Good advice

Another bit of high pressure salemanship on this matter, raised by Smileyman, is that the USA companies may try to force you to buy their product, on the basis that they don't accept the one you have bought. This a nonsense, of course. If you damage their car they will charge you the XS and this is then a matter between you and the provider of your CDW insurance, whoever it is.

I took out 12 months insurance for about £48 with these guys..

https://www.questor-insurance.co.uk/buy-insurance/hire-car-hire-excess.aspx

They seem to insure everything and when i showed the hire company it was accepted without question.

I am not affiliated with the above company and post on here often.

One other thing worth mentioning is that the black pump was petrol and the green pump was diesel! Exactly opposite to the UK. So check carefully.

You also have to prepay for your fuel over there.I tried using a credit card in the pump but it wanted me to enter a zip code.I even tried entering our friends zip code who live there but it didn't work.I ended up having to go in and pay $20 up front.

When i was taking the hire car back i had to return it totally full.

When i got to the gas station i wondered how i was suppose to know how much fuel i needed on the prepay.When i asked inside they said i had to pay them $50 up front(with a receipt),pump the gas i needed till full and then go back into the shop to get a refund on any remaining credit.

So much easier in the UK!.

Is it still a case that in Oregon you are not allowed to pump your own gas?

Am now returned from said trip and the car was hired from 'Dollar'. A Chrysler Town and Country which was excellent. I only took the basic insurance and it was fine. As someone else said fuel is prepaid but that was no problem. I was a little concerned that on returning the car something would be wrong and they would try to charge me but handover was easy.....'.leave it there and thanks for using Dollar.' We had a a deal which didn't require the tank to have fuel in it on return. All in all painless, traffic lights take ages but it must be worse for the Yanks when they first meet a roundabout over here.