Sat Nav rental?

You can buy one for £60 from argos.
Although for that money you could pick up a basic android phone and Sim and use it to navigate,plus have tons of data and hundreds of mins uk call time.
Plus call rates back to the US can be had from 3c a min , likely better than any package your cell provider would offer

I definitely wanted to rent a sat nav unit since our phones won't work overseas (I checked with our provider).

That is a strange statement. The phone may be incompatible with the mobile phone system used in Europe (called GSM), so no telephone calls or data. But, if it is a smart phone, it should still work on WiFi, and the GPS should still be able to detect where it is, as neither use the phone network and can happily be used if you have "no network".
If you download a suitable mapping App before you leave home, and download the maps you need either before you leave home or using a hotel WiFi, you should be OK.

I recommend Maps.me: https://maps.me/features/
There are others, it is a matter of personal preference

Chris F, if their phones are iphones they would need data as they don't have GPS capability, iphones use mobile masts to triangulate their position (as far as I'm aware).

Bring your own GPS. We bought a Garmin GPS in the US from either Walmart online or Amazon (whichever had the best price) and Garmin's UK maps from Amazon. Advantages to bringing your own GPS are (1) sometimes it's cheaper to buy than rent, (2) you will already know how to use it (if you practice using it in the US) so you can concentrate on driving/traffic in the UK, and (3) you can use the GPS on future trips (in the US, or to the UK or other countries; just purchase maps for the other countries).

That said, the last couple times we've visited the UK, our rental car has come with a GPS (free of charge) even thought we didn't ask for one. I wouldn't depend on this happening though.

harleydonski Chris is right. Even an iphone’s GPS will work without data or a wifi signal. I have used my iphone as a GPS in both South Africa and Chile travelling in remote parts of Patagonia and the Kruger. Even if I did have data (I didn’t) it wouldn’t have worked in some of those places, but the GPS worked perfectly. I plan on doing the same thing for my upcoming trip to GB in the summer. I also second maps.me. It is a great app and that is the one I’ll be using again.

As stated above, you can use a smartphone as a GPS without an internet connection. But you must download the maps ahead of time. Google Maps and other apps have "offline mode" to let you do that. I have used it, and it works okay. You can try it out at home before you leave for Europe. Just download a local map for the area where you live, then put your phone into airplane mode. Then try to navigate somewhere and see how it works. It will work the same way in Europe. But you will need to download local map for the area where you will be driving of course.

By the way, if you're iPhone can be unlocked, SIM cards are very cheap in Europe these days.

A lot of cars have Satnav built in these days. If you do have a seperate one, hide every part of it when you leave the car, don't just hide the unit in the glove box and leave the mount stuck to the windscreen.

Enterprise don't hire out sat navs as far as my experience goes.

Renting sat navs from the rental agency is the worst option, scandalously expensive and quite simply a cynical rip off (much like infant seats). Whilst there is no guarantee pretty much most new cars now come fitted with sat nav as standard, even the cheaper models. Enterprise always maintains a good, new fleet so there is every chance that you will have one. The more expensive and higher spec car you have the more likelihood that you'll have one as standard.

I'm unsure why you've been told your phone won't work but if you have a smartphone it will. Your easiest and cheapest resolution is to have your phones unlocked at home if they're locked and once you arrive in the UK buy a sim card that includes a generous data allowance plus calls and texts. You can either buy one at the airport or there are a number of stores, Three, Vodafone, O2, EE etc within a 10 minute walk from the Enterprise rental in Winchester.

Alternatively if you have your own sat nav, buy or download a map containing the UK.

(I checked with our provider).

Can I suggest that you call a different person at your provider and ask again. Ask specifically about the UK. Ask when they will unlock the phone....

"harleydonski Chris is right. Even an iphone’s GPS will work without data or a wifi signal. I have used my iphone as a GPS in both South Africa and Chile travelling in remote parts of Patagonia and the Kruger. Even if I did have data (I didn’t) it wouldn’t have worked in some of those places, but the GPS worked perfectly."

