Car Rental--Need an AUTOMATIC ...no manual
 

Help!!...A group of my friends going to Provence in fall (Arles/Avignon area)....just found out
that rental cars are manual.....no one knows how to shift gears!!! Several rental agencies
can't guarantee an automatic to be available to them. Anyone else have this problem?
Any suggestions? They want to rent the car for 5+ days. Friends will appreciate any suggestions.

I would suggest you pick up the car at an airport. I think you would have a much greater chance of getting the car you need. You can click on my name and read about the fun we had with Europcar in Aix-en-Provence in my trip report from June 2007!

I have rented cars three times in Nice all automatics. You will have better luck at an airport location as kansas says.
Good luck.

We have never had any trouble getting an automatic.

But:

1)it will cost more -perhaps considerably more
2) some smaller agencies won;t have them or guarantee one
3) you have the best chance of getting the car you want picking up at a major airport or big city downtown location - and picking up early in the day

They should try contacting the largest (but perhaps not cheapest) agencies

Have you thought of taking lessons on a manual? You have plenty of time - it is not as hard as people think and once you know how, you won't forget. Think of all of the money you will save on your next and future trips. It's fun too.

Be sure to get a diesel, too. Diesel (gazole) is less expensive than gasoline and mileage is better.

We've never had a problem getting an automatic, but have always picked our cars up at the airport (Paris & Montpellier). We've always booked through AutoEurope.

Good luck!

As others say - They <u>must</u> pick up from a major location like an international airport where there will be a larger fleet of cars. Even if they book an automatic from a smaller location - one may not be available on the actual day. All that needs to happen is for a previous renter not return a car in time, or damage the acr, and they are SOL.

Only the big cities can guarantee an automatic.

One of the reason that automatics are expensive in Europe s that even the larger rental agencies carry premium or higher price category cars with automatic shift. Economy or mid size and sports cars will be impossible to find.

my daughter and SIL have just returned a nice Audi3 manual at barcelona after a week in southern france and Northeastern spain, because the cheapest automatic they could find was a Mercedes E class at twice the rate, having tried on-line and at the airport. However, they were enamored with the small but sporty Audi.

When you can get one (usually from Europcar), the Smarts are automatic.

I drove a Smart all over the Nice area two Summers ago and loved it.
It held a surprising amount of luggage. I had a carry on bag and a laptop case but my travel companion did do so well packing light.
It was from Europcar and the gas mileage was fantastic.

Thanks for all your input....I am forwarding this info on to the group of friends..4 women....
I never thought about airport pickup...they are coming via train from Paris into Avignon.
Airport-pickup could be an option at that point. Merci merci

Marseille airport is only 70km from Avignon. (But Avignon can probably guarantee an automatic if it is reserved long enough in advance.)

Do try to get an automatic. I can drive a manual, but it's a real irritant when you're driving a lot through smaller places, in hilly or mountainous areas, in heavy traffic. Especially tiring on any days that involve long driving legs--of course if you're doing 95% of your driving on freeways, it won't matter a lot. But we like to get off the main routes and explore.

You'll probably get better gas mileage with an automatic, too, especially if you aren't experienced or very good with a manual transmission.

Nottingham,

I would still have someone in your group learn to drive a manual - you can learn the basics in about 1 day with a second day to gain some added proficiency. Think of it as insurance, it is still possible that there may be no automatics (staff error, repairs, computer glitch, whatever...). Again, not likely, but a good idea just in case.

It's time to learn how to drive a stick. A lot of the world drives sticks. Although I'm American, I've only owned sticks since I was 16 in the...early 70s. My new 2008 car I also bought in a stick. It's important to know how to drive one.

One of my best male friends, who's been going to Europe for decades and who has lived in Paris, reserved an automatic a few summers ago. When he and his friend got to Paris, the automatic wasn't available for some reason and only sticks were. He had forgotten how to drive one although that's all he drove back in the 80s while living in Western Africa. It was good that his friend still owned and drove a stick or else they wouldn't have had a car to get them to their friends house in Provence. Happy Travels!

