Rental Car Review: A White Audi Q7 SUV from Silvercar

BACKGROUND:

My family got a new Audi e-tron to try out for a lease last year, and with that purchase I found out I would get 7 days of Silvercar rental for free as part of the Always Audi Program! It was a pretty cool offer, and we used 3 of the days back in August on the Q7 SUV from Silvercar which I reviewed here. You can use Always Audi free days on any car available from the A4 sedan to the Q7 SUV.

Silvercar, is a rental car company that only rents out Audi A4’s, A5’s, and the SUVs Q5’s and Q7. They also aim to make rental cars hassle free with free toll tracking, WiFi, SiriusXM Satellite Radio, and fair refueling prices ($9.95 fee, plus market rate on fuel you used). Generally, their cars are silver, but somehow I ended up with a white colored Audi this time! I was surprised as it kind of messes the name of the company up.

In 2017, Audi fully acquired Silvercar, and as of now in 2022, they shifted from shutting down their airport locations to moving operating to existing Audi dealerships. Currently, Silvercar has 30 locations across the US. While not the most convenient for airport travelers, there are some dealerships located quite close to airports, in particular- Orange County (SNA), Ontario (ONT) and San Jose (SJC) are all served by an Audi dealership within 5 miles from the airport. Depending on comparable prices across the other rental agencies, it might be worth a quick Uber of Lyft to the Audi dealership.

We have also rented from when Silvercar still operated out of airports, and had a pretty good experience back in 2018 renting an Audi A4 at Seattle/Tacoma Airport.

BOOKING:

On our recent trip to Monterey and Half Moon Bay, we used the remaining 4 rental days from the Always Audi Program that we had.

Cash rates were $240 a day for the Q7 SUV which is high but it was for Christmas week. It was a perfect time to use the remaining free days. When applying the Always Audi free days, you are still responsible for some taxes/fees, so while the $240 per day was waived, for the 4 day rental we were still on the hook for about $90 in taxes/fees.

DELIVERY TO YOU:

Silvercar has a service called “Delivery to You” at certain locations where they can deliver the car to you within a set radius (15/20 miles). This service does start at a $50 additional charge and we really liked it on our last rental! Sadly, it wasn’t available this time due to us returning the car on a holiday.

PICKUP:

Our pickup location was the Audi South Coast, and you just head into the service area and Silvercar has a tiny booth. A representative guided us to our car, and I just had to use the mobile app to scan the QR code to unlock and start the car. Pretty easy! Just make sure to fill in your driver’s license and credit card info on the app ahead of time for no hiccups.

THE CAR:

Surprisingly, the car was actually white, which goes against the Silvercar name! Apparently they do have other colors than just silver now, but if I recall they previously only rented out silver vehicles.

It was nice to have an SUV for a road trip, and the car had navigation and heated seats. The car also had Sirius XM radio, and WiFi. CarPlay is also available, which is nice because the Audi navigation is not the best. This specific car was a 2019 model. The car can fit 7, but the third row 2 seats have limited legroom, so it’s more designed for smaller kids.

Cheers,

Ty

Have any questions? Comment below or email me at takeofftotravel@gmail.com. I’ve also started working with a travel agency, Fora Travel, and can assist in booking hotel stays or planning trips. You can also view all my other posts here! Thanks for stopping by!