Auto Jardim Car Hire

My family have been renting cars from Auto Jardim at Faro airport since 1983. Sadly a few years ago when the owners of Faro Airport doubled the charges to have a rental site on the airport mainly only the multi nationals could afford to stay and Aoto Jardim moved their offices to their depot just outside the airport. This means you are met in arrival by rep and taken on a bus two minutes Away.

We have always had quality cars. You pay no charges in advance. There are NEVER any extras when you return the car to the depot. You are then driven two minutes to departures.

Auto Jardim are a family run business with a personal sense of care. The staff are courteous and efficient.

We have a villa in the Algarve so are here frequently and always use this company. On the rare occasions there has been a problem with a car it is changed immediately without question and no extra charge. We recommend them To all our family and friends who come here.

They have depots all over Portugal so if you want to tour around pick up the car at Faro, return it to Lisbon , Porto or where ever.

We need more individual companies like this.

We've been using Auto Jardim every year for 20 years. Always get a competitive price from this courteous and friendly team. On the two occasions we have had a small problem, they have come out and sorted it with no problem. They moved from an office on the airport site when the airport doubled the rent, but they are only 2 minutes down the airport approach road and operate a very efficient meet and greet shuttle service.

Would definitely recommend this localfamily company

I have rented the car from Faro and returned it to Porto. The car was not new, but all of the scratches and bruises were accurately marked on the rental form. The car was clean and ran very well. This company offered the lowest rate I could find for one way rental and did not have any secret surcharges. The rental process was smooth and conditions clear. Their rental places are outside the airport (usually 5 min away) but they offer free shuttle and lower rental prices.

There was one thing I didn't like though, that they made a copy of my credit card (both sides, including "secret number"), but apparently it is quite common to do it in Portugal as they try to protect the themselves from parking or speeding tickets that could come in later. So far no money is gone from my account. And also they didn't freeze or withdraw the deposit from my card - what was a pleasant surprise.

My wife and I have rented Auto Jardim cars for our trips to Portugal on many occasions in the past. This year we rented on our own instead of thru our travel agent. The category B car that we got was a real clunker. It had almost 150k on it and there was no surface of the vehicle without some sort of damage. The worst part of our experience was that the gas gauge only worked intermittently. She we received our vehicle the gauge showed an almost full tank. That proved to be wrong as the fuel warning light came on shortly after we took delivery. Spending almost 50 Euro in extra fuel costs was almost as bad as the icy service when we checked the vehicle back in. When we asked if we could get a better car for future use, all I got was an amused look. I'll never use Auto Jardim again.

They don't check if the car is clean of tolls. So when you pay at the pay station you finish up paying the previous hirers tolls. You have to find a post office where they can identify when the toll was incurred. A great way to spend your holiday. They ignore your emails. In short they are rude, their cars are very average and are to be avoided.

they cancelled my contract without prior notice when Igot to the Aveiro office I was told my contract was cancelled (11;00am next day of agreeing to pick up vehicle-day before @2;00pm) they refuse to return my deposit , about 100 Euro.

this is the end of possibiility to do business with them again.

