Driving in the Swiss Alps in Sept - minimum car/engine size needed?
 

We will have a car for a trip that includes Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein :) and want to drive some of the cool Swiss passes such as St Bernard, and perhaps the Maloja or Bernina.

Will I have a problem with a manual economy car rental ( such as a Ford Fiesta or even a Ford Ka) or will I need a compact or even intermediate size vehicle?

Thanks in advance to anyone will to share their experience.

Size does not matter (except for your luggage). But horsepower does. People drive those pass roads with the oldest junk you can imagine. But it's more fun when you got more power.
The Ka is fun to drive but has a really, really small trunk.

We always take a mid size or larger - typically something sporty with a large engine - since neither of us can stand the feeling of pushing the pedal to the floor to try to get on a highway. We've done a lot of driving in the alps - but never through those passes, which are usually open only in midsummer (the tunnels through the mountains are used by the highways to avoid having to clear all that snow too early in the year).

We've always had plenty of power. But we once did see a tiny car with several people and luggage that was stuck on the road from Innsbruck to Germany. They were going uphill (steep but not scary steep) slower and slower - with the driver motioning to other people to pass (who didn't want to since the road was only one lane in each direction) and eventually had to pull over to the side. Have no idea how big the engine was - but there's no way I would rent an economy car for any trip - for fear of not being able to go fast enough to merge onto the highway.

Like Cowboy said, it depends on how much fun you want to have. If you really like to drive, I would definitely splurge on something a little more powerful. (If you are interested, I have a trip report on our driving tour of the Alps in a Mercedes SLK from 2007.)

Hi HC,

From my recent experiences, if you want fun you want a Porsche.

Otherwise a Benz or an Alfa.

If you just want to get there while viewing the scenery without too much labor, I suggest a compact. Those hills can be very steep.

((I))

Oh - and you need to do a lot of research - since the rental companies typically buy their cars with the smallest possible engines - and I think some ars in europe have smaller engines than in the US.

We had rented a Mercedes - but only C class - since there were 4 of us with luggage and it was extremely sluggish. One day my SIL and myself - sans the guys and the luggage did a day trip - and getting on the highway was still not easy (I have the gas pedal to the floor) even with only 2 of us. My own little sporty compact has WAY more pick up.

Why, yes, Hausfrau, I would love to drive a Mercedes SLK through the Alps for a week. Unfortunately, I don't think I will be spending that kind of dough for our car rental, unless we decide to sleep in it at night to save on hotel costs :). I just read your TR and went thru the photos - loved it all except that crazy hike straight up a slippery mountain. We won't be doing anything more than a gentle stroll. We are starting out at Lake Como before we go to Switzerland so we have that in common with your trip.

Although you and IRA tempt me with your pretty, fast cars, I think I will go with the compact as I do not want to be in the position nytraveler describes, and Cowboy 1968 has a great point about the trunk size. I do think I saw one or two of his junk cars in your photos too, Hausfrau

A Fiesta or a Ka are not reven remotely powerful enough to not make you a traffic hazard for everybody else. Unfortunately every summer those people create endless traffic jams in the mountains without the slightest care for all the other people around them.

Get a decent car with a decent engine. I doesn't need to be a Mercedes.

I drove a VW van through Switzerland 1972. There were 3 of us aboard and the engine had a nominal 36 horsepower. We were not in danger of getting any speeding tickets. ;^(

I was worried as we climbed every pass that I'd blow the engine as we laboured up in second gear and white knuckled on the other side as we'd come down that I'd over rev the engine or fry the brakes.

Get a car with the most power you can afford... something with a V-6 if gas powered or a turbo if it's a diesel.

I drove a Passat Turbo Diesel in the Pyrenees 2 years ago and it coped well with the grades... I never felt I was lacking power as we climbed.

Rob

"A Fiesta or a Ka are not reven remotely powerful enough to not make you a traffic hazard for everybody else."

Horseshit.

I've driven a fully laden Fiesta across the Alps at 90 mph on decent motorways. Logos' driving skills are clearly as hopeless as his skill in economic forecasting.

Thousands of us do the same every day: Europe's mountain passes and tunnels aren't in perpetual logjam as a result. And I've never seen a Ka causing any problems, either. Most of us have happily in our youth taken 1960s-model Fiat 500s (ie with a 500 cc engine) over the passes. We, and the other road users we caused no inconvenience to, are still herer to tell the tale.

What IS clear from the ill-informed whinges of some other posters is that some drivers are psychologically driven to have cars far bigger than they need. If you're one such planet-destroyer, you might share their discomfort at driving a car that's ecologically respectable.

It is, BTW, inaccurate to claim that passes are open "only in midsummer". I've taken the Grand St Bernard in early October: it's normally open from early June to at least the end of September, and sometimes as late as early November.

Apples and oranges. Flatlanders have no clue about mountain driving.

