Automobile Rentals

David Sikorski went to a Hertz in Austin, Texas, last month to rent a car for a business trip to Dallas. He'd booked a fuel-efficient mid-size sedan, hoping to keep expenses down on the 400-mile round trip. What he got was a 16-mile-per-gallon Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle. "I walked right back in and asked for something smaller," said the Austin computer data specialist, who eventually was given a Hyundai.

Sticker shock: I just booked a rental car from the airport in Seattle for July. Our $100 rental car will actually be $160 with taxes and fees. This is highly immoral and unethical. Unfortunately, I booked our air tickets before finding out. Otherwise, I would not be visiting Seattle. What can we do? -- Ken Gerken Thousand Oaks Answer: WWAGD? Al Gore would ditch the car, that's what he would do. And maybe you should too, even if it's only to save your pocketbook and not the planet.

IT'S a special moment for every race driver. You tighten the belts, flip down your visor and -- quietly, in the privacy of your full-face helmet -- say the Shepard's Prayer. That's Alan Shepard, the astronaut: "Please, Lord, don't let me screw up." Actually, I'm paraphrasing. Sitting on the pit road at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, cinched into a recently retired Formula One car, I've got good reason to be spiritual.

WE worry a lot about the cost of airfare, but travelers often don't pay enough attention to hotel and car rental rates, which can add up to quite a bit more than your passage from Point A to Point B. That's why I book my hotels and car rentals online with the opaque sites Hotwire (www.hotwire.com) and Priceline (www.priceline.com). I have used both sites successfully and frequently, Hotwire more often for rental cars and Priceline for both.

In Vegas, anyone can rent a basic compact car, as I did ($17.96 a day, plus taxes, at Thrifty), but here in the capital of flash and glitz, something a little sportier may be in order. On Swenson Avenue, not far from the airport, I found RAV (Rent-a-Vette), which specializes in the exotic. A Lamborghini Gallardo or a Ferrari 360 Spider will set you back $1,495 a day. A Bentley Continental GT goes for $995, and a Corvette convertible (very popular) for $295.

In December 2006, the average daily rate for a mid-size rental car booked via the Internet at Los Angeles International Airport was about $60. A month later, the rate had climbed to $79, according to a study by a consumer group. A class-action lawsuit filed by the group Wednesday alleged that the spike was the result of illegal price-fixing by rental-car companies -- enabled by a new state law that allows the companies to change the way they advertise rates at many airports.

If you're renting a car over the holidays, chances are a clerk at the counter will try to sell you some pricey insurance options. Should you fork out the extra cash? Probably not, experts say. That's because there's a very good chance the auto insurance policy you already have would kick in if you had an accident while driving a rental. And sometimes the credit card you use to rent the car offers coverage too.

Customer satisfaction with airport car rentals has declined, according to an annual survey by J.D. Power & Associates. Now in its 12th year, the study measures overall customer satisfaction with renting cars at airports by examining costs and fees, the pickup process, the car itself, return process, reservation process and shuttle bus or van. The survey uses a 1,000-point scale, and found that overall satisfaction dropped from 767 points in 2006 to 750 in 2007.

Every time you rent a car at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, you are paying a tax that helps reduce local property taxes in Euless, Texas, the airport's home city. You are also paying for new NHL and NBA arenas. Renting a car in Charlotte, N.C.? Your taxes go to fund a downtown arts center. In Milwaukee, the latest municipality to increase car rental taxes, where is the money going? Toward a study to make recommendations about local mass transit options.

"Turn right on North Water," said the disembodied voice emanating from a little electronic box affixed to the windshield of my rented Chevy Suburban. The voice was coming from a portable navigation device, and it was steering me 19 miles from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to within feet of my hotel in downtown Chicago. Called Where2 by Avis, it operates with the help of a satellite-guided global positioning system, or GPS.