We (6 total) are planning a trip over Christmas holiday to Angel Fire NM. I am trying to reserve/rent either a surburban or two smaller SUV-type vehicles with 4-wheel drive. Any ideas? The local rental places (College Station) will not guarantee a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Are snow chains a viable option? Buying some and taking with us?

I would rather have the vehicle(s)!

Thanks, Anne

borrow one from a family friend?

yes...sometimes I am not good at asking for a favor. Heck, not even sure my family members have one that is 4-wheel drive! We have plenty of trucks that fit the bill but with luggage, SUV would be much better. But thanks!

My experience - has been that you really don't need 4wd for Angel Fire around xmas. In the 5 years or so that we went to Taos over xmas break there was significant snow falling only 1 time. Even that time you could have made it without 4wd. It is nice to have an AWD vehicle but with out AWD or 4WD you just slow down unless it's too bad. I know there are exceptions to this case.

I've gotten AWD through Turo. You could try that route.

Obviously if you were to rent a vehicle out of Denver let's say, it would be 4WD.
In College Station, there's going to be very limited availability of anything.

You'll have a better selection at a large airport like IAH but, the rental car places are still struggling to recover from the scamdemic. I've had a couple of times in the past 2 months where I couldn't even rent a car with National and I have status there. I wound up having to rent from Avis where I'm just a regular member.

It's going to cost an arm and a leg to reserve a 4WD or AWD SUV but if you take it for 7 days and get a weekly rate, it might not be so bad.

Long story short, I recommend joining a frequent renter program from National and/or AVIS and make your reservation out of IAH, HOU, AUS or even DFW. Unfortunately you'll have to pay more in taxes and stadium fees in a major city but, you have a better chance of availability there.

If you want to fly into Los Angeles, I'd be happy to loan you my 4WD Ford Expedition.

sushi94 said:

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My experience - has been that you really don't need 4wd for Angel Fire around xmas. In the 5 years or so that we went to Taos over xmas break there was significant snow falling only 1 time. Even that time you could have made it without 4wd. It is nice to have an AWD vehicle but with out AWD or 4WD you just slow down unless it's too bad. I know there are exceptions to this case.

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I like to complain about the chain law checkpoints in Northern California / Nevada but... every once in a while, I'm reminded why they're a necessary evil.

Add on to that to say that I once saved a van load of Chinese students at Lake Tahoe from certain death as they put their snow chains on the wrong axle of the 15 passenger van they had rented. I let them know that after all their hard work to get the chains on the front wheels that they'd work a whole lot better on the rear wheels of their rear wheel drive van. At least they were smart enough to listen.

Turo

Snow tires > AWD. 4x4 won't help if you're on summers.

Turo with winter tires. You'd have to buy chains after you pick up a rental as their tire specific. And then return before you leave if you don't use them. You can rent sometimes through the rental agency.

Some cars are unchainable. Check the manual. But just find something with winters on Turo. I hate chains. I thing more miserable than putting them on.

I've done the same out of Austin. You can request 4wd, but they wont guarantee it. I think out of the 3-4 times I have done it, it was around a 50-50 crapshoot. We always go to Crested Butte. If I had a two wheel drive, I'd just stop in Trinidad at the Wal-Mart and buy chains. Never had to use them, and just returned them. However, last year would have been a pucker factor extreme w/o 4wd on Monarch.