I'm a regular Avis customer in the United States, so when I planned to travel to Dublin, Ireland, I reserved an Avis car rental. When reserving the car, I was careful to avoid getting a manual shift car unexpectedly as with my last car rental in Dublin. I specifically requested an automatic and thankfully got one this time. If you don't clarify that you want an automatic, by default, you'll get a manual shift. On my most recent trip, I ran into a different issue. When I arrived at the rental desk, I was immediately asked for letters from my insurance company and my doctor. For the insurance letter, I planned ahead knowing I would need to prove I had insurance, but I had no clue I needed a doctor's letter. I tried calling my primary care physician in Connecticut, thinking I might be able to obtain such a letter that they would prepare and send as an email attachment. With the time zone difference, this was not going to work. All of this fuss wasted a lot of time. I was able to get a driver to assist me, but this was not the plan. I ended up being chauffeured around Ireland for ten days. When I got back to the USA, I thought the doctor's letter requirement had to be in the fine print and I missed seeing it. THE DOCTOR'S LETTER REQUIREMENT TO RENT A CAR IN IRELAND WASN'T IN THE FINE PRINT OF THE AVIS RESERVATION. It was just a surprise sprung on me with no advance notification. The next issue had to do with liability insurance that I had purchased at the time of my reservation. When reserving the car online in the USA, I found out I wouldn't be covered for liability, so I paid $56 to Avis for this coverage only to be told by the Avis personnel at the Dublin Airport that it was impossible for me to have paid for such coverage since, by law, all car rentals in the Republic of Ireland come with liability coverage included. Upon my return to the USA, I sent a request to Avis for a refund of the unnecessary coverage. Months passed and Avis, although they acknowledged receipt of my claim, never responded beyond that acknowledgement. I'm now back in the USA where I continue to be an Avis customer and am completely satisfied with the company and its personnel stateside. I doubt I will use Avis ever again while travelling abroad. read more

Renter BEWARE! Both inner halves of the rear tires were worn down past the steel belts resulting in a blow out with one of them. The condition of these tires was undetectable unless you laid down on your back and inspected the inner portion of both tires (see pics). Getting assistance from Hertz was a nightmare taking several hours and when help arrived, the tire repairman recommended we not drive because the other rear tire could fail at any moment (vid too large to upload). That resulted in a 200 euro cab trip. When I later contacted Hertz, they initially responded that there was no problem since I had paid for the additional insurance and they wouldn't charge me for the tire. Subsequent calls/emails resulted in a $50 and $100 voucher for future rentals but that didn't even begin to cover the cost of the cab or missed rental day. An final email to Ms. Huff director of customer care went nowhere as she never responded. Efforts to dispute the charge with Capital One was another exercise in frustration and futility, but that will be a separate post. read more

Dublin Airport Car Hire - Other rear tire with steel belt exposed and dangerously bald. - Car Rental Near Me - Dublin, D

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American citizen here! Rented a car from Hertz at the Dublin airport for 2.5 days. Enjoy the mini blog post about the experience. 1. Location. Due to the pandemic, shuttles were no longer taking you between terminals to pick up the rental cars. We found out the hard way after a bit of wandering that they are located in Terminal 2, Second floor (arrivals), across the bridge. 2. Cost. Listen. This shit is expensive. Go into it knowing it's expensive to rent a car. We checked other cities (Galway), other providers, all of it was expensive. In the end we went with Hertz because my Chase Sapphire card covered the cost with my points. Is it expensive because the pandemic? Is it expensive because the US dollar is less than the Euro? Is it just expensive? Who knows the reasons why. Cost me about $1000 for the car (Skoda Octavia, automatic transmission) through my points with Chase. This price included the basic liability insurance. 3. Insurance. Yo. READ THE FINE PRINT OF YOUR CREDIT CARD POLICY. Certain countries do not allow your credit card to provide rental car insurance. This applies to Ireland, Israel, and who knows what others. This is a law in the country, this is not the teller scamming you. If anything maybe it's the government scamming you, collecting money from tourists. In addition to the basic liability we purchased extra insurance for the car for this reason. I did not want to be caught up in red tape if I wrecked this car driving in a foreign country. This was a nice 90 Euro up charge in addition to the base price. Bless. 4. Leaving the airport. There is a toll. In fact, if you're driving west to the country side there will be a few tolls to use the highways. Overall pretty cheap. Spent less than 15 Euro over the two days. You can pay with card or cash but they do not give change. 5. Driving. There's the obvious: driving on the left side while sitting on the right side. Then there's the not so obvious: the roads. If you are driving out to the country side, oh my god get mentally prepared for it. These roads are NARROW. Imagine a two lane street, but instead of being two full lanes, it's like 1.85 lanes. There is no shoulder, there is no side walk, and those roads are windy. I swear every time we came around a blind corner, and there were many, there was either another car, a pedestrian, or a sheep. You heard that right, folks. Sheep. Once there was even a large truck that we had to drive into a ditch to avoid. Ahhh, thank god for that extra insurance. 6. Gas. You don't prepay gas here. You pump and then go inside to pay what you owe. To me this was wild. I told the attendant that this would never work in America. Everyone would steal the gas. He replied that people steal gas all the time. HA, the Irish are not better than us in that regard. Also, they refer to gas as petrol, diesel as diesel, and gas as natural gas. Return your car with a full tank to get your gas refund back. When you rent, they hold the cost of a full tank as a deposit. All in all this was an adventure. It was expensive AND stressful. But was it worth it to see the Irish countryside? ABSOLUTELY. Temper your expectations and enjoy the ride. You're on vacation. read more

