car rental agencies in Italy

[keith]

Hello fellow tuggers,
My wife and I am going to Italy July, 2013. Our flight arrives in Florence where we will drive to Barga (we have booked a Marriott there on points, but now that DAE has just opened in Italy, we will try for an exchange instead!!) and a following week in Venice.

When I contacted Avis, there were only standard cars available. I am not comfortable driving manual over unfamiliar territory and am looking to rent an automatic transmission car for our two week stay. Does anyone have experience with the car rental agencies which service Italy and recommend any?

Thanks,

Keith

 

[Carolinian]

Most of the rental cars in Europe are manual, and as someone who has had a British sportscar (MG or Triumph) as one of my daily drivers for a number of years when I lived in the states, I am comfortable with driving them. In European rentals it often saves a good piece of change.

I have had good luck (except for Spain) with renting through consolidators like www.economycarrentals.com , www,autoeurope.com , and www.europebycar.com

 

[Passepartout]

OP, you have almost a year. Beg, borrow, or steal a small, manual car and become comfortable with it. It will just take a few days. In Europe there are few cars with automatics, and in Italy, even less. And they always cost more to rent. Our consolidator of choice has been http://www.carjet.com/car-hire/italy Insurance is always included.

Best.

Jim

 

[GetawaysRus]

I'm having the same issue. We're planning to arrive in Milan and then spend 10 days driving through northern Italy and Tuscany in Spring 2013. I'm the navigator and my wife is the driver. Although we can both drive a stick, it's been a long time and we just don't want to have to relearn how to drive a manual in a foreign country. This vacation is for fun - coaxing my wife to drive a stick could quickly make it non-fun. So I'll pay the extra money for an automatic.

I've come across lots of suggestions on the web for consolidators. In no special order:
arguscarrentals.com
www.autoeurope.com
www.kemwel.com
www.novacarhire.com
www.economycarrentals.com
www.europebycar.com
www.autoeurope.eu
Autoeurope.it

Here's a comment I came across somewhere which I saved:
Go to the autoeurope site, but change the home country around to different countries. Each time it will give you different choices. If you can use the Italian home page (it is in Italian) you might get the best choices.

When it is time to book, the site allows you to put in your actual home country.

Try the United Kingdom site, Ireland, Canada, etc. It works! We did this when we went to Spain and got a Mercedes A class automatic that was perfect and not listed as available on the US site.

After quite a few hours of frustration, here is what I've done so far. The following comments that I found somewhere on the web were helpful:
Each year when I go to Europe, I need to get a rental car, but an automatic. Obviously this comes at a premium. I usually find a decent price, and it's usually not the same company consistently. This year, for Italy, I went through https://www.hertz.it and got the best rate.

Hertz: it is cheaper if you select Italy as your country (I saw prices for as little as 178€ per week). If you select another country in Europe the prices will be higher (UK is higher than Spain/France).

At Hertz.it, there was a dropdown to select English at the top of the page. (You don't really need to do it in English because all the boxes you fill in are the same no matter what language you use, so it's pretty obvious how to fill in the page in Italian. If I recall, however, the rates were the same whether I chose Italian or English.) Also, you will notice that there is a place to put in discount codes. I am a AAA member, so I searched the web and found the CDP code for AAA for my state. (That AAA code lowered the price 15%.) Rates in Italy are high I think because they include insurance - I didn't see a way to decline it. But the hertz.it site did show several different automatics and the prices were the best that I've found so far. So I've reserved a vehicle. The price is quite steep by US standards. I'll probably revisit this and do another search of the various sites to see if I can get something cheaper as we get closer to our trip. I also listed this rental on autoslash.com, but haven't heard anything from autoslash so far.

I recently signed up for the American Express Car Rental insurance program.
https://www295.americanexpress.com/premium/car-rental-insurance-mvt/home.do
We're going to Spain this Fall, and we do have (at least, until I cancel it) an AmEx Platinum card (no foreign transaction fees). So this will allow me to pay for a car rental in southern Spain with the AmEx card, decline the CDW, but I'll have primary insurance on the rental via the AmEx program for only about $18 for the entire rental period. However, Italy is one of the countries that is excluded from the AmEx insurance program.

