CarRentMadeira.comReviews 

I chose this company and generally had a good experience booking with them. As we were staying close to their 'office' I agreed to pick the car up there.
I realised all was not as it should be when the day before the pick up I walked to their office to find it closed, empty bar a desk and a phone contact number on the door.
All around, there were car hire companies doing bustling business.
On the day I went to collect the car, the same - an empty office. So I called and was told a colleague would be with me shortly...outside.
Someone did indeed appear and with a perfectly good car. However, he was from another company who told me they had accepted the contract from CarRentMadeira who were just a broker using multiple companies. Things went down hill from there. As we stood in the street, he informed me that I was too old and they didn't rent to over 65s. A while later, he offered to do so for a 1000 euro deposit. I am unclear how that was suddenly possible. After some consideration, I decided that I should not proceed with renting a car from someone I had just met in the middle of the street, who didn't represent the company I had agreed to rent through and required such a large deposit.
I did speak to CarRentMadeira, who denied that I had ever asked about the maximum age before booking. By the way, there is no mention of age limits on their website.
In the end we cut our losses of a wasted hour and booked with a local company who offered a similar car with no deposit at a lower cost.
My advice - steer clear. Anyone can produce a website that promises the world but you don't want to be caught out with a dodgy car rental company.

Hired a Toyota Yaris hybrid, could not have asked for a better car for madeira roads

My reasons for posting this review is that it's very hard to find genuine honest reviews of good car hire companies that operate in Madeira. I spent ages scanning the internet for a decent car hire company for our holiday. If you are looking for car hire in Madeira, these are worth using.

This is a real life experience of our dealings with Car Rent Madeir. For the benefit of those who are looking for an honest review and a fair car rental company.

Excellent service all round.
For our two week trip to Madeira we hunted round for a decent deal on car hire. Many companies simply were not offering a good package. But this company gave us a good experience that we would definitely recommend.

Most companies wanted to charge a credit card a large amount which might released later, or were only giving insurance with massive excesses, or other such tricks to get extra money out of the customer. We were very concerned with all but two companies for car hire. Car Rent Madeir came out tops for the following reasons:
Pros...
1) No deposit required at all - major plus mark for that
2) No need for a credit/debit card for payment, just pay cash on arrival - another major plus given the bad experience a friend of ours just had renting a car in the US - hit for £400 extra by a trick. None of those tricks with Car Rent Madeir
3) Meet and Greet at the airport, with collection of the car in the arrivals car park - excellent
4) Paperwork - simple, all marks on the car were logged on the paperwork so no problems later.
5) Friendly, polite and respectful - very good. Read lots of reports about bad attitudes from other car rental companies. Not so with Car Rent Madeir.
6) Price - good and fair for a proper insurance cover - no pressure to buy add ons.
7) Communication - simple email to them to book the car, no pressure. Just give your name, flight details and dates you want the car, and pick your car. That was it - so nice.

Cons...
None that we found.

In conclusion, our experience with Car Rent Madeir was relaxed and enjoyable. It added to our holiday and made us feel at ease. So frankly, stop using car rental companies that load your credit card or pressure you into 'extra' insurance that should be included already or large excess liabilities. Instead use a sensible and fair company such as this one. It made the holiday rather than broke the holiday. Excellent and we definitely would use again.