Best Beetle FAIL

I wanted to share our experience with the company Best Beetle in South Africa. We had heard from friends that it wasn’t the best experience and they rent crappy cars but that they run and will get you where you need to go for cheap. We were hesitant to rent a 30 year old beetle in a country we’d never visited where you drive on the other side of the road but being climbers, cheap sounded like the best option.

We were wrong.

We landed in Cape Town in the afternoon and a guy from Best Beetle was waiting to take us to their shop which turns out to be 45 minutes from the airport. When we arrived the lady tells us that our beetle is up on the lift so the mechanic can check the brakes before they hand it over to us. We end up waiting for over an hour for them to hand over the car and finally hit the road as the sun was setting. We were exhausted and set off on what should be a two and a half hour drive to our house in Rocklands. The first part of the drive was ok after I got used to shifting with the left hand and working a heavy clutch. Driving the beetle was always a slow process but that was especially true working our way up the mountains. The beetle barely made it, frequently slowing down to 35 mph while semis were passing us on sketchy two lane roads. We had to stop several times along the way to let the engine cool off since it would start bucking up the steep roads. We finally arrived five hours later.

Our beetle worked for a good week before breaking down for the first time. Best Beetle claims to have 24 hour roadside assistance. Unfortunately that is a lie. We called, told them the car wouldn’t start, they said they would come in a day or two. A week later after many phone calls, they finally arrived to fix their car. It ran ok for a few days then broke down again. I can’t remember all the different problems we had but I do remember the brakes went out completely one time right before we were headed down the pass which would have turned serious real quick.

The short version of the story is the beetle would run for a few days, break down, we would call and yell at them to fix it, they would come a week later and either fix it or give us a different beetle, then the cycle would start again. This was the worst experience I’ve ever had with any company anywhere. Entirely unethical and I wanted to share our experience so you don’t have to go through what we did. We would have been completely SOL except our awesome housemates Jesse, Kenyon, and Ian rented a real car and were kind enough to let us pile in their hatchback!

Bottom Line: DO NOT rent from Best Beetle!