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Car Rental in Malaga

I see a lot of questions and posts on Car rentals in Malaga so thought I would post my recent experience. I rented a car online from Malaga Car Hire for a car for 1 week. Pick up at the Malaga Airport. They were great with communication and my email confirmation was very clear as to where and how to get to the car rental place. They provided pickup at the airport, I just had to go to a certain spot for the pickup. The car was from Niza car rentals, and they came by with their pick up van within 10 minutes of me being out at the curb. Their office is close to the airport. Nice office, they weren't busy, personel spoke good English and were very nice. I got a really nice, clean, fairly new car that had a stick shift. Fortunately I chose to add the extra insurance. For an additional 10 Euros a day I thought it was worth it. GOOD THING!!! I stayed in Marbella, and on the second day I went to La Canada, the local shopping mall. When I came out I saw someone had keyed my car! I have never had this happen, EVER!

All the rental cars in Spain and Portugal have stickers on the back with their company name: Centauro, Goldcar, Europa Car, etc... It is like a big red flag that says "I am a tourist" I would highly recommend you remove that sticker asap. I am sure that is why my car was keyed. Also, I was warned not to leave anything in my car. Even though it can't be seen, the thieves in the Marbella area are very good and smart. If they see a rental car they know you are a tourist and may have something in your trunk. The resort I was at really insisted that I take my luggage out of my car and put it in their storage before I went into town (my room wasn't ready yet)

When I contacted Malaga Car Hire about the car damage they were very prompt with a reply and gave me the contact info for Niza car to let them know. Niza again was very nice. When I dropped off the car, no problem, no charges. Yeah for insurance!!

I would definitely recommend these companies - oh, the cost - a total of $128 Euros for a week!

Posted by
2574 posts

What do you mean ‘keyed’. This is not a common term throughout the English speaking world. Do you mean somebody broke into the car or do you mean that they scraped a key along the side of the car?

Posted by
15781 posts

Even I understood that keying means using a key to mar the paint job ☺

I don't remember seeing stickers on any of the cars I rented in Europe, including twice in Spain. I do think it's a smart thing to take the sticker off.

Here in Israel there are many cars with a car rental name/logo on them - they are painted on the car and can't be removed. Most of those cars are privately owned, purchased second-hand from the rental agencies, so nobody here thinks of them as being driven by tourists.