Avant Car Croatia Reviews 

Scam! We booked a VW Touran or similar, but instead we got a lousy Dacia Lodgy with very poor and weak engine. The car is so bad and have very low safety, that I didn't dare to drive more that 70 km/h. It was like driving a big tin can. I case of an accident, you would literately die!

Yes, you guessed correctly: Complaining was wast of time. They argue that it's similar because both are "SMMD-cars", whatever that means.

Avoid this company at any cost!

Good value, nice car, check-in went very well. However, the check-out in downtown Zagreb was like dealing with a used car salesman. The agent tried too long and hard to pressure me into buying their insurance. It took over an hour of my precious vacation time to get the car. I lost count of how many times I had to say NO.

Do not rent from these guys! I went thought rentacar website and the price was good but small print demanded 2000Euros deposit on the card! I was unaware of this , staff was unfriendly, rude and not helpful! I had to rent from Sixt next door who was much more reasonable!

At arrival the people were very friendly but they wanted to get an extra insurance (€ 200,-) and i could not get to any island without paying a fee of € 300,-. And yes it was in the conditions (one sentence) and no i did not read it.

The insurance i had was not worth much but what they wanted to sell me was 6 times the price of the car! Which is ridiculous in my opinion.

Also after a day a sign came up on the dashboard and i had no clue what it was because the book they had in the car was only in Croatian. After a while i figured out (with some help from Croatian people) it was the tires. When i went to fill them up, they were fine. I told the people when i returned the car but they did not pay any attention to it.

A definate NO for me this company!

I rented a car from Avant car for 10 days in Croatia. The price was cheap, the car was good, we were enjoying it.
The awful surprise came when we returned the car, they found a small scretch (1mmx2mm) and charged us for it. I rented many cars before, and normally they leave such small things and they do not charge you. Well avant car obviously charged us and took a ridiculous amount from us= 300€. Yes 300€ for a dot, in a country where the average payslip is 700€, is absurd. It s a pity I cannot actually post the photo to show how ridiculous this is.
When taking the car they offer you to buy an insurance of 120€, which we didn t take, these 120€ compared to the prices they have for repairing their cars, becomes a must do, so basically there are no many choices or you pay 120€ on top of you rental expenses or you end up like me: bad experience and ruined memories of a holiday. Since I am not a big fan of companies based on services that leave you no choices I cannot describe this service as a good one.
Unfortunately, based on my experience, I cannot recommend you this company.

If there were a zero star option, I would select it. I rented a car from Avant through a brokerage (Economy Car Rentals - also terrible). I returned the car a day early due to changes in travel, and was informed at the return counter than the brokerage would handle the reimbursement. However, when I called the brokerage, I was told that the provider (Avant) intentionally tells customers this to get them away from the counter. Terrible service on both ends! Total scam job by a company that is SERVICE based, but with no customer service. To top it off, they charged $2k to my credit card as a deposit in the event of damages, but I have yet to get that money returned. Worst rental experience ever, and that's saying something.

I am extremely disappointed in my rental at Avantcar.
I had never seen a car rental agency push you so much to subscribe to their insurance.
The price of rentals is very attractive but it is a trap!
If you don't take their insurance, you must pay a deposit (and I said pay, it's not an imprint of your crédit card) for the car that is 1500€ of memory! In other words, the holiday budget is badly damaged!
On the other hand, if you subscribe to the insurance (6/7 € per day anyway), the deposit goes to 30-50 € ... So it's clearly a forced sale!
All the customers on site were shocked ... I wrote to the customer service to express my dissatisfaction but no answer of course ! Never again Avantcar

Excellent hire car service from Avant Car from Pula airport. Just hired a car for 4 days with Avant car through gorentalcars.com. Fantastic helpful and speedy service. The rental desk isn't inside the airport but is immediately to the left of the arrivals exit. It's extremely easy to find. Exceptional value for money.

SCAM AVANTCAR ZAGREB AIRPORT
Every terrible review is correct.
upon return of vehicle I ask the gentleman at the parking lot if I need to clean the car he said no the car would be sent off for cleaning.
withen a few minutes told my husband to make his way to the kiosk to sign off on car as his device was not working to forward our return car slip.
When arrived at kiosk was forced to pay 1600kune for car cleaning as there was a dime sized stain on seat and the need to send it off for cleaning??
As we were never offerd any car cleaning insurance otherwise would oF taken it. We travel and rent cars around the world this has never been an issue.
When I sent complaint to Economy car rentals they investigated and said they can't do anything about it it is written somewhere in a small print that I apparently signed.
My motive is not to get money back as this is not possible, but to save others from having to pay unnessasary extras with no choice.please book elsewhere... DO NOT BOOK AVANTCAR

Also to mention the car we booked was completly different class than booked , beyond extra insurances ....Have a great holiday dont let greedy business ruin it

They are just a group of bandits trying to make you pay for the full insurance and they tell you that your insurance doesn't cover you. That's not true. Don't ever book a car through avantcar. The worst scammers.

We got a car in Dubrovnik and the guy told me that my car is not covered and showed me some papers they have ready. It's a trick but when you are stressed and just want the car you agree to pay the extra money but don't fall for their tricks.

I will never ever book a car through you again.

Terrible. Worst in the world.

