Originally Posted by
rcspeirs
Your insurance may cover you but no rental company in Europe will deal with it.
I'm not sure I completely understand what this means "no rental company will deal with it."
Originally Posted by
rcspeirs
If you rely on your own cover (I'm using cover from amex), you need to know that if there is any damage, the charge will go onto your credit card and you reclaim it from your card provider.
All rental companies in Europe are very strict on damage - lots of the negative reports come from customers who don't understand the European business model. Wear and tear is OK, damage never is, and is always charged.
I'm fortunate, but I've never had an accident in a rental vehicle so I don't know the process beyond getting a police report. According to Chase's concierge service, their insurance is considered "primary insurance" outside the U.S. for collision and loss damage.
So what happens then if there's a crash, or if they claim there's a scratch that I missed on initial inspection, etc? Is it just better to pay the ridiculously-high rental insurance premiums (about the same cost as the car itself in some cases)?
Originally Posted by
rcspeirs
You're not going to get a V6 unless you book a top level luxury vehicle. I'm current driving a Volvo V90 from Hertz Munich. Absolutely lovely car, with a turbo 4cyl petrol. Smaller car groups are manual unless you specifically reserve an automatic.
No way I'm driving an Automatic in Europe; that's just obscene. Unfortunate about the lack of a V6 engine, though. I'm really not a big luxury guy but I figured for the one time in 20 years I'm ever going to get a chance to open it up on a German autobahn, I wanted something sporty and fun to drive. Also, are petrol cars very common? I thought pretty well everything was diesel due to the insanely high cost of fuel (Petrol at ~€1,40/litre = $5.30 USD/US gallon). My 2005 rentals in the UK and Munich were both diesel, but they were also very small Opels that couldn't break 140kmh unless they were going off a cliff with a half-ton of rocks in the boot.