Travellers Autobarn: An Honest Review for Renters

Rental vehicles have needed a green warrant since 7 December 2024, and every vehicle since 7 June 2026. The Department of Conservation states that it requires a toilet fixed to the floor of the vehicle, and the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board says portable toilets do not meet the requirements.

Travellers Autobarn's FAQ lists the Chubby, HiTop, Kuga and Hi5 as self-contained, and the Chubby's page announces that all Chubby Campers are now self-contained. Its own terms, effective 19 June 2026, make the certificate on 'certain campervans' conditional on a NZ$50 porta potti issued at pick-up and state it is not valid without one. No warrant number, issue date or standard is published, and the Chubby's page lists no toilet at all.

Standard Protection is included and holds a NZ$3,500 bond on a credit card. It is not an excess: on a single-vehicle rollover or write-off the terms make the hirer liable for the damage, or the vehicle's market value, up to NZ$50,000.

Protection Plus at NZ$35 a day caps that at NZ$10,000, and the Value Pack at NZ$45 a day takes it to nil, both clearing the bond. Neither touches clause 28, which leaves roof, under-body, water, keys and unsealed-road damage with the hirer at every tier.

The contract permits sealed roads, and access roads under 500 metres to recognised campgrounds. It then names five exclusions outright: Ninety Mile Beach, Skippers Road, Crown Range Road, Ball Hut Road and the Coromandel Peninsula north of Colville Township. Read the list against your route.

Crown Range Road is the one to check first: it is sealed, it is a state highway, and it is the direct Wanaka to Queenstown crossing. Ski field access roads are barred from 1 June to 31 October, and a trip suspected of leaving the seal costs NZ$250 even where nothing is damaged.

Pick-ups run 09:00 to 16:00 on weekdays and 09:00 to 12:00 on Saturdays; returns must be in before 15:00, or 12:30 on a Saturday. Neither depot operates on a Sunday or a public holiday, neither is at an airport, and no shuttle is published.

Cancellation is a three-step ladder: NZ$200 inside 14 days, half the rental inside seven, and nothing returned on the day itself. The clause headed Road Restrictions and Island Trips says nothing about the Cook Strait crossing at all, although the two depots sit on opposite islands.

Reading all fourteen, the subjects cluster hard. Nine describe fittings or appliances that failed — cookers, fridges, toilets, door locks. Nine describe the response as dismissive or as returning the fault to the renter. Seven frame the problem as a safety question rather than an inconvenience.

Six could be New Zealand rentals describing a mechanical failure partway through a trip, and seven describe an argument about who pays for it. Two separately name the same component, a side door that jams. Fourteen reviews is a shape rather than a score, but the shape is consistent.

The gap is not geography, and sample size alone does not carry it. Trustpilot's own transparency page records that this profile has never been claimed and that it has no record of the company asking a customer to review it, and every one of the fourteen is tagged unprompted.

On Google the same company answers reviews and republishes those scores on its own site. One channel is managed and the other is a walk-up complaint desk, which is most of the difference. Read the 4.6 for the handover and the 2.1 for what happens when something breaks.

Across nine New Zealand threads, three raise the question the contract raises: whether a particular van is actually certified. In the largest of them, four separate replies give opposite answers. That is what an unpublished warrant number produces at the planning stage.

The other recurring subject is the gravel ban and how much of the country it closes off, which took twelve replies in a single thread. The age of the vehicles, published by the company as 2006 to 2016 bases depending on the model, goes almost unmentioned.