island people tend to keep their cars much longer than the North Island.

The funny thing is once some of these cars are done with, they are then exported to the Pacific Islands.

Japanese used imports are pretty good value, e.g. an 2010 BMW 320 sells for about $10,000NZD.

$2.26/l isn't to bad, we we're paying that in the larger cities this time last year. Back in January it was about $2.43/l in Queenstown and $2.60/ in Wanka.

But then even within Auckland the petrol price is all over the place, today I paid $1.64/l, yet drove past some places closer to the CBD and they we're at $1.92.

Petrol is highly taxed in NZ, plus then you have an 15% GST on it.

sokolov

That's exactly my point: A year ago, oil was somewhere around USD 110 a barrell. Now it is at USD 49 (WTI Crude). It is probably a different crude price that influences NZ gas prices, but the trend surely is the same: Oil prices have dropped massively.

Even after deducting the 15% GST, and deducting the substantial excise taxes (currently more than 100% of the NY whole sale price!), even the net price of the cheapest gas in Auckland is expensive. Only partly can this be attributed to the cost of transporting the fuel to NZ.

The price in Franz Josef is simply this: nuts.

cavemanzk

Going by the current tax on Petrol - http://www.aa.co.nz/cars/maintenance...-types/petrol/

That works out to be $00.67/l, then you get charged 15% GST on the fuel tax, so that takes you to $00.77/l just in government tax.

If you take the current Auckland low fuel price of $1.64/l and remove fuel tax that leaves you at $00.88/l. then remove the 15% gst from the fuel portion, (-$00.13), that leaves you with $00.75/l.

Total tax of $1.64/l is $00.90, so around 54% of the sale price is GST/Petrol tax.


While we pay high pump prices with fuel tax, we only have 2x toll roads in the whole country with the expensive one being $2.20/trip.