Appalling
They came up the cheapest on a search of the web, but not by much & split is expensive to hire. Unfortunately, the reality was less slick than the website they have. Our booked car didnt materialise- another one came along that was of a far smaller class and we were given the usual rubbish about it being *or similar* quality, despite having an engine about half the size of what I booked.In its favour, the car was clean and fresh, if miniscule and not what i ordered .With no movement from the staff - i presented and paid for the car with my card in advance at the desk - before being marched down a dusty track to be presented with the wrong car - and with a tiring hot drive ahead of us, we reluctantly took it and crammed ourselves in. They staff acknowledged that on a personal level, they would not class it as an equivalent substitute but the Boss in zagreb had instructed them it was. Nothing was sorted out on its return, so i have forwarded a complaint and request for action to their UK agent Argus cars. I don't expect a response but will update if I do.

Be very very very careful here- the extra charges are horrendous and you need to take out your own excess insurance to avoid being taken to the cleaners at the sales desk. I saw some people shocked at the extras they signed up for... Want to drive to Dubrovnik on the coast road ? then it will be another 50 EUR to cross the 2KM Neum section of the road. Fancy going into Bosnia ? that will be an extra 650 EUR - yes, 650 EUR for that permission. Planning driving into split for the ferry to Brac? that will be another 50 EUR each way please for the ferry extra.

This is a disgusting outfit that fails to provide what is paid for. I would suggest paying a little extra and going for one of the bigger companies,as at least then you may have comeback.

We booked a 1.6 Golf or equivalent. We got a Renault Captur with less than a 1L engine and a knackered clutch. We disputed the car offer naturally, but all we got is my boss in Zagreb says this is equivalent. Crap. Never use this company.

Good rental experience from Dubrovnik airport. Nobody in office when we arrived so had to wait for 15 mins but hire car was brand new and no issues when we returned it.

The T&Cs and small print that are the complaint of many earlier reviewers are not available on the website prior to booking. This allows Avantcar to "make these up" when you arrive at the desk.
As one reviewer says below, at this stage it is too late to hire from another company.
I will not use Avantcar again.

I needed to pickup a car from Split Airport & drop-off at Zadar Airport so booked online through Rentalcars.com who didn't charge extra for doing this. They did charge for an additional driver however, so we decided to save the £80 & that it wasn't necessary for me to drive on this holiday.

The car was paid for in-full online prior to arrival, but the insurance deposit needed to be authorised by credit card (not a debit card) in the driver's name at pickup. Unfortunately my husband couldn't remember his pin number so we had to choose between purchasing Avantcar's insurance waiver (which we didn't need due to having an annual policy), or adding me as a driver in order to use my credit card. It was of more use fr me to be able to drive, so I had to pay £120 extra, £40 more than doing-so online.

The Skoda was great until we'd been driving for 30 minutes when it suddenly developed a horrible scraping, grating sound underneath during our drive to Split. Although this was intermittent & we couldn't see anything under the car, we decided it was too much of a risk at the beginning of a 10 day holiday so returned to the airport & booking office.

The reps gave the car a test-drive round the car park, but the grating didn't reoccur, however my husband insisted the Skoda needed to be checked by a mechanic & insisted on a replacement vehicle. I'm please to say that this was done & we were offered a car which had just been returned & therefore not valeted etc. It was dark by then & raining heavily so we were unable to adequately check the car for damage etc, but were assured that all would be OK.

Returning the car to Zadar Airport in bright sunlight, the rep immediately spotted damage & dents to the sill, took photos & was beginning to blame us. We were 100% certain that we had not caused the damage & explained the situation, but the rep insisted we should have checked the car the day following pickup & reported any damage to the Split office. Perhaps we should, but as the reps at Split had not insisted, or even suggested that we did this when issuing this 2nd car, we began to enjoy our holiday without doing-so.

After some argument to & fro between us, eventually the Zadar reps accepted the situation & couldn't have been more pleasant. Overall, we found the Avantcar staff in both airport offices to be friendly & accommodating, offering great customer service. We learnt a lesson from this hire experience, but it would not put us off using either Rentalcars or Avantcar again.

I rented the car via economycarrentals and I've got car at avantcar at Zagreb airport. The insurance was more expensive than 19 days car rent, and they decided to charge 75 EUR for "cross boarder card". I am renting car on ongoing basis, but this is first time I've was charged 75 EUR for this. Although economycarrentals claimed that cross boarder is charged by 6,25 EUR at the desk, they've charged 75 EUR. They did not want to speak with me until I paid that money. I was in bad position because I could not rent any other car as it was holiday season with three nervous kids and they took advantage of it. I will NOT use them again...

I'm alway nervious about hiring a car abroad, especially when the price is right. However, my experience with Avantcar in Croitia was good, which we hired from Split to Dubrvnik for a week's holiday.

In fairness though, whilst we were offered additional insurance, this was not pushed on us and he accepted when we declined (we pre-bought an annual "excess refund" policy in the UK for around £40). Drop off was also easy and he checked the car and cleared it as OK.

If driving between Split and Dubrovnik, take the ferry from Ploce - this avoids Bosnia and the additonal 75 euro car hire fee (check the small print). Whilst this will take more time, the scenary on the ferry is stunning and helps break up the journey.

I rented a car for one day from them to take my dogs to the sea side. The Avant employee did not like that there was dog hair in the car. He said they would charge me the 200 euro deposit in order to cover "deep cleaning". I disagreed with this and after arguing for a few minutes the employee got aggressive with me. He actually raised his hand at me as if he was about to hit me. I made a police report and after that is when the charges started coming. They would charge me random amounts at least once a week for over 2 months until my credit card company finally cancelled my card.

If youre renting a car in Europe STAY AWAY from Avant Car Rental.