I only mentioned it as that is what I'd been told by iPhone users (long time android user myself), Googling it explains that it has GPS capability but uses the phone masts as a "cheat" to speed things up.

http://tewha.net/2011/10/how-the-iphone-gps-differs-from-a-standalone-navigation-gps/

On our last trip to Britain, our car rental company, Europcar really stiffed us. The car we reserved didn't come with a GPS or nav system. They wanted 20 pounds a day (almost as much as we were paying for the car rental) for a GPS.

We upgraded to a better car with a Nav system, that still didn't work about 10% of the time.

Don't use Europcar.

Europcar are no different to any other car rental agency with regards to sat nav rentals. Without exception they all charge extortionate fees to rent a sat nav. The fact that the in built navigation system you had in your upgraded car failed 10% of the time is not the fault of Europcar but rather the navigation system itself.

I've never used Europcar but the reasons provided for not renting from them would apply to every other rental company, there's no justification for singling them out, they're all as bad as one another and it's the reason the general advice is not to rent sat navs.

JC,
On another trip to Britain, we rented from Thrifty and had no similar problems in dealing with them. Also, we have used Hertz, Budget and Enterprise in the USA and never had these problems.

Thank you all! The reason we chose Enterprise was they were the only company we found that allowed pick up in Winchester and drop-off in Oxford. I booked an economy car (with automatic transmission); since it's fairly basic, I don't want to depend on the likelihood it will have a built-in sat nav.

Regarding cell phones, we both have iphones, but our provider is Cricket. Don't know if ya'll are familiar with Cricket, but they're fairly low-cost with few bells and whistles. I know the phone will work whenever we have wifi, but obviously we won't have it while we're driving down Cotswold country roads! :-) My hubby is trying a few apps that may work offline (provided we download the map ahead of time, like a previous poster mentioned. I will also ask him about one of the phones being unlocked.

On another trip to Britain, we rented from Thrifty and had no similar problems in dealing with them. Also, we have used Hertz, Budget and Enterprise in the USA and never had these problems.

What problems? I've used all the companies you've mentioned, and more, both in Europe and the US and without exception they all charge similar rates for a sat nav unit. In fact my recent Hertz rental in Palma had an in built unit but the map was on a removable SD card. Guess what Hertz did? They removed the card and tried to charge me an extortionate amount to put it back in. It comes as standard and is no different than removing the spare wheel and charging the customer to have it back.

I've just looked at a couple of quotes. Budget Miami airport charges $16.99 per day for GPS rental. Enterprise from Heathrow charge £13.32 per day, Hertz from JFK is $16.99 per day, Europcar from Edinburgh airport £17 per day. Certainly Europcar tops my brief search in terms of price but not significantly so, I consider the prices charged by all those companies as extortionate.

The other issue you mentioned was the sat nav not working for 10% of the time. Am I correct in assuming that it was losing the satellite signal? If so, this happens in every car I've ever driven, including my own. It is affected by location, surroundings, buildings etc however Renault seem to suffer the most with losing satellite signals in my experience and that of some of my friends. This is all down to the manufacturer and also conditions outside anyone's control. To blame the rental company on a car's loss of satellite signal is nonsensical.

You may not be happy with paying so much for a sat nav but you weren't forced to rent one. I assume you compared prices between various companies before settling on Europcar?

We got a Garmin with both North American and European map sets on Amazon for not an insane price. When we travel, part of the night before preparation is to make sure the hotels, rental car drop off points, major attractions, and any other necessary places addresses are entered in the Garmin's little brain so it's easy to hit a few buttons and get directions to the next point.

I'm also enough of a nerd to enjoy seeing, say the hotel in Garmisch or Portmeirion village still in the listings when I scroll down the list of saved locations. Call it a digital souvenir

Due to this thread I downloaded maps.me which looks pretty good - with the exception of travel times! Just wondering if anyone with experience with this ap has had issues with it giving ridiculously low estimates of travel times?

