European rental car recommendations

We’ve had some great experiences and some real nightmares with rental car companies in Europe. Anyone have recommendations for Spain in particular? Thanks

I think my last rental in Spain was June/July 2023.  Hertz.  No issues.

Seems like I've always had fair rental cars from the majors.  Hertz, Sixt, Europcar, National, etc.  I usually see what's available at the airport and price check all of them.

I rented from Sixt in Barcelona last year. Great experience. I've had some nightmares in the past, too. Decided to go with a more reputable one, will do so again next time.

Can't go wrong with the major brands like hertz & sixt but they can be pricey. Europcar was pretty good but I rolled the dice in '22 & went with https://www.recordrentacar.com/en/

Very affordable & didn't upsell with insurance. We rented from BCN, their location was in the airport 3y ago.

several local brands are excellent in Malaga: Wiber; Click; Goldcar; RecordGo

I don't use the majors because they are so much more expensive. right now I have a rental from Click for 2 euros/day

I would not recommend recordgo and in the future will be gladly paying more for a more reputable company , anecdotal of course

I got about the same rate as Richard for my rental.

I've found that "You get what you pay for" is pretty accurate. I knew I was gambling w recordgo. Anecdotal as well. 

Would be interesting to hear if anyone else had a good/bad/mediocre experience 

I think it depends a lot on what you’re looking for. I’ve mostly been just scraping the cheapest deals off doyouspain.com for the past three months and it’s worked great, but I’ve also been driving some really cheap, small cars as a result. Specifically I’ve rented from Centauro, Recordgo, Sixt, and Thrifty. Sixt was by far the most straightforward booking process and had the nicest car, but was also wildly more expensive. (Thankfully I wasn’t paying for it)

If you want something nicer and/or have a lower tolerance for dealing with aggressive rental agents trying to upsell you on insurance, (be prepared to pay for anything and everything that goes wrong up to your deductible if you don’t get it!) or if you want an automatic, then going with one of the pricier options is probably better.

Also, worth adding that despite the state department’s directive, I haven’t needed an international drivers license to rent a car here yet. (I don’t have one) Reading into it, I suspect it could be a major headache for me if I get in an accident/interact with police and don’t have one, but for the act of renting the vehicle, it seems totally unnecessary. 

I've rented from Centauro at the Barcelona airport twice now, both were for long rentals (a month each) and there was no BS and was super straightforward with no extra 'insurance' or other random coverage upselling. I'd definitely go with them again if we are in Spain.

Brunos car rental was easy, cheap and no problems from Malaga airport. The rates were even cheaper if you rented a stick shift rather than an automatic, not sure if that's the case for other hire places?