Avis - Car breaks down, is compensation due?

Picked up a car in Downtown Geneva Switzerland. After taking it out of the garage I think that the clutch doesn't seem perfect. Figure maybe its just my imagination or maybe I just need a little time getting used to this clutch.

Within 3km I can feel the clutch getting bad. I am now having lots of trouble getting the car into gear. I stall at a couple of lights and cars are having to drive around me. Unfortunately I know little about where I am going and have no familiarity with this city.

With the clutch completely out I make it to the top of a hill. I coast down the road I am driving which is a major road with no parking spots available and pull off onto a smaller road.

I can't find a parking spot but pull over to the right as far as I can and throw the hazards on. I feel that I am in a decent spot as cars can get by and its not a busy road. I call my wife who is at the hotel and update her to my situation. I tell her to take the tram and come meet me.

Then a bus comes by and starts honking at me. I go and try to talk to the bus driver but her english is worse then my french and she seems not happy with me. A british lady asks me what's up and then translates to the bus driver. The bus driver all of a sudden takes off and tries to get through. But then she gets half the bus through before realizing the back half won't fit.

So now we have my car and a bus stuck next to it. Then like 8 guys get off the bus and decide to help push the car. They have me steer it and manage to push it backwards so the bus can get through. They get back on the bus and some nice bystander helps me parallel park the car into a free spot.

At this point I call the Avis customer service with my cell phone. She speaks with me and takes down a bunch of information and says a mechanic will be by in about an hour. A nice person on the street was able to tell her my location. 50 minutes later the mechanic comes. He takes one look at the car and says the clutch is shot which I already knew. My wife arrives at the same time.

Mechanic spends a long time on the phone discussing what to do while we wait on the street. Finally he says we need to go to the airport and then get a new car. He says we can't ride with him since he has room for one but the bus is nearby. He tells me that he will inform them of the situation. We get to the airport but they have no idea we are coming. After waiting 30 minutes or so they say they have found us a car but inform us they will be billing us for damages to the old car. At this point I go from unhappy to very upset. I protest and point out that I drove the car 4.8 km. No way you can destroy a clutch in that time. Guy says the car is new. I say the car has over 22K km on the odometer. His reply is that is new. I say the car obviously had problems and that this wasn't my fault. ( I do own a manual and drove the replacement 2500 km with no issues) He asks me if I want to talk on the phone with his manager downtown. I reply that I want to talk with someone in the US. He comes back 5 minutes later and says there will be no charge. I'm not sure why they dropped it.

After waiting another 15 minutes for the shuttle bus we finally get to the car. I am a little dissapointed with the replacement. A 2 door Citroen C2. We had rented economy and originally got an Opel Corsa. This car seemed smaller and had only 2 doors. The car however did grow on me and I ended up pretty happy with it. The Citroen had no issues and we drove it for 16 days and 2500km. Considering we drove that car through much of the alps and had no issues I can assure you I have no issues driving a stick.

In all the total delay was 3.5 hours. I also spent about $15 on my cell phone and bought 3 bus tickets. I also had to deal with the rather traumatic experience of breaking down in a foreign country and blocking a busload of people. For all this I was accused of breaking the car by Avis personnel and never given any apology.

I didn't deal with any of this when i returned the car (at Zurich Airport) and figured I would wait until we got back to the US. I don't rent a lot but I will probably not be using Avis in the future. Any other action I should take?

My Avis car broke down in southern NJ on the Turnpike a few months ago. The check engine light suddenly came on and the car completely lost power at highway speed. Luckily I was able to get to the shoulder. Avis paid the "Turnpike authorized" company $245 for a 1-hour tow at 6 PM to their workshop at Newark Airport. Avis then gave me another car in the same category at no extra charge to take back to my neighborhood branch. Upon return the next morning, the neighborhood branch apologized profusely and gave me a big discount for wasting my time.

However, I've heard from several posters on this forum that European rental agencies are less accomodating. They are more likely to attempt to charge the customer for anything, including mechanical breakdown beyond the customer's control.

The local Avis agent said it sounds like a transmission problem, but at 25k mi, it will be covered by warranty. Someone else on this forum who had a similar problem in France said Ford Europe refused to pay for a new Budget rental car transmission, attributing it to wear and tear rather than a design flaw.

I've had several cars break down on me and only once did I get a discount (when there was blatant disregard for safety with the car that was given to me). While I think it's very poor CS to give out a car with a faulty clutch, I don't think Avis will compensate you for anything since they sent out a repair man in a reasonable time and gave you an exchange (as long as the exchanged car was within your original car class, or better).

Now them trying to bill you for damages to an obviously faulty car... that's another story.

I once blew the transmission in a car in Italy. Avis gave me amazing service. I was on the autostrada some 90+ miles from Florence. They not only had the tow truck get us, but they had a taxi take us all the way back to Florence where they had another car (automatic transmission) waiting. Since I'm sure it was my fault for the blown transmission,I was very appreciative.
But alas, that was Italy and this is the USA. I wouldn't expect the same here.

I once blew the transmission in a car in Italy. Avis gave me amazing service. I was on the autostrada some 90+ miles from Florence. They not only had the tow truck get us, but they had a taxi take us all the way back to Florence where they had another car (automatic transmission) waiting. Since I'm sure it was my fault for the blown transmission,I was very appreciative.
But alas, that was Italy and this is the USA. I wouldn't expect the same here.

When I've had to get a car replaced for a non-functional one, they actually used a tow truck to bring me a car & the same truck to take my broken car. It was nice not having to go to the airport or anything! Both times I was 2-3 hrs from a 24-hr Avis and they brought me the car overnight & traded keys with the front desk staff (or just gave the keys to the staff the once when the car wouldn't give my keys back b/c the car was stuck in Drive/Neutral).

More recently, I had the power steering pump go out on a Camaro. I thought for sure I'd get blamed for it and have a huge hassle on my hands. They were very apologetic and didn't have any issues with it. I assume there are regular issues with the Camaro b/c they tried to give me a few other that either had the Check Engine or Tire Pressure Warning lights illuminated.