We got a Garmin with both North American and European map sets on Amazon for not an insane price. When we travel, part of the night before preparation is to make sure the hotels, rental car drop off points, major attractions, and any other necessary places addresses are entered in the Garmin's little brain so it's easy to hit a few buttons and get directions to the next point.

I had a Garmin for several years, and I used it twice to drive in Europe. But once I got a decent smartphone and Google Maps and realized how much more advanced it was, I sold the Garmin before it became completely obsolete. Google Maps for one is constantly updated, whereas I found my Garmin maps were often out of date, sometimes very out of date. Plus, I could use Google Maps for both driving and for walking / transit directions. I could make maps ahead of time on my laptop and the same map would be available on my phone and tablet, for driving and everything. There are maybe a few features from the Garmin that I missed, but the benefits of something like Google Maps far outweigh the loss of those features.

JC,
The problem was the bait and switch by Europcar that indicated that a nav system would be a modest amount for the entire rental period.
At least Thrift and the others had nav systems in the cars that I booked and didn't force me to choose between a ridiculous daly GPS charge and upgrading to a car with double the rental fee.

Had I knew where to purchase a GPS in Britain (I found out a couple of days into my trip), I would have taken the car that I had booked without the nav system and purchased a GPS with the UK maps.

Also, Europcar presente me with the upgraded price then when I accepted and read the contract, the price had the VAT added. This is not proper, since the VAT should not be added to the price.

geovagriffith,

How did Europcar advise you that the sat nav would be a modest rental and then surprise you with the reality? When I've made a dummy booking on their site it presents you with a list of extras and the price, in this case the sat nav daily rate was clearly displayed. Did you book online or on the phone?

Thrifty may well have had cars with inbuilt sat nav and they also have ones that don't but you won't know until you get into the car. You can have a fair idea i.e. a Mercedes or BMW is going to be guaranteed to have one but others less so. It is becoming frequently more common for cars to have sat nav as standard but not all new cars are coming equipped with it. You just simply happened to be lucky with the car from Thrifty, you could quite as easily been given a car without one.

I'm also not sure why you don't think VAT should have been included. You're not exempt from paying VAT on a rental car just as I'm not exempt from paying tax on my grocery shopping in the US. As a business user you can often claim back the VAT but I'm assuming you were renting as a tourist?

The Europcar website did have a price for the nav system, but it was not available (I was told when picking up the car) on the car that I booked. The website did indicate that nav systems were not always available. However, in all other cases, in Europe and the USA, when I rent a car the one that I booked was available with a nav system or I had a very modest upgrade, not one that required me to pay double the booking price. Since I picked up the car in the morning, I don't think many of their cars were already taken. The parking lot at the rental office had many.

I realize that more expensive cars will likely come with a nav system. I did not want an expensive car and was happy with a compact or medium sized car.

I know that VAT is a tax included in any purchase in the UK, the issue that I had was that they quoted me a price for the upgrade and ADDED the VAT cost to the price. VAT is not added like US sales tax, it is included in the price.

I did a lot of research on renting a car and also looked at purchasing a GPS in the USA, but could not find a GPS loaded with the UK maps for purchase online the USA. I visited a local store that sold GPS and they did not have the UK maps. I discovered that if I purchased a GSP in the USA with North American maps, that I could not add the UK maps, due to the data storage limits on the GPS. When I picked up the car at Heathrow, I could have taken the one without the nav system, but would have needed to purchase a GSP and had no idea where a shop was located.

I know that VAT is a tax included in any purchase in the UK, the issue that I had was that they quoted me a price for the upgrade and ADDED the VAT cost to the price. VAT is not added like US sales tax, it is included in the price.

Ah ok, I understand now. Yes, VAT should be included in the price. I'm not sure why they would do that and for that reason I can understand your viewpoint.