I agree with Guenmai that it is a very important skill to learn. One becomes comfortable with manual shift quite quickly --- except when you are stopped on a sharp incline, but life is never perfect, is it?

Getting lessons on a manual is easier said than done in the US. Driving schools typically don't offer them - and unless you have a friend who has one and doesn;t mind your stripping the gears while you learn - you're out of luck. (And most manuals here are sports cars - and your friend is as likly to let you learn on theirs as to cut off their head).

There are a lot of manuals here in L.A. that are not sports cars. I've never owned a sports car and as I mentioned above, I've only owned sticks since I first owned a car in the early 70s.

I now have a Subaru Forester and it's a stick. I bought it brand new a few years ago. As for striping gears, one just has to be careful and remind the person learning to put in the clutch. I'm glad that, when I was a teenager, that folks, along with my parents, took me out to learn a stick. My parents said that I would not get a car until I had successfully learned how to drive both types of sticks; American with the shift in the steering wheel and non-American, with the stick shift between the seats. They then bought me a Volkswagen Bug as my first car. And I didn't strip any gears nor did any of my friends who also learned to drive on sticks. Happy Travels!

Correction:"stripping gears", not "striping gears". LOL! Happy Travels!

I learned to drive on an automatic but it only took a couple of hours to learn stick. Okay, it wasn't perfect at first.

Well, I wouldn't say that once you learned, you never forget. I have. I knew how to drive one once when I was younger, but have not driven one in maybe 40 years. I'm not going to rent a manual when going to Europe.

Yes, you cannot take driving lessons on manuals where I live, as I tried to find a place. The one place I found said you had to have your own car. And no car rental agency will rent you a manual where I live because they don't want stripped gears. To take the three day driving lessons on manuals, if you had a car, cost more than an entire week's rental of a manual car in Europe, as I recall.

If you have a friend who will give you their car to learn and doesn't care what you do to it, then it is possible. I do have a friend with one but would never impose on her that way.

I've had no trouble renting them in Provence through autoeurope, anyway. I rent in big cities like Marseille, Montepellier, etc.

My best friend bought a new VW a few years ago and it happened to be a stick. The model that she selected happened to be only made in a stick and she didn't know how to drive one. But that was her dream car, so she bought it.

As her husband lives overseas in the military, he wasn't able to teach her and I didn't even know that she had bought the car or else I would have given her stick lessons in my car. So, she said her new car sat on the dealer's lot for quite a while as she didn't know how she would get it home. She was busy working and still had her old car, so there was no big rush.

Then the dealership called her and said she needed to come and pick up her new car. The dealership arranged to give her lessons on how to drive it and took her out in it. It took her some time, probably months, to finally get it and feel comfortable and she was quite nervous. Plus, we're in L.A.; fast traffic one minute, bumper-to-bumper traffic another minute, hills, mountains, driving through the canyons, etc.

Plus, her clutch pedal is one that I've never experienced before. It's a round thing on the floor that one pushes in, not the type of traditional clutch pedal that is suspended and pushed down. I had trouble driving her car with that type of clutch pedal and I've been doing it for decades. She had me drive her some places, in her car at first.

She finally got the hang of it, but still is more of an automatic car driver than a stick shift one. For me, driving a stick comes as natural as brushing my teeth. I can drive one anywhere, even in mountains, on steep hills, and not use the handbrake and not even roll back. Happy Travels!

Yet another discussion of why everyone must learn to drive a stick.

There was a long one just about a month ago and we came to the conclusion that yes, it is a good idea to know how to drive a stick.

It is also a lot easier said than done for some people, including those living in at least one large American city where few people own private cars of any stripe and fewer still will willingly lend them out for friends to take a spin in the well-trafficked streets. .

It doesn't matter how far in advance you reserve or how much you are willing to pay to rent an automatic, if you get to the airport/rental counter and there are no automatic cars available you are out of luck. The clerks will be ever so apologetic, but in the end ther is no automatic car waiting for you. since this is a distinct possibility you must decide what you will do?

