I live in L.A. but I don’t own my car; I rent it! Furthermore, I actually turn it in every time I fly out to a conference and then get a new one when I fly back. This gave me the opportunity to try out quite a few different car rental companies located at LAX.
First, they all have a shuttle from the airport terminals to their facility. What you need to do when you get out of baggage claim is locate the curb segment that has Purple signs saying “Car Rental Shuttles” and wait for your shuttle there. The other colors are for Hotel Shuttles and parking shuttles.
Here’s my experience with several of the car rental companies (Note that I am typically renting Compact cars):
Avis: I've had a "dirty car" experience with them in the past. I've been avoiding them ever since.
Dollar: probably the best deals on the cars. You can choose your car within a category section. The problem is with the shuttle. You sometimes wait for quite a bit more than the advertised "every 15 minutes". WARNING: After like 20 rentals with them I needed some documents for my insurance and they never sent them to me. Actually, the people who work at their claim dept are either trained to be disingenuous or they are genuinely retarded. Either way, their customer service is an outrage. Don't go there!
Enterprise: expensive unless you have a coupon. Car had no wiper water.
Hertz: Very expensive
Thrifty: Rude front desk. You can choose your car within a category section. Car had no wiper water. Took 20 minutes to turn in the car instead of 2 minutes everywhere else.
Fox: Shuttle runs more often than many others. Efficient front desk. Dirtiest car ever; all seats severely stained with God knows what. You cannot choose your car (and you can end up with an ugly PT Cruiser).
I will come back here and edit this post as I rent more cars at LAX.
Do not rent from deluxe rental car in LAX, unless you don’t mind waiting 50 minutes for the shuttle.
Also, their employees need to learn how to be more
polite.