Cutting through the Alps on the motorways is something different than going up and down mountain pass roads.
You don't need decent power for speeding uphill a narrow pass road with 120kms/hr but for having power to pass a group of bikers (cyclists, not motorbikes) going uphill, for example.

In the 1960s, 90% of all people had cars with weak engines (by 2010 standards). Obviously, one weak car is no big obstacle for the other one. Today you have better roads, and when you go uphill with A/C running, you can actually *feel* how much energy that is sucking from a small, old-style engine (If you don't believe it, drive my car).

In this millennium, power does not mean having 4 or 8 cylinders or a 1.4 vs 3.5 liter engine. You find any bread-and-butter compact like the VW Golf or Ford Fiesta also with high-power engines that have just 1.4 liter engines but do 210 kms/hr. The problem is, as nytraveler said, that you cannot foresee what engine the rental car will have, and that rental cars often have a weak or the weakest engine.

Weak engines are not more economical than cars with more horsepower. The opposite is true. Going up and down the mountains with a weak car means revving up the engine to RPMs that equal doing 160kms/hr on a motorway in flat terrain. The weakest engines of eco rental cars (which are usually just 1.0 or 1.2 liters) will have used substantially more gas after a mountain pass road trip than a 1.6 liter engine (if you compare cars of same age/model).

And, finally, when OP is traveling with company (which the "we" in his/her OP suggests), a Ford Ka is not a good idea because of the small trunk. I have driven a Ka as a rental car in the Alps couple of years ago (when I was not yet living close to the mountains), and it was okay to stuff the whole car with luggage and go to the apartment we rented. But we needed to put stuff on the rear seats. Which was no problem since we could unpack the car once we got to our home base. And did not have to drive around with a full car every day from hotel to hotel, like OP probably plans to do.

The new Ford Ka or a new Ford Fiesta (which I really like) should be fine, but as noted above, luggage space will be very tight. If the Ford Ka and Fiesta are in different classes, I recommend going with the Fiesta class.

And don't forget you are just as likely to be given something else in the same class - an Opel Corsa for example (the brand new one seems bigger than the older models).

You nailed it, Cowboy. Oh these clueless flatlanders!!

flanneur is quite obviously a Flachlandtiroler!

Well, with all those flatlanders on the road, esp. in summer, you can't get from A to B in a decent time anymore. They go uphill and can't go any faster than 65kph on a road where 100 is allowed. They create and endless line of cars behind them and instead of stopping and letting all the others pass, they endanger everyone by forcing them to pass wherever there seems to be the slightest possibility. The worst thing is, they come to almost a stall at every bend.

They have never leared how to drive a car.

On summer weekends you go from one queue to the next. It's so extremely frustrating to find all those flatland-tyroleans on the roads.
Road blocks!

HappyCheesehead, I just want to clarify that we were living in Germany at the time and the SLK was a company car, so it was subsidized! One of the reasons we took that trip was because we knew we would likely never be able to drive the great passes of the Alps in a performance car ever again. Glad you enjoyed my trip report. I think you will have plenty of fun in a compact!

The most appealing way to cross the alps is:

- by motorcycle (preferably a Goldwing)
- with a convertible (have done this many times and weather permitting, is just as exhilerating as with a motorcycle)
- elephant (Hannibal did this when going over the Gotthard)

Sweet deal Hausfrau! My Husbands company provides a car, but it is a Ford Edge, LOL. I want to work for YOUR company! You were right to take advantage of it when you could. I see you are now a Michigander, are you involved in the auto industry? I have to laugh when I am hearing a reference above to flatlanders, because we know they could only be referring to people from Illinois, right?

I did look at a higher performance car rental just for fun but, Mein Gott, they are practically as expensive as the rest of my trip put together, so a compact it will have to be. Although it is just hubby and I, we will be making lots of stops (hopefully not in the middle of the road) on our way from place to place and I would prefer not to have everything loaded in the back seat and visible.

I will assure logos99 that we shall only travel on weekdays in September so as to cause the least amount of upset :) On his behalf, I shall also wag my finger at each economy car we see on the road.

Please just be kind. Once you see 5 cars behind you and noone in front of you, find the next place to park, let everyone pass, leave the car and enjoy the scenery. :-) That would help a lot.

And when you drive on a straight strech of road, please go the max allowed speed, if possible +5% to 10%, you don't need to slow down at that moment, just because there will be a bend in the road in a few 100 meters. Before the bend, you brake so you can safely pass and you accelerate again to max speed allowed once you exit the hair pin bend.

It's actually quite easy. :-)

Hi HappyCheesehead,

On 2 recent trips to the Alps, we rented (wound up with) an Opel Meriva 1.4 w/manual trans. We had no problems on the passes in the Dolomites and along the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse in Austria. It was perfectly fine for highways also. One year, the guy at the desk liked us enough that he upgraded us (no extra cost!) to a really nice Alfa Romeo. Don't remember the model, but it was quick. It was more fun driving the passes with it.

logos... come try Route 80 in New Jersey during the commuting hours!