I'll agree with everyone who suggests that one of you needs to learn to drive a stick. You just have to be creative about it. I'm sure you know someone who knows how to drive a stick who'd be willing to teach you, then find a rent a wreck agency that may have sticks available (they specialize in cars of all kinds that are a few years old)and have your friend give you lessons.

It's worth a try, I would hate for your vacation to be ruined or delayed as you wait in your arrival city for a car to become available for you.

Ekscrunchy: I personally don't know anyone, who learned how to drive a stick, learn so on a lent out car from a friend. The owner of the car was always "in" the cars that I learned on and also that friends learned on.

If any of my few friends, who can't drive a stick, would like to learn, then I'd be more than happy to take them out in my car and teach them. I'd do the same thing that, nearly everyone else did in my area, which is drive them down the street to the Rose Bowl parking lot on a weekend and have them drive around in it and then do the hills around the area. That's how I learned back in the early 70s. We were all down there driving around and trying to prevent running into each other. LOL! And then we'd roll backwards on the hills and the motor would die out. Just start the car back up and putt-putt and jerk on up the hill.

Celticharper: Yes, and sometimes those independent car rental places do have stick shifts, so that's another thing to look into. And there are always truck drivers who can drive sticks and many times also own them. Maybe I need to start a stick-shift driving school. It could be very profitable! Happy Travels!

More of my comments are here for the very remote possibility that anyone is interested; I will continue to buck the tide and request automatics when I plan to drive in Europe.


http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...s-in-italy.cfm

Rental agencies in the US don;t have cars with manual transmission - since most people can;t drive them - except for exotic cars that you pay a premium for.

Separately, although I can drive a manual (my boyfriend taught me when he had a 9 year old Fiat and didn;t care what happened to it) - but as soon as he got a new Porsche I was banned. And I would never buy a manual - since it is just way too irritating in the stop and go traffic we drive in much of the time (althouhg my current car has one of those transmissions that you can switch from automatic to manual if you want to - I never do.)

When I went to Italy a few years ago, I tried to take manual shift driving lessons in advance and it was too stressful for me to change my driving instincts. We ended up renting an automatic from Auto Europe and we were able to guarantee an automatic by paying a deposit. It was well worth the effort and slightly higher price. There's no way I could have driven through the hilly countryside in a manual. We had no problems with the car and we were very happy with it.

No, it is simply not true that some rental agency where you live "must" have manual cars to rent. None do where I live and I live in a very big city. They don't want to risk people ruining rental cars. And I mean EVERY agency, including rent-a-wreck.

I think it is a big imposition to expect a friend to spend hours teaching you to drive and giving you their car, also. Now maybe some will, but the people I know just don't have that kind of free time to spend, you really have to have a special reason (ie, spouse or lover). Now some best friends might do that, but this is really not as simple as some people describe it--learning to drive a manual.

It would be nice to have this skill, but in one sense, but it really doesn't make sense to make a declaration that everybody must have this skill when they do not ever need it at home, could not ever keep in practice, etc. My father taught me to drive one when I was about 19, as he had one, but I spent days practicing on his car, it wasn't something I learned in a couple hours, and driving on hills, etc., it really is a skill that you need to keep up, I think. Someone who drives a manual every day at home, sure, it makes sense they would rent one when traveling.

As I said, these lessons cost hundred of dollars where I live, even if you had your own manual car to learn on. It's not an expense that a lot of people can justify if they don't really need it. It was much more expensive than the surcharge I paid to rent an AT in France, which wasn't that much, actually. A lot of people can't drive that well to begin with, I've noticed, these are the ones complaining that because they are tourists, they shouldn't have to be able to read signs or obey the local traffic laws.

well, I do agree it would be nice if you could, and from what I've heard, it can be harder to rent an AT in Italy than in France. But it is just not as simple as people say it is to learn and learn well in the US.

Try the "Rent-a-Wreck" car rental chain if you have one near you... they sometimes have manuals.

