Punta del Este car hire

Terrible

Pros: Worst experience renting a car I have ever had.

Cons: Gave me a car with a weak battery. The car was an old, beat up chevy classic, not the newer Renault pictured in the reservation. The car struggled to start when I picked it up, and was completely dead the next morning when we were planning to go on a 3 hour road trip. It took 2.5 hours for roadside assistance to show up. I asked the Avis office if I could keep the car for longer due to the delay so that we could still go on our road trip. They said no and we're extremely rude about it. We then asked them to just pick up the car because we would not have enough time to go on our road trip. They told us it was our responsibility to get the car back to the airport. After the car was jumped I let it run for 39 minutes to recharge. I no longer trusted the vehicle and didn't want to risk being stranded in the remote village we were planning on going to. I headed back to the airport to drop it off and stopped at the closest gas station to return the car with the correct amount of dual. The car wouldn't start again at the gas station and I had to get a jump from a friendly local. Finally, I got the car back and was met with more rudeness. In the end, I spent just over $40 in cab rides to and from the airport, $62 for the rental, and $10 in fuel. $112 for a car that I couldn't use and we wasted half a day dealing with the headache. I will never use Avis again, and I caution anyone out there to think twice before they do.

Pros: Car worked ok but quite old.

Cons: No one was in the AVIS counter to pick-up the car. We had to get someone to call AVIS in their local number. But once we called, it wasn't too long before the guy came. Petrol wasn't in full tank - not easy to gauge how much petrol to put in before returning. Wonder if this is a practice in South America? uite