I like Bob for DE, CH, and AU but what about Italy?

I talked with Andy Bester at gemut concerning my trip to Switzerland, and his prices are the same as autoeurope. He told me that he gets better rates for Germany.

I looked at Kemwel's site, and they are $55 cheaper than gemut/autoeurope, but I would have to pay the full amount upfront whereas I only had to put a 20% deposit down and pay the rest at the end of my trip.

Thanks Dukey, since I don't have my own, I'll keep an eye out for it when I pick up the car. I guess at the very least I can turn off the voice and just use the map guidance.

Do you find that mapping to be accurate? I'll be using it on a drive from Lyon to the EuroDisney area.

If you're renting a GPS thru Autoeurope, it will probably be a Garmin. Mine gives turn by turn instructions with my European Maps in English. It will tell you how many meters to the next turn, when to turn, and will show you a blow up of the turn.

As far as voices, you'll have a choice of Am Eng, British Eng, Danish, German, Spanish, French, French Canadian, Italian, Dutch, Flemish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Finnish, and Swedish. Just go into settings/language and chose the one you want.

Budman, that's great. Thanks.

Do you find them to be up to date and accurate?

Accurate? Yes, except when you get to areas of new construction and roadway deviations where you have to turn off the original direction, but it will recalculate the directions within seconds.

I'm glad to hear that Auto Europe's service is good. I think service can truly me measured when things go wrong, and then you can see how the new situation is handled. I wish I had more input on how often the car reserved is *not* waiting, since the real issue here is that I will need an automatic. By the way, we're renting and returning at the same airport location (Toulouse, France), so drop-off charges don't apply and I'm comparing dollars to dollars and cars without any insurance, to make things even. The companies at the airport are: Ada, Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, National/Citer, Sixt, and Walter-Spanghero. Some of those, I've never heard of, and probably will not get a quote. National and Citer appear to be the same company, but the National website is much, much more user-friendly.

<<I've found on the very few occasions that the specific car I wanted wasn't available upon arrival, AE had one delivered from another location within a day or two.>>

I guess a day won't hurt us too much, but more than that it will make the start of our trip difficult as there aren't any good public transportation options to get is where we are going.

You are not guaranteed a particular car model or transmission style, etc. by any company. At least no company I've ever rented thru--either directly or broker. But, so far, for the trips we've been on for which I requested A/T, we've always ended up with A/T.

I've used Autoeurope twice in France and they definitely had the best rates. My rental experience was totally unremarkable, so I had no service issues, but I don't think the guys working at the actual rental offices really care how you reserved the car, and if you think they won't have exactly what you reserved, I imagine it wouldn't make any difference how you did that reservation. If anything, I would think renting through Autoeruope rather than yourself would give you more clout, but I'm just speculating.

All I know is a rented through them twice and got exactly what I reserved with no problems whatsoever, and I also reserved an automatic. This was in Provence both times. If I were you, I"d go with the best price, as I doubt if it makes a difference in terms of whether you will or will not have the kind of car you want.

Use Auto Europe. Against my better judgment because I was too cheap, I used National directly in Istanbul and got stuck with a $1,000 charge for damage they claimed we caused to their gas tank. We even had the receipts for diesel. (Keep your receipts!) Now I'm busy disputing this with Visa. National in the US doesn't help at all. Auto Europe does price-match but they wouldn't waive the drop-off fee like National. For only $100 more I would have avoided this headache.

And you've repeated by personal experience what I mentioned above. Big name companies in the US won't deal with you on their foreign counterpart agencies when something goes wrong. You end up having to deal with overseas operations if you have a problem. AutoEurope has an American office and toll free number.

Just a reminder to check the car carefully for damage. We got an "upgrade" this past summer from what we had reserved. Translation? A filthy, scratched car with a melted area in the trunk carpet and tiny holes in the floor. I insisted that everything was noted on the form - it took quite a while. All I could imagine after reading the myriad of posts here was being charged thousands of dollars upon my return home. As it was the only car available we took it and kept our fingers crossed. Turns out the most important thing was fine - it ran well with no problems, and we didn't get charged for damage.

I did use the 800 number when I got back to register a complaint and did get good customer service. They did not refund any money, but were sympathetic (that goes a long way) and gave me a small discount for a future rental. I would still check their prices the next time and hope for a better car.

When we combine train and car travel, we rent Avis cars through the French railroad company, SNCF, because the car pickup is at the train station and because cars can be picked up any day of the week, at any hour, day or night, that a train arrives.