We had an incredibly stressful and disappointing experience with Travellers Autobarn after booking one of their vans via the recommendation of a travel agent for a 10 day trip around the south island.

The trip started off smoothly and we were thrilled with how clean and spacious the van was. After trouble with a dead battery in Milford Sound, we jumped our car twice after it stalled mid-drive- the break assist, power steering, and gas all stopped. This was absolutely terrifying, especially with the steep drive back to Queenstown. After driving 4 hours nonstop with no air or radio on for fear of draining the battery. We were confident that the battery would be recharged and the van safe to drive after this, but it stalled again 3 times when we arrived back in the town center in Queenstown which was super concerning. We called the Christchurch office the next day and encountered a pretty rude staff member who insisted that this was all our fault because of the dead battery, even though that is not normal after a jump start and 4 hours of driving to recharge. She told us to call someone to diagnose the problem which we paid for out of pocket. This man wasn't a mechanic and couldn't tell us what was wrong besides that it was not due to the previous death of the battery. So we ate that cost and had no answers. We called customer service in Australia and had much better service with a woman who showed concern and put us in touch with her personal mechanic in Queenstown. This mechanic was very helpful and seemed qualified and smart. However after hours of looking at our van, he came up with hundreds of solutions that could fix our van but concluded that it was a really complex issue and that the van needed to be taken out of commission and looked at. He did say that the battery was 8 years old and overdue to be replaced as well as the spark plugs which made us furious, as we assumed we were renting a safe and up to date van........

Reviewed over 6 years ago and experienced in March 2018