Catastrophic Failure! Systems went down before our flight landed. We were #3 in a quickly forming, slowly moving line. The gent at the counter was friendly & apologetic, more importantly, he was rolling with the punches & taking it all in stride. He noted that we were Americans and offered to change the car to an automatic. We declined. He advised us that the manual was left hand shifting, not in a condescending manner, just informative. We explained we'd been there before and, while no experts, had experience with left-hand manual-shift. He got us on our way as quickly as manually checking in would allow. We scored the illusive free upgrade to a nice little ride. Getting the car took a while, but we were in no hurry. Return was simple and efficient. The car was spotless and was mechanically sound. We'll be back in July & will use Hertz again. read more

Avoid at all costs. Your trip will be ruined. Reserved and paid weeks in advance through AA. Upon arrival we notified that older drivers need letters from insurance company and personal doctor. Was forced to use a driver with no experience driving on left side. Necessary letters were obtained after a few days so went back to office to attempt to switch drivers with two days left on rental contract, only to be notified that the only way to switch was to pay for full eight days rather than two remaining days. Of course we declined, but the insurance coverage for the driver that was not allowed to drive was still charged. And again, they are trying keep from returning the money. All of this with a smirk on their faces as if to say we got you! read more

We picked up the car at Dublin Airport June 29, which we had to wait for because it had just been turned in and had to be washed. It was very busy, there were a number of customers waiting for vehicles. This indicates there was no time to inspect this vehicle from the last rental and very well may have been already damaged. We headed directly to Belfast area and parked the Tiguan. On the first day I noticed it was difficult shifting into first gear. I was always able to get this Tiguan into first gear sooner or later. I assumed that was part of being a VW and part me being right-handed. June 30, we toured some of the country, as we were returning to our hotel via the motorway in the evening outside Belfast, I depressed the clutch only to have it stay on the floor. I managed to get the clutch pedal to return but now we had no power, the car was coasting. I Managed to get the car into a gear, limp it off the motorway and into a safe place where we called the emergency number for a tow. The tow took us to Belfast Airport for a replacement. We had the car for a little over 24 hours when the clutch failed the clutch did not burn up or burn out. Almost stranding us in the middle of a motorway, a very dangerous place. At Belfast Airport were greeted by 2 Hertz employees, handed some forms to complete. Filling out the forms they looked like I was accepting responsibility for the mechanical breakdown, I questioned the Hertz employee about this, telling them this was not something I did. They told me not to worry about it and that it was a formality and that I would not be responsible, they had to have the forms signed before I could get a replacement vehicle. So here I am in Belfast with no rental and Hertz is extorting me into paying for the repairs. So I sign the forms, get my new car and off we go. At Check out on June 29, I told Hertz I had our own insurance with papers to back it up, Hertz decided I HAD to pay 7 Euro per day extra because I had my own insurance and they were placing a 5,000 hold on my credit card in addition to everything else The tow charges I should not have to pay, I did not break the Tiguan, the Tiguan broke. The first vehicle was apparently damaged prior to our rental and we just happened to be the ones that had it when it finally went out. No one told us we would be responsible for mechanical breakdowns. How can I be held responsible for the mechanical condition of a rental vehicle I have no control over. The charges for repairs and these charges should be absorbed by the owner of the vehicle. There is no way we damaged the vehicle like this in one day! There is also no way for the driver of the vehicle to break/damage the slave cylinder as it is internal to the transmission. We have contacted Hertz, they have stated "the condition of the vehicle is a concern to us". Hertz also stated "it looks like you were not charged for the repair" but we are the tourists with a $2000 charge on our statement. We have received no response from Hertz on out complaint filed July 18, we have had 3 contacts via TWITTER all have professed a desire to help solve this issue but after the initial contact Hertz goes dark, no help at all. Finally, this was a mechanical breakdown, not an accident. The part that broke (the clutch slave cylinder) is not accessible to the driver of the car. There is nothing I could have done to either prevent or cause this part to malfunction. read more

