Iceland Road Trip

The rental office is far away, instead of taking an airport shuttle bus, a driver picked us up, and the instructions were unclear.

They might be difficult if you don't buy the sandstorm insurance, so I purchased it.

The first time I felt cheated by a car rental, it's very frustrating. When we picked up the car, they didn't inform us about any road conditions. They didn’t inspect the car with us either, so we didn’t realize that there were no spare tire or any tools like a jack. We got stuck in the snow on a mountain without a shovel or other tools and were trapped in the car for two hours. Although we had full insurance, it didn’t cover roadside assistance. When we called for help, they wanted to charge us 650 euros. Luckily, a kind person helped us. We called to cancel the roadside assistance within 20 minutes, but they insisted on charging us, claiming the rescuers had already set out. When returning the car, they demanded a basic rescue fee of 35,000 ISK. As I argued with them, they directly charged my credit card without my consent and forced me to sign, then hurried us to the airport. Such terrible service; I spent 9000 yuan on this rental and got awful service in return. It was a very distressing experience and I’m very disappointed.

We waited a bit at the airport for the shuttle to arrive at pick up. Car was in good condition with all defects marked with stickers. It was a Hyundai i10 which took two 24 inch long suitcases in its boot. Fuel consumption was at about 5.7L/100km and it was quite sufficient for winter driving on highways and main roads.

Speedy response for help request with wrong booking, nice!

The people at the front counter became extremely short with us. We were working to figure out the credit card situation to pay for the downpayment and they started getting rude when we were asking questions to figure it out. They also made it seem they wanted us to buy the insurance rather then the down payment so they made the down payment as difficult as possible so we would just pay for the insurance.