Talk Quesada forum

We got our car hire through the ryanair website and wasn't too dear although we declined to pay 85 euros to add me on as extra driver for 12 days. We have an annual collision damage waiver policy for about £50 and that saves us having to take the extra insurance each time when we hire.

Laura

Hi Laura,
Which annual insurance do you use? We always buy the annual car rental excess insurance with Insurance4carhire, it's £49, and covers against any excess fee charged and for damage to the roof and undercarriage of the car plus the windows and tyres. It isn't a collision damage waiver (CDW) though as it is assumed that this is included with the car hire price. However we noticed that Open car, who we find pretty good on prices, petrol and service, don't automatically include CDW and have an excess for any damage instead of CDW. They don't tell you this and we only saw it in the small print the first time we hired from them, but now we always ask to pay for a CDW with the car-hire price, it works out at about an extra 25 euro a week. The insurance4car hire small print says it wouldn't pay out for any excess or damage without the CDW being in place, apparently.

Jan.

Hi Jan,

Just back from Quesada yesterday and for the first time, the weather was better at home! Extremely heavy rain flooding all the roads and the police had even closed the dual carriageway to Torrevieja at the roundabout where you turn off to La Laguna Hotel. Took us just over an hour to get to Alicante airport.

Anyway, it is a few years since we took out the car insurance so I had to check what we have, I called it CDW but it is the insurance excess reimbursed if have to pay it as below. It cost £44.10 for a year for two drivers and covers up to age 84 as standard.

Description Cover
Section 1 - Excess Reimbursement The excess on the car rental agreement up to £2,000 / £3,000 in total
Section 3 - Personal Accident Up to £10,000
Section 4 - Baggage Up to £300 (£50 Excess applies)
Section 5 - Key Cover Up to £500 £2,000 in total for year
Section 6 - Curtailment £15 per day up to £200
Section 7 - Drop Off Charges Up to £200
Section 8 - Lock Out Up to £40

I also take it back about using Herz through Ryanair because they did charge extras and it cost more than Goldcar when I used them in December, 36 % more!

Laura

Meant to say it was www.questor-insurance.co.uk

Laura

Hi I was wondering if anyone had tried Wheels in Spain web address http://www.costablanca-carhire.com I would welcome any comments, fed up with being ripped off by all the extras from all the normal car hire companies.

I was wondering if it would be a better idea to buy a left hand drive car in the UK and drive across!!! Anyone have any thoughts on this and what I would need to do?? thank you.

Hi Bevben. There's an awful lot involved but as I'm not 100% sure of what it all entails there are people out there that do. Also try the internet. There are some helpful tips on there. That is what I used when I was in the same situation. The internet convinced me to buy in Spain. There was less hassle, but you may think otherwise. I hope I have helped.

After many years of hiring cars, I bought a left hand drive one in Spain!! The car is great - but never want to go through the business of buying privately again!! Quite expensive - and a headache (if you buy through a garage they seem to take a lot of the hassle away!)

We bought a little run around a couple of years ago and by next summer it will have paid for itself. we got to the stage where there wasn't any of the rental companies at Alicante airport that we hadn't had a row with, either petrol charges, extra insurance or scratches that were not down to us. We also found that when selling the extra insurance etc they spoke perfect English, if a problem arose on return the same person didn't utter a word apart from Spanish. They really are money grabbers.

I have to be honest, we hired for about 3 years and apart from the cost we didn't experiance a problem with Sol-Mar. We purchase a new car from Crespo's in Elche and again not a problem.