There are driver education schools near where I live who run a special 1 or 2 hour course in manual transmissions for those who already know how to drive. One or 2 hundred dollars.

I've also seen people on Kijiji and Craig's List
offering instruction.

Bottom line... this is not rocket science. You can learn the theory easily enough online or by doing a search on YouTube for "how to drive a manual". Figure it out and don't take a chance on having your vacation ruined.

Rob

Actually, some of the big US cities with a lot of European visitors did have some manual shift cars at one time. I got one from Alamo at LAX a number of years ago.

"<i> . . . we were able to guarantee an automatic by paying a deposit. </i>"

Sorry - but that didn't 'guarantee' you'd get an automatic. It guaranteed you'd get an automatic as soon as one was available.

Now, we are all stressing the possibility of not getting an automatic even when one is booked. 95% you will get one if that is what you ordered -- but there is simply no way it can be guaranteed. Too many things can happen.

But honestly - the worst case would probably just be that no car is available right away and you'd have to wait a few hours, or a day or so for one to be delivered. That's why it might be a good idea to not plan driving far the first day. Better to stay in/near the city you rent the car so there is time to sort out any snafu's w/o having reservations miles away and no way to get there.

Wow...more info to pass along to the group of 4 women friends.
We (me & my husband) are not part of this trip...we KNOW how to drive stick shift cars...
have owned many...rented many in France....never a problem, and have learned to love how
well the NEW versions work!!!! So glad we started out on a VW Beetle in 1962!!!!

I can and do drive a stick, but I wouldn't want to be navagating the turns and hills in Provence while trying to learn. You could end up in a very serious situation. The country side is ok, but the cities are just like our cities, people wanting to get where they are going in a hurry. You could be putting yourself and friends in danger.

I have rented an automatic from Hertz in both Avignon and Strasbourg, however, the only one available was a Mercedes C Class, which was quite pricey. We have driven stick as well but it was not a comfortable experience, especially when in heavy traffic and trying to figure out a next move. Even the countryside roundabouts can be tricky. You REALLY need to have someone learn stick as Nlingenfel says "you could be putting yourself...in danger."

Oh - just another thing to consider . . .

As happened on my trip to the UK last May (you can read my trip report for the tragic details :) ) -- it is very possible they might have car trouble or even have damage in a fender bender/wreck.

Not mine but the other car in our group had to be replaced. The rental agency will give them a new car - that is what the insurance is for. But they can't be guaranteed it will be the same model or an automatic.

Interesting comments about the difficulty of learning to drive a stick shift .

I wonder how any of the posters would learn to ride a motorcycle, which are almost all manual transmission (motor scooters being an exception). Motor cycles are the opposite of cars.
Hand operated clutch – left hand side.
Accelerator – twist grip – right hand side.
Front brake – lever operated by the same hand that works the accelerator.
Back brake – right foot.
Gear change – left foot, typically five speed, one up, five down, tell it’s in neutral by indicator lamp or by “feel”.
Turn indicators – left hand, thumb switch.
Lights – off, on, high beam – right hand thumb.

Maybe that’s what makes bikes fun to ride, the engagement of rider with machine.

Or try a Vespa PX200 motor scooter – same as a motor bike, except that the gear change is by twisting the left hand grip (which also works the clutch).

Or even a 15 speed bicycle.

No, learning to drive a stick shift is not hard – it would take a competent driver about half an hour to master it, and then a bit of practice. I wonder how anyone in the USA learns to drive an old truck – crash box and lever, needs the heel and toe.

www.qucr.com/en/qucr/home

I just called this agency in Northern California and they carry a fleet of both manuals and automatics. The guy said they have manual Toyotas, Saabs, etc. He did ask if the person(s) interested in renting could already drive a manual.

My friends are arriving from Europe this coming weekend and I will drive them around L.A. for the time that they are here. But, I will pass on this information to them as they will be continuing on to Northern California, after leaving Southern California, and will need to rent a car to tour around the Northern California area. So, manuals do exist, for rental, in the U.S. Happy Travels!

www.rentamanual.com/about Happy Travels!