Reviews for

Northern Lights Car Rental

in Iceland

Good experience with Northern, answers with chat on website very fast !

Finally we have got a Toyota Rav 4, it was quite to drive and able to passe different kind of roads (F roads included).
The company was very efficient and helpful when we asked for an help or just so small changes.

We were upgraded by northern lights Free of charge to a Suzuki gran vitara. The car and service from northern lights was fantastic. Northbound were great throughout at arranging our car rental, including accommodating changes at last minute to suit amended flights. We would highly recommend both companies.

When we arrived at the airport we waited a bit before the guy from the company showed up, but disappeared very fast, so had no chance to go with him. Ended up calling and had to wait for him coming back, so all in all a wait of 1 hour.
The car we had was very damaged. We understood that it is normal with the roads in Iceland, but this seemed a lot more than other cars we met on the road and that our friends had leased at other companies, and this made us doubt the safety of it. Furthermore the window in the front right side did not work, USB port was destroyed, and generally the car was just old and in a bad shape.
Luckily I took photos of each damage and scratch, cause some damages were questioned when we came back, and I could document that there was no new scratches.
The personal was not very service minded - they were short in their replies, and made you feel a bit more like a problem than a customer...

We had a great experience renting through Northern Lights car rental. The whole process went very smoothly, and when we had to modify our dates (because of plane cancelations), we had no issues at all, they were very accommodating and helpful.
I will definitely use their services next time we come back, and would recommend renting through them!

Although the car wasn’t that new , 200.000 km, we didn’t have any trouble during our 3,5 week tour. Seats were good. The only thing was that the engine started to smell after going uphill for a while . That didn’t give any problem. Highly recommended .


any troubleshooters

Free upgrade for Hyundai Tucson. Thank you!
Come again twice next year and will book a car from northbound. Sorry about some changings before because of canceled flights. Hope you will come through this bad times and wish you many new bookings.
Kind regards
Gabriela

The car was in poor condition. Halfway the journey the battery went dead. Northern lights told us that we probably left the lights on, which is not true. They would look for someone who would be able to give us a jumpstart but we were ofcourse on the other side of the island. There were no starter cables present in the car so after looking for a long time we found someone willing to help who also had starting cables. Since northern lights had not yet reached out again. Later that day the car wouldn’t start again, we bought our own starting cables and found someone willing to help.
I told northern lights and they told us to go to a repairshop in Akureyri. There they could tell us that it was a cable which was connected poorly and got loose and disconnected the battery from the car.
Furthermore the cooling fluid was empty. As in totally empty. We had to refill it with water while traveling...

The car was clean inside, and ran well, no difficulties with the rental process; booking, recieving and returning the car.

However I had some general concerns about the service:
- the website was unclear regarding the deposit required. The first time I saw mention of a deposit was after we had booked the car and it was part of the information attached to the confirmation email.
- similarly it was unclear whether I had to pay a deposit when taking out insurance. I had to email the company to explain this.
- the driver that picked us up from the airport (he explained he was new) didn't know all the companies he was collecting customers for.. we had to wait over an hour at the airport for him to return (a second time) when I had to point out to him that "Northbound" was on his sign.
-the free GPS was impossible to use. Having been notified that we would have a GPS I opted against renting the in-car WiFi...

It was good, on the whole. We had to start our trip early at short notice and Nothern Lights were flexible in being willing and able to provide a care a few days early. The first car we drove off in had a bad rattle so we went straight back, the guy agreed and swapped it. Nonetheless, the second car had a (lesser) rattle which we put up with for the trip, but the car functioned well.
At pick up, we had to prompt them to give us the sat nav (we had been offerred the choice of free sat nav or free additional driver). Unfortunately after the first day the sat nav stopped working correctly - the touch screen stopped working. Lucky we had our phones.
At drop off, they had barely sufficient capacity to transfer to the airport. We had to (just) squeeze in to the minibus with two other families - not great in COVID times. The guy at Norther Lights at drop off was grumpy to the point of being quite unpleasantly rude...