Would appreciate a PM if you find some other and better site for car rental in Italy if you're searching for an automatic.

 

[keith]

Thanks!

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. I appreciate it.

Even though I have driven standard with my first car, it has been many many years. And my wife will also be driving, in the instances we go visiting wineries and she has NOT and is not interested in learning how to drive standard.

Now time for legwork.

Keith

 

[spencersmama]

I don't know if you will be in Europe long enough to make it worth it, but you might want to check out leasing a car in Europe. I saw the idea on the Rick Steeve's website and did a small amount of research, but by no means detailed research since our trip next summer changed. What I gathered from checking it out is that if you are not a European citizen, a few companies (Renault, Peugeot, maybe others) will lease you a car for 19 days - 6 months, including comprehensive insurance. The car companies can then turn around and sell the post-lease cars as "used" to Europeans, thereby saving the buyer a lot of new car tax. Of course, the price varies depending on where you pick it up, length of use, and the type and size of the car, but I thought I'd throw out the idea. I had never heard of it before a few months ago.

 

[cgeidl]

No car in the cities

MYbe skip the rental for Venice for a week. Cars are pains in the cities not really assets.We always rent them for areas outside cities.what to do with a car for a week in Venice???

 

[Jimster]

Car

You realize you cant drive in florence or venice! You can get anywhere you want with the train and a bus or taxi. Its not just manual transmission that will cause you difficulty-you dont know the signs, you don't know the roads, you don't know the laws and customs. You are not in the USA. I know trains are outside your comfort zone, but that is what one does when you are in a foreign country. You may conquer all of this and be a nervous wreck. It is not worth it. Americans are obsessed with the automobile. Maybe when we get $10.00 a gallon gas we will consider more efficient transportation. If you have to have a car-try Kemwell from NY. They are US based but rent in Italy.

 

[radmoo]

No driving in venice. The car rentals are located at entrance to the city, near train station and water taxi launch.
Several years ago we flew into Venice and only picked up rental upon leaving after 4 day stay. Yes, it was a manual transmission as I just couldn't justify cost of automatic. We drove all through Tuscany and Umbria and I loved the stick on the windy roads. WE ultimately returned the car to Florence where we remained an additional 3 days.
In Ireland however, I did rent automatic as it was enough to deal with driving on "the other side." But if you are confident you should be fine with stick as long as you do NOT drive in the city. I learned to drive in NY and have been negotiating Boston highways and byways for 30+ years so I have an advantage over the non-city drivers, to be sure. but driving in Italian city? No way!!!

 

[PStreet1]

In addition to not being allowed to have a car in Venice, you have to find a place to park it if you have it. We stayed on The Lido because we could take a ferr.y (with the car) and the hotel had free parking for the car. We enjoyed the vapareto ride each morning and evening to wherever we were going for the day, but having the car definitely made us have to plan differently.

As Jim says, don't drive in Rome, or any other major city. We took a train to Florence, even though the day before on a sight-seeing drive we had been within a stone's throw of Florence. We did our sight-seeing out in the country, and the next day took the train to Florence. We also took the train to Sorrento and a bus to see the Almalfi coast. We wanted the driver to be able to see the views, too--and that's really not an option if you drive a car.

As soneone mentioned above, leasing a car is much less expensive. We leased for 19 days--and that's why we retained the car in Venice; doing so was still much less expensive than renting a car for less time would have been. Our last trip, we decided to just rent an apartment in Rome, so no car was involved.

 

[Margariet]

Yes, in Venice you leave your car on the car park next to the water taxi's. You take the luggage on board and you can get a drop off near to your accommodation. No driving in the inner city. Very easy. In the other cities it is just like any other big city in Europe or the USA. Busy traffic. Follow the signs, use your navigator and stay alert and calm. If you are not comfortable with driving in big cities or driving abroad or driving manual, just don´t. If you are used to driving manual, you will love it but you need to practice a bit if you are not comfortable.