Recensioni per

Rental Car In Iceland in Iceland

We got a car with worn out front tires. We lost 3 days of our trip waiting for the reparation. It has been a big inconvenience and a huge risk for our security.

We waited at the airport about two hours for pickup because voucher doesn’t show which rental company we have, anyone doesn’t pickup phone (rental noted in voucher and also northbound). Then we got car with broken doors on the passenger side, it doesn’t open properly sometimes doesn’t open at all. Even if was close, car was beeping and signals on the dash showed open door. If we opened window, it doesn’t close. In the end free gps was useless.

Unfortunately, I did not have such a good experience renting the car in Iceland. The rental ended up being through Lava Car Rentals, Northbound seems to be the mediator. It started with the fact that at the agreed time after landing no one was at the airport to pick us up. Only after a call someone came. Space was then in the bus for 8 people, but there were 12 people at the airport and had to be taken. So 4 people had to wait (according to the driver a maximum of 10 minutes). When after an hour still no one had come back, we had to call again (twice, because first no one answered the phone) and 10 minutes later we were then also picked up with the other two people. We had booked a Dacia Duster 2017 with free GPS. According to the website of Lava Car Rental, they have "new cars" and "reliable technology". We got a battered Dacia Duster that made very high-frequency sounds, whose airbag lamp was lit, so obviously the airbag was not working (more on this below; these two things we have unfortunately only applied after some time driving) and had no GPS (we felt that was not so bad, because our cell phone could take over this function well). When we arrived at our accommodation in the evening and our ears were ringing from the beeping, I wrote Lava Car Rentals about the two defects. I also quickly got an answer early the next morning about where I would be and thought that a replacement vehicle would probably be taken care of then. So I wrote down our plan for the day in detail and noted that we would be that evening again in the current accommodation, but then had to go on (we had already pre-booked accommodation). Then came nothing more, only the next day in the early afternoon (when we were already in the middle of the way to the next accommodation), came the mail with a workshop that we could drive to, which looks at the car. My answer was a bit brusque, whether that was their seriousness, we had already gone further, as I had noted. But the brusqueness can be excused: On the key it was noted that the car must be refueled with petrol, but on a scratched sign on the tank one could see "Diesel" - however, I noticed this only after refueling (fortunately before starting the engine), since it was only better visible from a direction in which I was unfortunately not standing during refueling. So we have directly times around a workshop to have the tank pumped empty and cleaned. Fortunately, the workshop was really eager and friendly, but it took a total of about 2 hours and we had to refuel a second time. Thereupon Lava Car Rental at least directly (after I had to send a picture of the key) said that they will pay the bill for the workshop, for this there is still the 2.0 rating, that actually worked without problems. The fuel bill I had to pay myself, for this I had in the panic when refueling unfortunately no receipt drawn, but also do not know if I would not have had to discuss long... With the beeping of the car we had now already resigned ourselves, because we did not want to spend longer somewhere in workshops and we had noticed that there are very small speed windows in which you can move, where it then does not beep - with fine feeling in the foot and loud radio it could then also be tolerated to some extent. With the defective airbag, we just hoped we wouldn't need it... Shortly before the end of our trip we had another incident: The rear door on the driver's side could no longer be closed, it remained open (no matter how hard you slammed it shut, closed it with feeling, pressed it shut and locked it - nothing could be done, the door was open, the mechanism that holds the door shut when it is slammed shut was defective). Of course, you couldn't drive on like that, the door would open immediately if the wind caught it or something. Park somewhere and move away from the car, of course, also did not work, it could have anyone open the car (or the wind would have already opened it to the person). Fortunately, this happened to us at our accommodation and then still in the quite early afternoon (15.30), so I hoped that someone could come quickly and fix the whole thing. So I wrote directly, but no answer came. The next morning then directly very early I dug deeper, because we had to leave the hotel. The answer came then again very directly that there is a workshop in the vicinity, which is requested to take care of it to which we should then drive (I had written that we can not drive, because the door is open, but that only incidentally). 3 hours later I still had no answer, but we had to leave the accommodation in an hour ... On demand then the answer that we can drive now to the workshop. I didn't feel like discussing any longer that driving with the door open would be a bit difficult, so I just kept the door closed with my hand while driving and hoped that wouldn't cause any problems on the half hour drive.... Arrived at the workshop (here they were again very nice), they tried to solve the problem, but even after half an hour and complete disassembly of the door, there was only the solution: it would have to install a new lock. The mechanic called Lava Car Rental to tell them the problem and at the end of the phone call told us that we would then be contacted by Lava Car Rental now to discuss how to proceed. Of course nothing happens again! So I called and complained that we have not booked a vacation to visit the garages of the country and just waiting for answers from Lava Car Rentals. The discussion was relatively one-sided and the result was that we now have to wait at least two hours until a driver comes - and then they just hung up. We bridged the further two and a half hours in a Lava Museum, which was interesting and entertaining, but actually not on our list... The replacement car was then a Dacia Duster, which we would have liked at the beginning: relatively new (although already 160000 km down), with GPS and without any annoying noises. So there are the reasonable cars at Lava Car Rental! Unfortunately, our trip was now already over and we had booked two more nights in Reykjavik - so you don't really need a good car for that anymore... But I would now like to add to this negative review that I think it is due to one person in this store. The guy seems to be absolutely overwhelmed with the job, while the actual driver for the shuttle was very eager and also the young blond man who brought us the replacement vehicle made a reasonable and helpful impression. Unfortunately, not the overwhelmed guy has accepted the car from us again, I would have liked to tell him a few bars... So we have spent a day and a half with workshop visits and a few hours waiting, which would certainly have ruined the complete vacation on a shorter trip, so it was at least "only" very annoying.

Several confusions:. We got emails before we left from both Lava and Northbound. After a few back and forth emails I confirmed they were both talking about the same car. Added stress to our preparation. We were picked up after maybe 30 minutes of wait at the Iceland airport by a Lava van and taken to a Lava building. We had a low tire pressure warning light come on while in Akureyi. We called and were told not to worry about it. But there was a slow leak so we had to stop several times to top off the tire. Worrying about a flat tire is not a positive vacation experience. Finally, the rental agreement said we would return the car at 12:00. I remember putting in 2:00 for our 5:00 departure when I booked, but we didn't catch the mistake when we signed the paperwork so my bad. The Lava agent said they were scheduled to rent our car to the next person at 12:30. Given we had called about the slow leak I was surprised they were planning to send the car out again in 30 minutes. We arrived at 1:15 and they charged us $175 for an additional day instead of an additional hour rate. Seems excessive. I have rented cars all over the world and have not been penalized in this way for 1 hour and 15 minutes late. So overall a bit of a unsatisfying experience.

Car tires was in bad condition. During the trip I had to visit the service and change all the tires. Before that, one tire had to be replaced. The money was returned, but I lost on the exchange rate. The staff was polite.