Hiring a self-drive car for 2 months in South India

Lakshmi66

Hello all,

I've gone through several pages of postings in this section and found lots of useful info about renting bikes and cars with drivers but what I'm really after is self-drive car info. Here's what I'm looking for:

My partner and I are planning a two-month trip to South India mid-Jan to mid-March 2008. We'd like to drive around South India on our own.

Buying a car to re-sell seems to be a fairly complicated business going by the posts I've read, so it might be simpler to hire a self-drive car.

I'm Indian and my partner and I did a 20-day trip from Delhi to Himachal on a Bullet in 2002 so we're familiar with Indian driving, plus my partner has done the Paris-Dakar on bikes and cars several times, so bad roads etc. are not an issue. Incidentally, we had no mechanical problems at all on our 2002 trip.

If anyone has concrete information about where we can hire a car for self-drive in Chennai, which is probably where we will start our trip, costs (about 5,000 rupees a month?) and insurance, I'd be very grateful.

Great site by the way. I'm looking forward to putting together our trip and will post the details when we're back next spring.

Thanks in advance for any tips anyone can provide.

Lakshmi

capt_mahajan

Welcome to indiamike.

Self drive cars are more difficult and more expensive to hire in India compared to cars with drivers.

As to costs, a small airconditioned car plus driver within a city will cost you 650/750 rupees a day for upto 80km.

The same car outstation will cost 1400 rupees a day for upto 200km. However, this is cumulative, so eg you can pay (5 * 1400 ) and cover (5 * 200 km) over 5 days.


5000 rupees a month is not possible. Maybe thats a typo.

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ANJAI

Hi for self drive car, you can contact with Hertz Rent a Car or Avis. for more info visit at www.carzonrent.com or www.avis.co.in

Good Luck!!

Nick-H

The international companies will charge international prices.

Try City Limouzines. Apparently they do lease; I don't know if they do any short-term hire.

Please report back on this, it is frequently asked question and it would be nice to have good answers on the site

(Oh! Welcome to IndiaMike )

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PortieOwner

You need a driver. Even if I lived in India for a long time, I'd have a driver.

Nick-H

They've done it already --- so they know about Indian traffic and roads.

Nick-H

Just found this. Might be useful to you

Lakshmi66

Thanks so much for your replies. I'll look into those websites Nick and see what else we can find; will give you the details once we've got things organised.

Have a good day everyone,

Lakshmi

Lakshmi66

Hi all,

I wrote off to at least four companies and have so far only got a reply from Hertz (Carzon Rent in india). Am posting their reply in case anyone else is interested. Any comments welcome.

As per your mail below regarding self drive for 54 Days the total cost will be Rs. 60,000/- (Inclusive of Insurance as mentioned below) + Service Tax (12.36%)

Terms and Conditions
1. All Payments will be made through credit card only.

2. Customer will sign a blank credit card imprint at the start of a rental and will be charged the amount at the end of it.

3. Customer should be a minimum of 23 years of age and should posses a valid Indian/International driving license with no endorsements of traffic rules violation.

4. All monthly charges will be charged in advance and will be non-refundable.

5. In case of car being used for extra days after completing a month, the charges will be on a pro-rata basis.

6. An amount equal to 2.5 times the approximate rental charge will be blocked on the credit card before handing over the car.

7. Fuel is at the customer’s cost. Car will be given with a full tank of Fuel and has to be returned with full tank.

8. Charges on a 24 hour basis. A delay more than 3 hours will count as an extra day.


Monthly Rates

VAE Denotes Vehicle Accident Excess. This is mandatory with all the rentals. This helps the renter to reduce the liability in case of any accident or damage to the vehicle not attributable to a third party to a maximum of Rs 10,000/- in EDMR group and additional Rs 3000/- on each group higher.

TP :- Denotes Theft Protection This is optional and if accepted, the renter’s responsibility reduces to Rs 10,000/- in EDMR group and Rs 3000/- on each group higher in an unlikely event of the vehicle being stolen whilst on rent with him, provided a police report is made available. Conditions apply. If this is declined, the lessee is responsible for the entire vehicle value along with the accessories

PAC denotes Personal Accident Insurance. This will provide coverage for the driver and passengers whilst in the rental vehicle.

