Rental Vehicles Can Make Road Seem Smoother

The last time David and Georgene Hawthorn took their own car on a road trip it wound up breaking down.

They were stuck “out by Crystal Lake somewhere” on the way to Las Vegas for seven hours until help came, and it cost the Temple City couple $1,600 for towing and repairs.

Ever since, the Hawthorns, avid bowlers who make frequent trips to San Francisco, Las Vegas, Arizona and Texas for tournaments, have made a point of driving rental cars. The rentals are newer and more reliable than the couple’s 1980 Toyota 4Runner, which has 220,000 miles on it. And if the rental car breaks down, the company pays for everything.

“We have a lot of customers who rent cars rather than take their own car on a trip,” said Patrick Hare, who manages an Enterprise Rent-A-Car branch on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Some clients rent so frequently, Hare said, that he knows them by name.

Ramji Chandrasekaran, a 23-year-old software engineer who doesn’t own a car, was returning a Mitsubishi sedan to Hare’s branch last Monday after a weekend trip to Las Vegas. He has taken rentals to San Francisco, the Grand Canyon and Seattle, checking out a different model whenever he rents.

“It’s just convenient,” Chandrasekaran said. “That’s the bottom line. I don’t have to worry about anything.”

A recent survey of 1,800 licensed drivers conducted by Enterprise showed that 25% had rented cars for road trips.

Such trips are not necessarily cheap. Hertz’s Los Angeles rental price for a Ford Windstar minivan with one child safety seat, reserved two weeks in advance, was $617 for a week, according to the company’s Web site.

High prices didn’t stop Dawn Joyner and her husband from renting a minivan to take their three young sons to an annual family vacation in Colorado. The rental was still cheaper than flying -- and it beat squeezing everybody into the Los Angeles family’s Ford Escort hatchback, Joyner said.

“It was worth it,” Joyner said. “Everybody doesn’t get on each other’s nerves, and you have room for all the toys.”

The family rented vans to make the annual trek for five years running, Joyner said, stopping only after trading that Escort for a Ford Expedition.

“More people are starting to do it simply because cars nowadays are pretty darn expensive to fix,” said Jon Woods, a San Diego auto mechanic who hosts a local radio show about cars and driving.

“A lot of people don’t have a new SUV because it gets lousy gas mileage,” he said. “So they rent one to take the kiddies to Yosemite. Or they have a little commuter car and rent a bigger one to go on a trip.”

People also rent cars to try them out before buying them, said Michael Marsden, an expert on popular culture and the automobile at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis.

“People rent cars ... for more room, to save their day-to-day car, and to see how the cars perform,” he said. “That part of it is making more and more sense to people.”

Cathy Stephens, editor of the trade publication Auto Rental News, said that renting cars for driving vacations is part of a broader trend among Americans to travel by auto instead of airplane. Auto travel is cheaper, and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left many people feeling skittish about flying, she said.

But Stephens cautioned travelers to make sure that the rental company knows they are planning to take the car out of town. Some rental contracts have limits on the number of miles that can be put on the car, and some companies do not allow their autos to cross state lines.

Stann Rose, California claims manager for Progressive Casualty Insurance Co., urged drivers to check with their insurance companies before purchasing extra insurance, typically called a collision damage waiver, from the rental car companies.

“Typically, your policy would act the same in a rental car as it would if you are in your own vehicle,” Rose said. In addition, he said, some credit cards provide insurance coverage for people in rented cars.

Rose suggested that travelers bring proof of insurance or a copy of their policies with them on a trip, to show authorities, mechanics and the rental company in case of an accident.

There were no such unhappy incidents on the trip that Monica Griffin and three girlfriends took from Los Angeles to Scottsdale, Ariz., this month.

The four new friends, who decided to attend a spiritual retreat together, wanted to spend some time getting to know each other and hanging out, and an airplane trip seemed too harried and quick.

But they didn’t want to put the miles on their own cars either. So Griffin, a 31-year-old recruiter for the Walt Disney Co., left her Mercedes sedan at home and rented a Ford Taurus for the trip.

“It was great,” she said. “We could spend more time together and talk.”

*

If you have a question, gripe or story idea about driving in Southern California, write to Behind the Wheel, c/o Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012; or send an e-mail to behindthewheel@latimes.com.