Best Time to Rent a Car?

I found a great rate for our Ford Focus on Ryanair.com (they use Hertz). €150 per 7 days incl. all insurances and taxes. (You don't have to fly Ryanair in order to book your cars on their website). I hope I can get a Diesel as it's 5 cents per liter cheaper than a regular gas car. We're traveling in April 2008.

Go ahead and rent now, then keep checking prices and companies. There's no penalty for canceling rental car reservations, so just keep watching prices until you leave -- maybe you'll find something better along the way. I waited till the last minute the last time I went to Ireland, and I found a deal with Irish Car Rentals where the automatic was only 20 euro more than the manual.

Autoeurope generally has sale prices beginning around February. As others have pointed out, they'll rebook you if a lower rate becomes available.

Thanks, everyone! I'll go ahead and shop around, book the best deal, then check for lower rates as time goes by.

This past year, I also found the best rates with Hertz through Ryan Air, and I did a lot of pricing. I have read responses to other questions related to rental cars and there were a number of complaints with Hertz, although I have never had any. I always feel like if I have a problem, when I get back to the US it will be easier to deal with Hertz. I have used Sixt, Europcar, and some lesser known European rental companies and never had problems with any of them. I usually book shortly after I have my air tickets secured, so usually 6 month in advance.

I reserved my car that I am picking up in Austria and dropping off in France next May / June with autoeurope with a fairly heavy one way drop fee. I just checked Hertz through their website and through Ryan air. They were both higher than what I'm paying through autoeurope. The Hertz website quote was 50% higher, and the quote through Ryan air was 20% higher.