Would you tell me which one is more correct and natural: drive in a car or drive with a car? For example:
Because my car broke down, I had to drive home in a rental car.
Because my car broke down, I had to drive home with a rental car.
I haven't been able to find an answer on the internet, but I seem to have hear both used. If both are perfectly natural, is there a nuance or difference between the two?
"Because my car broke down, I had to drive home in a rental car." is the more correct.
The second option could (although it's not likely) be taken to mean that you had to drive home with a rental car accompanying you.
In the example given, with "in", it's unlikely to cause confusion, but a native speaker would probably find it odd. You don't typically say "I drove to work with my car".
You drive over (run over) things with your car.
I drove over a manhole cover with my car. It made a clink-clank sound.
I ran over the neighbors' pangolin with William's car.
You drive to places in your car.
I drove to Cincinnati in my car.
You can switch these around. People will still understand you but you may sound a bit odd.
They're both correct, and "in" is more common.
Also consider:
Because my car broke down, I had to drive a rental car home.
You can also just say "a rental" rather than "a rental car". The car is understood from the context.
Your first sentence, using "in a rental car" is correct. Your alternative, using "with a rental car" is grammatical but odd, as using with normally means that the rental car accompanied you, not that it was your means of transport. I might say, for example, that I drove to Port Augusta with my car if my car was on a trailer behind the vehicle that I was driving.
In Australian English the word "rental" is not used as a noun, so "rental car" could not be shortened.
From some viewpoint, U.S. English, there's no need to say "car" at all in these sentences, in the sense that it would sound odd to a U.S. native speaker. "I drove to NYC in a car" is just slightly less weird than "I drove to NYC with a car". In real life, people would say "I drove to NYC."
"My car broke down, so I had to drive home in a rental." sounds normal. Of course it's a rental car. Saying "rental car" would be a bit verbose, but still sound normal.
"with a rental (car)" would definitely sound abnormal here...
Why not simply, "I drove a rental car home?" No need for prepositions.
As others have said, in is correct here and with is not.
Even though, in many other contexts, you can use with to identify what you used to do something, that doesn’t work for vehicles. Similarly, you ride in some types of vehicle (as if they were compartments that move) but on others (as if they were platforms that move). It’s very arbitrary.
If I want to emphasize the mode of transport, I would use by, for example:
Because my car broke down, I got home by bus.
Because of my fear of flying, I crossed the ocean by boat.
“I had to drive by rental car” sounds odd, unlike those examples, but a little less odd than “with a rental car.” I’m not sure why, but maybe it’s because drive-by has another meaning in American English. (It will probably not surprise you that “drive-by shootings” are common here.) A better alternative is to make the car the direct object of drive:
Because my car broke down, I had to drive a rental car home.
This is how I would probably say it. In this context, you could informally say, “I had to drive a rental home,” and let the other person infer that you were driving a rental [car to your] home, not driving a rented home on the street.
While I appreciate the above answers, there is a sense in the sentence, when using 'with' that I should report. Take a brief look at the definition of the instrumental case for nouns, ignoring for a moment that 'with' is a preposition. From Wikipedia:
In grammar, the instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action.
Here the use of 'with' in 'with a rental car' is describing how I resolved the problem of my car breaking down. The instrument used was with a 'rental car'.
In this conversation, how I resolved the problem is an important idea. I am saying, the rental car was instrumental to me in resolving this problem. In reading the first sentence, the use of 'in', is simply a place preposition.
Before cars, driving was a verb used for horses attached to a cart. The driver would sit in the cart and drive the horses (to make it move). The car is the modern equivalent. People say driving my car analogous to driving the horses and driving in my car analogous to driving (horses) while in the cart. Using with does not sound natural. However I might say "I had to come home with a rental car" to highlight being without my own car.
