03-14-2013, 11:46 AM
Best prices I ever got on the islands was from this place: http://www.carrentalhawaii.com/ They use the regular car rental companies but for some reason they are a lot cheaper than you can get anywhere else. I know weekly rates are usually the cheapest. I have never rented a car for months. If it was me I would probably get a weekly rate for 1 week and try to find a beater to buy for the duration of my visit. You said you wanted to "check it out" (Puna). Does that mean you are coming back? You could look at storing the car for your next visit (probably someplace cheap but rusty like a punawebbers vacant lot) or selling it- perhaps for the same or more money than you bought it for. Seems like 2-3 months worth of rental fees would tally up far beyond the $1500-$2000 price of a beater after taxes. Of course you'll take a gamble that buy a $2k beater that runs for a week then needs a $1500 transmission repair.
One thing to take into consideration is gas mileage. In certain situations if we are doing a lot of island touring it is cheaper (and more comfortable) for us to rent a car that gets 30 MPG than to drive our own cars that get around 15 MPG after factoring the price of gas, rental, taxes etc and we don't have to worry about our older car breaking down on the other side of the island. Thats what we do when we have mainland visitors come who want to see everything- rent a car for the heavy driving days.
One thing to take into consideration is gas mileage. In certain situations if we are doing a lot of island touring it is cheaper (and more comfortable) for us to rent a car that gets 30 MPG than to drive our own cars that get around 15 MPG after factoring the price of gas, rental, taxes etc and we don't have to worry about our older car breaking down on the other side of the island. Thats what we do when we have mainland visitors come who want to see everything- rent a car for the heavy driving days.