VAE is Rs.3000 per month for EDMR group and Rs.1000 thereof for each group higher.

TP:- This is available as an optional extra at is Rs.1000 per month for EDMR group and Rs.1000 thereof for each group higher.

PAC (also optional) is Rs.1000 per month and this will provide coverage for the drivers and the passengers of the Hertz vehicle.

This rate includes insurance, maintenance, replacement vehicle and unlimited kilometers.

This quotation is subject to availability of the vehicle at the time of confirmation.

sthakur

Hello,

I rented a car without a driver (self drive) in Mumbai for 2 weeks from Avis, and the cost was approx 20K, but that was not a issue. When it was time to return the car, they argued and fussed about all the little scratches and dings that I supposedly caused which they tried to get 40K for damages (the deductible on the insurance).

Lets face it, all cars in India will get some scratches, dings and other damages from normal driving, and when you do rent from a company, they will try to collect on those damages.

What I recommend is to purchase a used car like a maruti or tata (easy to resell) and drive it without the headaches. The used car dealers will hook you up with the necessary paper work which will be needed.

For example, I will be in Mumbai in Jan, and I have sourced a Tata Indica 2003 LXI for 120K with 35K mileage, struck a deal with the agent for an extra 10k to get all the paperwork and insurance sorted out. I am going to drive the car for 4 months, then resell it back to the dealer for 95K.

Even if the dealer refuses to purchase the car back, it only cost me 130K, avis wants 160K for 4 months plus 50000 deductible paid in advance.

sthakur

capt_mahajan

Lakshmi66, I would find their conditions 2,4,6 plus a couple of others unacceptable.

And sthakur's experience is not encouraging.

Maybe you should consider buying a second hand car and selling it after two months.

Or take a normal tourist taxi plus driver.

Lakshmi66

Briliant: thanks a million sthakur, this is just the kind of insider info I was after. Will take your tip & capt-mahajan's and start looking for a reliable used car dealer.

Happy driving!

Lakshmi66

Just back from our trip, here's what we did and paid in case the info's of use to anyone later on.

So anyway, we found someone who knew someone who knew someone in Bombay, a guy who deals in used cars. We were initially planning to buy a used car and sell it back to him after our trip, but he told us the paperwork etc might be too much hassle for such a short trip. So he took us to a garage on Charni Road to rent a car. We rented a 2002 Toyota Qualis which turned out to be the perfect car for an Indian road trip. Paid Rs 50,000 up front (Rs 25,000 per month, which works out to about Rs 840 or so per day) and a deposit of Rs 20,000.

We got back the deposit, plus about Rs 3,000 we'd paid to get the steering yoke replaced at the Toyota dealership in Hubli after it started making worrying knocking noises. But since we didn't use the car the full two months, we had about Rs 8,000 owing to us from the Rs 50,000 we'd paid in advance, except that the garage owner didn't want to give it back. We should have dug our heels in but we were exhausted after our trip and it was very hot and we'd already spent 3 hours at the garage waiting for the money back so...we let it go. We'll be a lot more careful next time about insisting beforehand on the exact amount of money due back to us: and most of all we won't pay in advance for more days than we plan to actually use!

Toyota don't make the Qualis anymore, they've replaced it with the Innova, which seemed to us to be a big mistake (we were told Toyota didn't like the image of the Qualis as a taxi: but who cares about image when the bottomline's good? Apparently you can still get two-thirds of the original retail price for a beat-up secondhand Qualis).

It proved very popular in India, as it's very roomy; any roadside mechanic knows how to fix it and parts are still available everywhere. The car looked like it'd been through some rough times, the spare tyre was in worse shape than the ones on the car and hubby, who was driving, doubted the oil had ever been changed, but he was very reassured by the fact of it being a Toyota engine. If we had to do another trip in India we'd definitely get a Qualis again.

Lakshmi