I had an opportunity to test drive a Sixt renting experience over the last weekend. I reserved a four day rental from London Heathrow (LHR) about a month early also utilizing my newly acquired Sixt Platinum membership card. First a note about the card. The membership was easy to sign up for and Platinum level was attained through United Mileage Plus commensurate ranking. I believe there are two status levels which Sixt matches airline programs with, Gold and Platinum.

I took delivery of my reserved Mercedes on a Thursday evening. That brought about the first wrinkle in this relationship. The Sixt office at LHR closes at 2200. My plane was arriving at 2150. I called the Sixt US 1800 number and they told me I would need to contact the renting office in London to ask about after hours pick ups. I made the call and was told that the procedure was to call again upon landing and talk to the rental clerk. At that point the renter is charge 25GBP an hour and the clerk will wait for you and send the van to pick you up. Hmmm...this is 2007. I would have thought that a customer service oriented business model would have them closing after their last reserved pickup arrival time if not open 24 hours a day. I almost switched to Hertz at this point, but reminded myself that I was �testing� a new company.

All was moot when through an amazing stroke of luck and great United flying  my plane landed an hour and a quarter early. I walked outside and there was the Sixt shuttle in lane four outside of international arrivals.

After the ride to the Sixt location, 15 minutes, I walked to the Sixt counter. There is no electronic billboard, you definitely have to do a person to person check in. I was handed the keys to a Mercedes C180 Automatic (Auto at my request). I walked around the car with the clerk and received a token to get off of the car lot? I also received a flyer of instructions for the car�s integrated NAV system. The walk around was detailed and they noted a crack in the turn signal housing on the passenger side mirror.

After signing for the vehicle, I pulled up 50 feet from under the roof covering the vehicle acceptance area and powered on the Sat NAV. My first warning here should have been that I needed to consult the directions. I use GPS systems daily with my job and personal life, so the fact that this system was not intuitive enough for me to pick up immediately should have warned me right there.

At this point I should pause and say that the car felt beautiful. The seat position was great. The car was new. It had all of its floor mats and was extremely clean inside, though whoever had it last must be loosing hair because there was lots of hair on all of the surfaces. I felt immediately like I was in a quality car which I absolutely expected of a Mercedes. This was not Enterprise rental.

I finally figured out the GPS. I am going to save you the reading me rant and just say this. Were Mercedes engineers just not smart enough to make a useful NAV system or was this some sort of technological German thinking that determined not to provide the driver a map, as an arrow was all that was really needed to get somebody from A to B. The GUI and entire user interface must have been designed by somebody who has NEVER actually used a regular GPS and hardly fit the rest of thought that when into the car. It really left me wondering, until I gave up and pulled my Garmin Nuvi out of the trunk and stuck the suction cup on my front windshield. I still do not know why car manufacturers spend a penny on NAVSystem design when they should just pay Garmin whatever they want and have Garmin license their software and interface in a custom fitting. Anyway, point being, the Mercedes GPS is nearly worthless and the POI database is almost undecipherable.

Pulling out of the Sixt LHR location (Mercedes GPS still in use at this point) I notice flaw wrinkle 2 of the Sixt location in LHR. The blind pull out token exit. I have no idea why there is a token controlled exit, but after you get beyond that, the exit is on a blind turn. You cannot see what is hurtling your direction from around the corner. There is a sign however which says �Caution. Blind exit.� I really don�t think Sixt could do anything to you if you totaled your new rental just exiting their lot. Fortunately for me it was nighttime so at least I had the headlight indicator working for me.

Turn in four days later was equally easy. I filled up at the BP station which is connected to the Sixt. Turn is actually easier than check out and the inspection less detailed and timely. I was offered a receipt and then waited for the shuttle to take myself and another person to the airport. All in all the experience was pain free. The car was very nice. And most impressively and what I think Sixt is known for, their fleet is quite amazing. What a selection of quality cars. From top of the line Mercedes down to very nice VW�s with lots of great cars in the middle. I saw an Audi A8 that I would have swapped with in a minute if I was not committed to testing out the reservation process. I saw several Audi�s, lots of Mercedes and a hand full of exotics.

