Buying or renting a car in Belize

Greetings again,
The rental companys are a rip off and suggest just buying a car there. There is a small lot near the airport in Corozal that rents and sells cars there but make sure it has AC and is light colored as they reflect the heat better.

I have rented at the airport 3 times and I have had no issues with the rental agency or the vehicles. I usually rent a small SUV. i don't want anything more than a 4 cylinders because of the gas prices. I will be in Belize next month and will renting a small SUV for  774.00 US (including rental and taxes) for a 15 days rental. I just purchased 30 acres down south and my wife said we should have bought a car with the amount of money we had spent in rentals so far. My biggest concern was leaving the car in a secure location and not having any one drive it while we are out of the country, and somehow being stuck with any potential liabilities since I would be on record as the owner. If you have a secure location with a person you trust,  then I would look into purchasing  a vehicle for use now and when you return.

Thank you dqtester. Good to have few opinions. We decided to rent for the month and than buy when we move in. It will be the safest way to do it. I'll be asking later where to buy:-)

What car rental company do you suggest please at the airport?

We thought we'd be safe and go with "Hertz" because of the well known name etc....
Reserved the car, arrived at airport and they said sorry we don't have a car for you, sometimes this happens!!!!  The employees were so flippant...even after speaking with manager,same response.
We had reserved  and prepaid secured with credit card three weeks earlier and they would not even give us our money back!  Said we had to go through the online process when we booked and request a refund after we return home.

Needless to say...we were livid! 
Luckily, the local rental company CRYSTAL was next door.  They were fantStic, worked with us to get a car last minute.  We had no problems with them and thankful they went above and beyond to help our situation.

Fortunately, we had the money with us to rent another car and wait for our refund, but what a mess it would have been had we not had the resources to do so.   We finally got a refund from Hertz after numerous calls and paperwork.
So......I highly recommend staying away from Hertz and highly recommend CRYSTAL at the airport location.

Hope this helps!

I have used Crystal and AQ rentals without any issue. Even declining the LDW was not an issue.
I used Thrifty before, had no issues. But they were taken over by Hertz, so I thought I would give Hertz a try on my last trip. Worse rental company to deal with. Forget the fact that they're are a multi-national company. They are terrible in belize, and I was also shocked to find out they wanted to authorize 800.00 on my card for the rental..so I cancelled my reservation, but they had already placed the entire rental on my card. Had to get hold of my credit card company and have them discuss with hertz rental agent to immediately remove the charge for my card so I could rent the car elsewhere. Thats how I ended up at AQ Rentals. Stay away from Hertz at all costs.

Thank you. It helps a lot.
I've heard of Crystal so I'm happy to hear that it is true they are good and reliable.