We rented a car from this company as part of a package deal with a Toronto travel agency called SunMed Holidays. The first issue started when we arrived in Lisbon and the car was delivered to our hotel. Despite the paperwork we carried showing that all charges etc were included the delivery driver insisted on being paid a delivery charge. I refused to pay it and at first he said "no money, no car" I still refused. Eventually he agreed they would take it up with SunMed Holidays in Toronto. We then used the car the following day with the intention of driving from Lisbon to Fatima for a quick afternoon visit then on to the Algarve region for a 12 day stay. The trip to Fatima was ok whilst we were on the minor roads out of Lisbon but once we got on to the motorway the car started to vibrate rather badly at around 90KMPH. As soon as I got into Fatima I talked with some people to try and direct me to a service station. As luck happens I met up with a man who had lived and worked for many years in New York City. He went above and beyond in trying to help us. He called the numbers on the Auto Jardim paperwork and spoke with their representative The representative told him in a rather rude manner that we would have to drive the car a further 200 Km to their office in Oporto if we wanted to change it. which would be in the opposite direction to where we wanted to go. I believed the car to be unsafe, (Seeing as the car was six years old and also had 125.000km the clock this in my opinion was a reasonable assumption) and requested they send out a tow truck they refused. The gentleman who had been helping us told us that we could call for help ourselves because the law in Portugal says that motorists must be helped if in trouble on the highway. He called this service and they said they would get back to us. They called Auto Jardim and Jardim arbitrarily cancelled our call for help. and never informed us leaving us waiting for a call that was never coming. By this time we had to look for a place to spend the night. The man who helped us initially named Joe Guero again came to our rescue and found us a B&B which meant we lost one night of our holiday at the hotel we had booked in Portimao. We then went another round of phone calls with Auto Jardim and their female representative was unbelievably rude telling me I could call whoever I wished to complain and that she did not care. During this time Joe Guero had called a mechanic friend of his who came out with his brother. I went for a test drive with them and he agreed there was something wrong with the front end. After the drive he examined underneath a little more closely and determined the vibration was being caused due to a build up of rust embedded in the front brake rotors that as a result caused the rotors to run out slightly at higher speeds. He determined that we would be able to get to Portimao (about 335 Km )safely provided we kept our speed reasonably low but recommended we drive no further. I took his advice and on arrival at our hotel parked the car and that is where it stayed. After being in Portimao a few days the SunMed rep came calling and we told her about the way we had been treated and she said she would look into it. A couple of days later we got a call asking us to meet with a Jardim rep to arrange a different car. When we met at our hotel he continually asked me why I had not called them earlier I told him I was tired of being either verbally abused or ignored and wanted as little contact with them as possible in order to enjoy what was left of my holiday.

We did get another car slightly newer but still with rather high mileage (81.000) I never used it except for our return to Lisbon enroute back to Canada. The Jardim rep came to pick up the car and told me that there was a 20 Euro charge for delivery and pick up. I disputed this and he basically said tough luck we have already charged it to your credit card. I believe this to be an unauthorised charge because the credit card slip I had signed was only supposed to be used for any damage to the car. The car was returned undamaged and with a full tank of gas even though it had been delivered to me at only 75% full. I intend to take this up with my credit card company plus Sunmed will also be hearing the rough edge of my tongue. All in all I found Portugal to be less than OK as a tourist destination. We have just as good warm places on our side of the Atlantic and run by people who know the true meaning of service and actually care for their tourists plus do not nickle and dime you to death.

31/11/2013 we did rent a Renaul Clio. Car was from 2010 with 75,000 km. The interior and exterior of the car were a disaster (photos available in case of interest). In the last 20 years of renting cars in Portugal I never got such a car from a reting company. Worser...the car had really strange noises and I would guess that some technical aspects were not OK but did not return the car as we only stayed couple of days and did not want to drive back from Figueira to Porto to get it reviewed/exchanged and loose more time!...Well I should have done that as on the ways to the airport 06/11 I had an accident on the highway (arriving to Maia on a 90 kmh portion). It was raining and we were folloging the other cars on the highway, no speed excess as I had my 2 young boys with me (3&5 years old!), and guess what the car lost adherence with the street and crashed into the wall. How can you explain that?? My guess is that the security elements of the car were in the same shape as the overall car shape, meaning worse!! My caution of 900 EUR was debited and I got no excuse from Auto Jardim. My advice is to go for other renting companies but not this one. For me it was the worsest experience of my life.

I ll never rent a car to this company. Climatisation out 40 degree on the car. Tire very used. Important vibrations after a speed of 110. Very bad employees. They are liars! Told that climatisation was full! A very bad experience that make our holydays very bad. Hopely my wife stop me because they are not commercial and not correct with us. DON T RENT AUTO JARDIM. The car has 115 000 km! Never see that. This company is a joke . Next time i ll spend more for better service.

Portugal for 11 days rental, pickup from Lisbon returned in Porto. First shock..... the day before my flight from Toronto they change the pickup location ....after my complain...they drove the car to my hotel for 5 euro (great!). Second problem...they did not add the stamp for crossing to Spain and wanted to charge me for the second driver (the deal was for second driver and crossing to Spain included)...I did not need the second driver and the crossing to Spain was solved by Lagos Auto Jardin. The car at about 75000 km, many scratches was OK except the windshield water pump not working Nissan Micra 1.2)

"DISASTER" came when we had to return the car....nobody answered the two phone numbers listed on our rental agreement , so we drove to the address provided and after almost two hours with allot of driving around the Porto Airport somebody (Auto Europe) knew that they recently moved .....finally to our surprise the receptionist told us that the phone numbers changed when they moved two month ago!

I do know what would have happened if I would have to take a flight !?

I sent a complain!...nobody bother to answer!