I gave up on Sixt in the UK pretty quickly and now use Hertz or Avis instead (in Germany I use Sixt most of the time). It seems as if Sixt simply has acquired a small rental car company with bad locations with very infrequent or on-demand shuttle buses (LHR was not as bad as STN though).

Cars are generally good, but Sixt Germany has been better to me with upgrades than Sixt UK (although my experience is that upgrades in general were better a few years ago than they are now).

In many C class Mercedes cars they had used a 3rd party satnav system in Germany for some time which was really bad (don't know about the new C class though). From my experience, satnav will usually have a map only from Audi A6/BMW 5xx/MB E class upwards. On the lower end, you usually have a text/arrow based system.

The problem with Sixt all over Europe except Germany and Switzerland is that they never have enough cars or staff (CDG T2ABCD during weekends is appalling, the Spanish lady manager, with a name in French neither January nor March being rather inefficient). It is therefore common to wait for the agent and THEN for the car which has to be delivered from T2EF or T1.

This being said, Sixt in Europe has 2 advantages, very frequent free upgrades due to the lack of cars in the reserved group, and 2000 Star Alliance miles per rental, unlimited in number and length of the promotion. I believe that they give extra miles also in Skyteam and Oneworld, though not so many

I probably got lucky then getting to LHR so late. Because of that the shuttle was waiting for me and left as soon as I got to it. I have no doubt that it was the shuttles last run of the day. In the morning, I arrived right as their gates were opening. So I missed the "call the shuttle" and wait period.

Decent rental experience. I would really look at going back to Hertz for my next rental unless I needed a high end car.

I have done a ton of travelling and I did not like the potential that I woud arrive after the counter had closed. That just seems amateur.

Mercedes has two version of their Navigation system: One cheaper version without the map and a more expensive (COMMAND system) which includes the map. Looks like your C180 was only equiped with the cheaper version.

I only rent with Sixt in Germany but have given up on the LHR station too. At LHR I always go with Avis.

We have a C class Merc with the lower-spec GPS system (APS 50 or somesuch) and I agree with everything you said. POI data really suck (on top of that, they're customized - I once remembered that the department store I wanted to go to was located near a Volvo dealership, but hey - no third party dealership on a Merc branded GPS!). Also, there are flaws in the SW they use - sometimes you get actively misdirected (I love the Merc approach for exiting a highway, which sometimes is: if you want to exit at N, take exit N + 1; exit and enter highway again in opposite direction; exit on next exit).

I will never pay upwards of 2000 Euro again for an integrated GPS system (Merc or otherwise; did you know that, during a test of the current BMW 3 series, even BMW engineers needed 15 minutes or so until they finally managed to SWITCH OFF the BMW GPS?) when I can have a much better system for a thenth of that cost, the only disadvantage being the suction cup approach and a cable going to the cigarette lighter.

Ahh..the suction cup. You are so correct. I love my Nuvi, but that suction cup is such a pain. And I travel with mine which means reinstalling it every day nearly. When I get another car, I'll figure out a way to hardwire it.

The Merc and its NAV was dissapointing. I can't believe Mercedes would put their name on something so low quality. To be quite honest, if they really want to take the easy way out, since obviously they did not want to hire proper engineers to figure their own system out, why not just license the Garmin software for your set of specs. Pay Garmin to adapt their product for your car. Seems to me that would be easy. Let Garmin display their logo on your display while the system boots up and then a little watermark in the corner afterwards. Everybody is happy and customers don't think Mercedes is cheapening its auto line.

Anyway, I just thought it funny that Sixt was really talking up the NAV system.

I rented a MB E220 CDI last May in Berlin from Sixt. The E class came w/ the text/arrow based system. I also had to switch out the DVD (or is it CD?) from the Deutsch to the English mode. I was expecting to attempt to use the COMAND system. Thankfully, I was riding w/ my cousin who lives in Berlin, and know the streets/highways better than the NAV system.

I, too, have been disappointed with Sixt in LHR. They don't have shuttles in Terminal 3 where I always land. I have rented from them four times and never got upgraded despite being a Platinum.

I've been meaning to try Sixt for some time now. Am currently considering using them for a 6 day rental from TLV at the end of June.

Hey, don't knock Enterprise too hard, I got a C230 last time I rented from them in PSP!