Mike ....... your biggest potential downside of renting wheels in Toronto and
then driving down the western end of Lake Ontario, rounding the end at
Hamilton, crossing the border near Niagara Falls and then onwards to Rochester
is the weather. That part of south western Ontario can have some wicked snow
storms at short notice from what the weatherman terms the "Lake Effect". I
would not want to be on the highways. We have driven from Toronto to the border
in summer and without doubt the highways are excellent.. Back in the early
1980s I found myself in Toronto in February / March time and was treated to a
visit to the Niagara Falls area by my wife's cousin. The snow was deep and it
was cold. He was driving and we went into the ditch. Never again would I go
there in February / March. I have no doubt that road crews would be out
ploughing the highways 24 / 7 but traffic jams and traffic crawl would be
miserable.
My only experience with taking a Canadian rental car to the US was back in 1986
when we went from Calgary to Yellowstone NP. That was when we did not need
passports to cross the border, just Canadian plates, a smile and possibly a
driving licence. I have not heard of any systemic problems of taking Canadian
rental cars across the border nowadays; crossings must happen all the time. The
rental companies ........ Hertz, National, etc ...... will all have their own
insurance requirements about which my wife and I have much experience after
renting in Portugal and the US. You should pay very specific attention to these
requirements. In our case our US rental experiences have been such that we will
never rent in the US again, not on account of accidents but the potential
catastrophic downsides of some small print conditions and assumptions we
subsequently learned were not the case. If you would like the specifics contact
me off-line.
Renting in the US and driving to Canada has generated problems in Canada which
might be reflected in a reverse fashion in the US. Some years ago a US rental
car was driven to southern British Columbia. The US renter loaned the car to
his Canadian host to go grocery shopping. The car was pulled over for a routine
traffic stop. The only offence was that driver's BC licence did not permit him
to drive an untaxed-in-Canada foreign licenced vehicle in BC. The car was
impounded, sold through judicial process, taxed, licenced and plated in BC and
then turned over to the US renter's Canadian host. I never did learn the end of
the story but no doubt the US renter and the US rental company were not happy
campers!!
If I was in your shoes I'd put up with pre-US-immigration aggravation in Dublin
as the price of avoiding the potential of horrible winter weather in the
Toronto area and around the western end of Lake Ontario.
jh
On 02/04/19 10:32 AM, Mike Bloor <admin@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I am planning to visit Northern New York State, near Rochester. My travel
> options are (1) fly Dublin to New York, 3 1/2 hour wait, fly on to Rochester,
> taxi to destination and (2) fly Dublin to Toronto, hire a car, drive to
> Rochester. Option 1 involves around three hours of passing through
> pre-immigration at Dublin Airport, which is a nightmare, so option 2 looks
> attractive. Does anyone have any idea how easy it is to cross the border in a
> Canadian hire car? How long does it take? What are driving conditions like in
> March? I was last in Toronto during a very snowy February and although all
> the city roads were cleared I'm not sure about further out.
>
> Mike
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