I will be renting a car in Milan for a week next month with Sixt - just curious does anybody know - are the extras offered a complete waste?

For example - “Diesel Preferred” and “Comfort Features” - I’m assuming that certain car categories are more likely to be diesel and that paying €2.68 per day isn’t going to get you a vehicle with more features than standard?

Not specific to Italy, but I have found paying extra for such "features" at Sixt to be rather a waste than an asset that gets one a nicely loaded or upgraded car. Even GPS / Navigation System (build in) is often standard on many cars these days, especially for Mid- / Large sized vehicles. Diesel I would only take if you really want it / need it and will drive a lot (lower consumption in theory, but diesel prices are not low any longer).

The only extra I find important to confirm if you really need it (e.g. in winter season) would be all-wheel drive, which I have seen as an option for some higher car categories like F (3-series, A4 Avant etc.) or L (5-series, A6 Avant etc.).

Thank you for replying, I actually picked up the car at Milan Duomo on Saturday.

1. I found the price of the rental came down roughly by €50 each time every few days in the weeks before the rental, so I know now to regularly check and rebook coming up to the rental

2. Agent really tried to give me the hard upsell - was offered a 7 series, an 8 series and a 5 series even though I’d booked the x3 to be higher up.

3. I booked a BMW x3 and received a BMW x3 xdrive 30i from Germany (DE reg). I didn’t pay for the features or the diesel, I was told they didn’t have any in diesel, on petrol and only other cars were diesel. The car is fully loaded with extras which is really nice and also the 4 wheel drive is a godsend having seen the road I have to drive up to get to my villa…

So far so good, but you need to be able to say no to all of the pushing for sure - the best effort any agent has made to sell the add ons

Thanks for following up with your experience. I see that Sixt Milan Airport and Duomo has 5 series and A8 (or equivalent) available. I really don’t want an A8 (I want S-Class/ 7 series).

You mentioned that they have 7/8 series available. Were they listed as such on the website at the time of booking, or were they advertised as another model (or equivalent)?

To update, A8L (or similar) ended up being a G70 740d xDrive with no rear theatre screen. Pretty well spec otherwise. I’m so glad I didn’t get an A8.

Nice. In my experience Sixt seems to always BMWs in most categories and usually pretty well specced.

I’d be very surprised if the screen was included to be honest. It’s a ridiculously expensive option and having used it a couple of times I suspect it could be easily broken/damaged in a rental car for which people may not have as much respect… similar to the electric doors.

All that said, would be nice to have it provided someone else can drive!

G70 is a poor substitute for a 5 or 7 series BMW. It's a considerably cheaper vehicle (about 20% less in US), which certainly shows in both driving and passenger experience. Genesis managed to copy the worst features of its targets - i.e., the numb steering of a Mercedes with the rough ride of a BMW M suspension (with none of the responsiveness), plus exceptionally cheap-feeling vinyl seats and a tiny screen. Absolute garbage IMO.

G70 is the model code for the current generation BMW 7 series (built from July 2022 - present).

Thanks!