Everything was good! Great customer communication and good car.

The Vitara was just perfect, it was very clean and drove like a dream I felt very safe driving it and didn’t eat as much fuel as I thought It would.

The shuttle service from the airport like as the pick up service was quick and good. The car was not as we expected, more than 200.000 km of life, with scratches and damage in both side of the car. After some days light on the Tires pressure alarm despite the tires was ever in good conditions

The car was okay and everything what we needed. The Suzuki Jimny has not a lot of power but needs a lot of gas. The roof tent was big enough and good as long as the weather was not super bad. It leaks a little bit if there is a lot of rain. But everything together was as expected and we could everything do what we wanted to do with it.

We didn't mind the high mileage, the car was well maintained and served well.

Great car and a good km/L

Almost everything is good.

We made a beautiful journey with this car. There were mattresses and pillows available.

Ci siamo trovati molto bene. La macchina, seppur non nuova, era in buone condizioni e con un grande bagagliaio che per noi era necessario essendo in 5.
Una nota particolare per la simpatia dei ragazzi che sono al desk.

Everything was perfect!
Everything again!

We had a really good experience with Northern Lights car rental. First off, they were very accommodating with multiple changes we had to make, including last-minute changes, due to Covid 19 related flight cancellations and rebookings.
We rented a four wheel drive Dacia Duster, which was perfect for our 3-week tour on the rough dirt roads ( not F-roads) along the fjords and over the mountains in West Iceland and the Westfjords. The Duster was not the newest, but it was obviously well maintained. It was very rugged and never let us down.

The employees were friendly and the price of the rental was good, but the rented car had a lot of mechanical and electronic problems (not very comforting during our stay).

The ideal car for the way we travel in Iceland. Just the right size for two people and our luggage and very competent on the F-roads (the suspension was a bit hard but that is part of the fun). A proper miniature LandRover.

The Suzuki was quite good. Just that the radar brake was most times automatically disabled when it rains and the navigation system was out of date.

The communication and the customer support was quite good.

A few topics to improve:
- Transport capacity between airport and northern lights...we had to wait more then one hour
- At the end we had to park the car directly at the airport. A short notice via mail would have saved us the way to northern lights
- Maybe we missed it but a notice about the deposit would have been good to know

Decent car, some minor problems like AC not working, wheels not balanced, whining fan-belt, and backdoor a bit lose.
And also the Tires were not of the newest kind, since you also are responsible if a tire breaks.

But we had a really good trip with the 4x4 and the vehicle did not let us down :)
Good and fun greetings and service from staff!

average - car really needed a big check up BEFORE the keys were hand over. Too many things weren't checked. Also essentials such as the windshield wipers we had to replace ourselves. There were lots of strange noises in that car and the sun visor at the passengers side wasn't original which made it impossible to decently open OR close it. Returning the car was also a mess because of lack of staff. Only two people there who had to do the documents, check the cars AND drive the busses to the airport. Result: long queue in the office and nobody there because they were at the airport. Neven seen such an bad organisation before.

Pick up at the airport was a little bit slow. Not enough drivers/cars to transfer all people from the airport to the rental company. We received a great car (not the one that was reserved) but gps was no good. After a couple of days the dashboard of the car mentioned that a check up was necessary. Called the company and they told us not to worry. Drop off was not that smooth. Only two people present who were driving people from their office to the airport while no one was in the office taking care of people who wanted to bring back their cars.

We didn't get a Vitara. They gave us an S Cross. We think it wasn't a comparable car and for the F roads in the highlands not high enough and an inadequatly springing.
The driver who picked us up at the airport and at northern lights didn't help us with the luggage to disposite it right in the car for transport. The navigation wasn't up to date so we used our mobile phone. Many roadds were unknown.

I really loved traveling around in the jimny with a roof tent that we rented. I live in Iceland and i am used to traveling around the country but this way we got to experience our country in a different way. I would really recommend. :)