HERTZ Dublin Airport - NEVER Rent from HERTZ!!! Rented a car for Christmas and was overcharged!!! The WORSE Customer Service!!! A complete nightmare!!! NEVER EVER WOULD I RENT FROM HERTZ!!! read more

Note that the Thrifty, Budget, and Hertz are the same at the Dublin Airport. I reserved an Audi online from Hertz that the website indicated would be large enough for 3 people and 3 suitcases. When I arrived at the checkin counter at the Dublin Airport I was told the Audi would not be large enough, which I now believe was a lie to get me to rent a much more expensive car. I was talked into a Land Rover SUV that was almost wider than many of the roads in Ireland. Again, the agent lied to me and told me that it would not be a problem. Now I am a seasoned driver, I pull a trailer on narrow mountain roads with sheer cliffs, but for me it was terrifying driving that SUV on the narrow country roads with no shoulder and cars coming at me at 80 MPH. A few days before I was to return the car I heard what sounded like a flat tire. I pulled over and was a bit freaked out to find that the rubber was starting to come off of the tire and that tire was bald as were all of the other tires. I found the nearest tire store and replaced the tire. It took a couple of months and multiple emails to Hertz customer service to get the tire replaced. I had paid extra for insurance and I'm pretty sure I would not have been reimbursed had I not paid for the insurance. My daughters and I had to cut a few days of our trip short to return the SUV to Hertz as I wasn't going to continue driving it with bald tires and at that point I did not trust them. Lessons learned from the Hertz Rental experience at the Dublin Airport: 1. Do not trust the agents. If you are told the vehicle you want will not meet your needs, check it out before being talked into something else. 2. Throughly examine the car before leaving the lot. I have rented many cars in my lifetime and have never rented a car with bald tires. There was also other damage on the car that was not noted on the rental agreement (e.g., door handle cover missing), but I had brought it to the attention of one of the attendants who took a photo and added it to the rental agreement before I left the lot. 3. Do not rent from Hertz. I've always used National Rental and learned my lesson not to stray from National. read more

Dublin Airport Car Hire - No tread on this tire and you can see where rubber started to peel away from the tire. - Car Rental Near Me - Dublin, D

We had the worst experience ever with the Hertz desk at Terminal 2. Rude, unco-cooperative. We promised to never use Hertz again and he could care less. We have used Hertz Dublin airport location for 20 years and have been very satisfied until today with this representative. Blond fellow with a sour arritude. read more

I needed a cheap car hire to run me around on a recent trip to Dublin and this website worked out ideally. There was an excellent range of cars at really good value prices. They have a few collection points in the city but the airport was handiest for me. I only searched for a budget car so not sure what they are like for the higher end stuff. Certainly one to bookmark. read more

The car rental stations are mostly easy to find if all signs are at their place (the car rentals are at the ground floor). After finding your car rental company you have to wait for a bus which takes you to the place where the car is parked. All in all it can take up to 45 minutes after renting the car to sit in it. :-/ But the rest is quite organised. read more

2 weeks ago we rented a car for 1 weekend from budget. It was not the first time we rented a car in Ireland or from Budget and we were always happy with it, but last time we made a very bad experience. First the staff, Orliath was her name, not sure what her problem was that day, she was very unfriendly and absolutely not helpful. She really asked us on a Saturday if we want to call our bank, when our German CC wouldn't let her reserve 1500 euros on the card and as it turned out she could not use our Irish debit cards. At that point I would have loved to cancel everything and just go back home, but we ended paying for an extra insurance and paying way too much for renting a car for 2 days, even tough we had already paid for an insurance. read more

Advertised as a Ford Fiesta, or equiv. What we received was a SUZUKI MII. This vehicle should be removed from inventory. The vehicle was dirty inside with peanuts on the floor, insulation was hanging down into the front passenger foot well, the transmission shifted poorly with lags between the shifts, at one point almost stalling when going around a corner on an incline at a highway entrance and almost coming to a complete stop on its own while trying to decide which gear to be in. The brakes felt warped and pulsated giving me a sense of insecurity., the mileage on the car, for a rental, seemed excessive, (71,000 miles) The use of this specific vehicle was problematic. When I contacted the desk, on day 1, after driving the car to our hotel in Dublin I was told that i would need to bring the car back to the airport to "exchange" it or if they came to the hotel in Dublin and found that the car was "roadworthy" that i would be charged 100 Euro. More than one phone call was made regarding this vehicle. The use of this vehicle made an otherwise fantastic vacation trying, and in my view unsafe, as well as causing a high stress level while travelling. This was a complete failure by Hertz EU. I drive a Dodge Ram, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and a Mercedes E350 routinely. The quality of this particular vehicle is abysmal. read more

perfect for my needs, got a nice budget car to get me around to all the sights i wanted to see. the prices are compared between various car hire companies so you have a great chance of finding the cheapest deal read more