I hired a year 2000 Toyota Hiace petrol manual campervan from Cruzy Campers to travel around parts of the South Island from the 28th December 2019 to 10th January 2020.

The hire cost was NZD$1,960 and the cost of the 351 litres of unleaded petrol I used to travel 3,020km was NZD$761.23. This gave the Hiace an 11.65 litres/100km efficiency. The cost of 91 unleaded petrol ranged from NZD$2.02/l (Christchurch) to NZD$2.459 (in Queenstown!) with an average cost of NZD$2.17/l.

Daniel was great - he delivered the van to my Airbnb in the morning, explained where everything in the van was and how everything worked. The interior of the van isn't the flashest but is still in good condition. Daniel had fitted new tyres for my trip and the motor didn't miss a beat especially when traversing some of the passes east to west and vice versa. There were four issues that I let Daniel know about when I returned the van (once again, Daniel was very punctual for the pick up and drop off at the airport) - (1) the driver's door didn't always latch properly and the red alert light on the dash would subsequently sometimes flash (2) there was a terrible smell coming from under the sink whenever I opened the cupboard door - I used some air freshener to mask the smell throughout my trip (3) there was only one night of rain during my trip (in Wanaka), and at 3am I was woken with water splashing on my face and pillow (probably no more than a cupfull) - the airvent above the bed was definitely securely closed and I couldn't determine how this water actually leaked through the vent (4) the fridge door seal had an air gap at the very top - fortunately, this didn't seem to affect the fridge performance, probably just meant it ran a lot longer than it needed to! The van had a complete inventory of bedding, cooking appliances and utensils and true to Daniel's word, there were no hidden extras to pay at the end of the trip.

Reviewed almost 5 years ago