SadCars Iceland Review

In February 2017 we travelled to Iceland and rented a car through the rental company SadCars. Friends of ours had rented a car from them in 2016 and recommended them as a cheap rental car company. This is our SadCars Iceland review.

There were a few main reasons as to why we decided to use SadCars for our rental car in Iceland:

1) As we mentioned earlier, friends of ours rented a car from them and had a positive experience.
2) SadCars were easily the cheapest rental car company in Iceland for 4×4 vehicles – all of which came with studded tires. Their regular rates were lower than everyone else, plus they offered a 15% discount for a winter off-season booking.
3) Because their cars are old, they aren’t overly concerned about cosmetic damage to the cars paint job. This was nice because we read a lot about the wind/sand/snow storms that could cause significant damage to cars.
4) They offered free pickup and drop off at the airport. Their rental location isn’t directly at the airport – its about a 5 minute drive away, but their transport guys were there shortly after we landed and made the process smooth for us.
5) The vehicle we rented was able to drive on F-Roads.

The vehicle we were given was a blue Toyota Rav 4 that had around 360,000kms on it.

Because it was an older car and not in the best of shape we did have some minor issues with it. :

- The CD player did not work very well – it skipped a lot. We brought our own CDs with us because we road trip a lot at home and still use CDs. Unfortunate we ended up just turning our iPad on in the car. There was no AUX hook up so we could not play it through the car speakers. Not really a big deal, more a minor annoyance.
- The headlights were very poor compared to what we were used to back home, but we got used to them eventually. If you are renting in the summer this will be less of an issue because there is so much daylight. During the winter this could be an issue, especially in really poor conditions. Luckily for us, we planned most of our driving during daylight hours only.
- It rattled and hummed like most old cars. It was very loud. If we had been travelling with friends it would have been very annoying because you would have to speak unusually loud to be heard in the back. With just the two of us it was not too bad, but definitely noticeable.
- We could not for the life of us figure out how to open the fuel tank. There was no knob, button or lever that we could see to open it. We spent about 10 minutes at the gas station trying to figure it out. Eventually a local pulled up behind us and he happened to be driving a Toyota as well. We asked him if he knew how to open and after a little poking around he found it. There was a small level under the drivers seat that was broken, but still usable.
  SadCars Iceland Review – Toyota Rav4

- We asked for a car with studded tires because we did not know what the winter road conditions in Iceland would be. We were told all of SadCars winter rentals came with studded tires. While we only had snow for the first two days of our trip, we had lots of rain and were glad we had the studded tires when we went on the side roads and the one F-Road.

Our Review

We knew we wanted a car that could take a beating as we were travelling in the winter, wanted to drive some F-Roads, and wanted to drive some of the gravel roads. We were happy with the vehicle SadCars provided us. It was the cheapest option by far, and although there were minor issues with the vehicle, it was not like we were expecting a brand new perfect vehicle.

We drove through some very strong winds and blowing sand. Had we been in a brand new vehicle we would have been extremely worried about paint damage. Even though we have excellent insurance coverage through our credit card, it still would have been a pain in the butt to deal with damage issues resulting from weather.

SadCars responded to all of our e-mail inquiries very promptly. They picked us up from the airport promptly and dropped us off immediately after we returned our vehicle.

Their rates were very fair and easily laid out for us to understand.

The car was not in good condition, but it was in good enough condition for what we needed it for. I do not know if we will use them when we plan to do our third trip into the interior. We may pay for something a newer – just incase of any major problems.

We would recommend SadCars Iceland to people who want to drive a lot – there was no limit on the number of KMs driven.
We would recommend SadCars Iceland to people who are on a budget. You can’t beat their prices – keep an eye out for deals on their website.
We would recommend SadCars Iceland to people who want to drive on gravel roads and some F-Roads.
We would recommend SadCars Iceland to people who are worried about insurance issues. Because their vehicles are so old, the replacement cost on them will likely be exponentially lower than rental car agencies with new cars.
We would recommend SadCars Iceland to people who do not care too much about comfort while driving. We knew we would be doing lots of driving, but also making lots of stops. We did not need a luxury vehicle with heated leather seats.