Rental SUV's - Are they all 4WD?

[southernnaturelover]

Are you wanting to drive it down a wooded trail? They will inspect it when you turn it in, if there's lots of scratches on it you could get charged for it.

[mathjak107]

interesting ,every credit card will not cover you if you go off road as they typically extend coverage to a rental.

in fact visa and master card wont cover accidents on gravel roads and master card extends that to roads not maintained full time.

2012 Credit Card Auto Rental Insurance Study

[ReblTeen84]

Originally Posted by ElkHunter

Please re-read my post. A standard car rental place doesn't have Jeep, Audi, Subaru or BMW's available and you end up paying high dollars. I didn't say that ALL awd systems were that way or even MANY awd systems were that way. I said, there are some and those you specified are the some.

I rented a Grand Cherokee before I bought one from Enterprise. It wasn't hard and it wasn't by request. I was given the option of a GC at Avis in Kansas as well. Call around, ask what they have. If you want a Jeep, they can probably get you one from another location if they don't have one there.

[greg42]

I would expect this to be common at all companies but I know it's true at Hertz:

If you rent an actual SUV class vehicle they do specify AWD/4WD. Most of what they get these days are AWD crossover-type vehicles, but even within that there are varying degrees of capability, and things like Grand Cherokees are a possibility although would be luck of the draw probably in the Standard SUV class. (Sometimes they do have 2WD variants in the fleet, but they will not rent these as the SUV class but instead a regular car classification like full size.)

To a certain degree this is moot though as technically you are not supposed to take the vehicle off road as per the rental agreement. A gravel public road is a sort of a gray area. I've certainly driven rentals on such roads before with no trouble (with a regular car even), but sometimes the rental agreement states it as "unpaved road" which of course depends upon your definition of paved. One could argue that it is paved with gravel if that is the case. But if it doesn't actually have any paving at all then you would be in the wrong. Basically, don't damage it or get it stuck out there because you'll be in violation of your rental agreement most likely.

[captne76]

I used to fly out to Las Vegas then rent a 4wd because a tv and fm transmitter was on a mountaintop acccessible only by a very tricky dirt road often snowed in. I would go through the SUV inventory with a flashlight, check the axles then read the manual to select a 4wd vehicle.

[69GSstage1]

Most of the SUVs in a rental fleet are two wheel drive. Even if the renter purchases the Loss Damage Waiver, it will not cover any damage if the vehicle is taken off road. During hunting season in South Texas, renters would take the additional coverage only to learn that off road use would violate the rental agreement and void the coverage.