I strongly recommend to stay away from Scotties: Good price came with a hefty price tag for gas for me (16l / 100 km!) for a badly maintained old, small car.

Please note, I tried to contacted them directly, but no response, hence the warning.

Step by Step:

I picked up a gold Nissan Tiida on a Saturday morning in February. Car was pretty worn down and old like all cards on their lot that day. Short overview: Mileage over 150.000km, cuts in the seats and scratches all over. But I was assured the car had just passed official inspection. As I don't mind old cars, I went my way. After half a day I realized that the smell was permanent and the car moved to the left whenever I let the wheel go for a split second. Then the door seal came off. I called and went back to Christchurch the next day to pick up a replacement.

After much apologies I received another Nissan Tiida, with similar scratches, mileage over 150.000km and "optimizable" tires (btw their cars only speak Japanese, because they are direct imports). When I asked about the inferior condition of the cars, I was told "you booked a cheap car". I did not want to argue that cheap and small does not equal crappy and small, because the car seemed old but alright and I finally wanted to leave town. The woman assured me she test drove it herself.

Fast forward a few days. Found a few broken things, but nothing major. BUT: I realized the car was using a lot of gas. Instead of the usual 8-9l I ended up with AN AVERAGE OF 16L/100km. For a Nissan TIIDA. For a 2.000 km/10 day trip this equaled in roughly another 350-400NZD for gas.

The rental price was cheap though.

Reviewed over 4 years ago and experienced in February 2020