While I haven't done it in quite a while, we did Purchase/lease plans through Auto France (Peugeot) for a number of summers -- ranging from three weeks to 5 months at a time. Always a perfect experience. The more recent leases included their sending a GPS to my home in the US in advance and we could even program all kinds of addresses including all hotels or apartments -- then return it after our return to the states. I recently looked one up and still found that for even 2 weeks it was a better deal than I could find with AutoEurope or anyone else I looked at.

https://www.autofrance.net

Diesel is called 'gazole' in France and is available at every station. Initial purchase is more expensive, or everyone would be driving diesel. But sometimes the rental or lease price is the same.

Diesel is being very rapidly phased out in France due to environmental concerns. Diesel vehicles used to represent more than 70% of the cars in France, and now they are down to about 40% and dropping fast. Although diesel fuel remains available in every single service station until further notice, the difference in price has almost disappeared.

In another two or three years, it will be just about impossible to resell diesel vehicles since they are going to be totally banned in most of the EU by 2030 (or 2025 in some countries). They will be shipped off to Africa, where everything bad for the environment ends up being sent. Do you want to participate in this?

We’ve also used Auto France multiple times and will continue to do so.

Do we need an IDP to rent a car in France?

Yes, the cost for filling up is about equal, but there is still the savings in better mileage. As far as participation is concerned, then maybe it's better to not travel to Europe at all. That will really save the planet, or so I'm told.

Good idea.

This is a timely question as we just returned our leased Peugeot yesterday, September 22. The experience was great, the paperwork remarkably simple, and there are great savings. Originally I requested a rental quote for a manual transmission small car, like a VW Jetta, but with second driver, GPS, full insurance, etc, we were quoted over $1900 for our 4 week trip. The agent then referred us to the leasing department and we got a car for $1540, with fewer restrictions and unlimited miles. We got a manual transmission Peugeot 3008 SUV, picked up brand new at the airport with 2 kilometers on the odometer. Fewer restrictions, which was important because we wanted to drive to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Rentals specify “secured parking, “ and the trip requires either a 6 mile transit through Bosnia or a ferry boat bypass south of Split to avoid Bosnia. Most rental companies won’t let you take a car to Croatia (which also requires driving through Slovenia), or severely restrict the type of car. No VW, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, etc, for example with the largest rental company. There were no restrictions on the lease, at least as far as I could tell, and there was a very long list of permitted countries, including Bosnia.

Most of the paperwork was done by email and snail mail before August. There is a final cancellation date of 21 days before departure. I don’t know if it is waived in case of COVID restrictions, but I had trip insurance to cover that problem, as well as a possible quarantine if we flunked the COVID test before returning to the US.

Two suggestions. First book as early as possible. We made the arrangements in early April for our late August arrival. In July, I had a final conversation with the US-based AutoEurope agent, and she said their build allocations were used up by Memorial Day. In fact, she said if someone called in July wanting a car, the earliest she could get them one would be in October!

Second, the Peugeot 3008 is a big car. While we had no problems parallel parking with the excellent parking aids, it was a times a bit difficult going through the tiny towns all over Europe. The streets just weren’t made for big cars, especially when you meet an oncoming car or truck. ! That was also true of some of the mountain passes in Switzerland, especially the Klausen pass, which is pretty tight. If you can use a smaller car, I would do it, but it would have to be in the Peugeot or Citroen line to get a lease.

The nav system is very good in the Peugeot, and I don’t know how we survived without it on previous car trips! AutoEurope is excellent and there was just a couple of minutes of final paperwork at the airport office in Paris. The service was door to door as they use a shuttle van to pickup and dropoff at the airport.

it was a great trip!

Great information.

daffodildeb We turned our Auto Europe/Renault lease (Car-2-Europe program) in near the Rome airport today. Our experience was very positive and similar to yours. We rented a Dacia Sandero (small SUV, bigger than we preferred, but smallest they offered). Brand new, nice car. In advance of the lease, we had to sign some documents and provide info by email that allowed the car to be registered in France in our name. The office in Rome was very responsive and polite with questions in English. When we arrived, we got a brief intro to the car as when you purchase. The paperwork was less than a typical rental car, almost nothing, and we were on our way. $1040 for a new car for 30 days, with unlimited mileage, full insurance, wide-screen GPS and a small amount of free gas. We returned a dirty car with about 4,000 km on it. In the Spring when we booked, the rental car shortage sent comparable auto rentals to about $3,000 and more at some companies just days after we booked. At a time when there was a global new car shortage, we remained a little dubious that we were missing something, since we know that the difference in price between a new car vs. a used car alone should be a lot more than $1,000, not to mention the overhead of leasing a car, wear and tear, insurance ,free road service etc. Instead, we were treated to a warm and quick thank you. Simply sign the registration over and that was it.

Our experience was pretty much like yours. I THINK the way it works is that there is no VAT charged for the lease, and the company has a lightly used car to resell that also has no VAT. It’s also possible that it’s similar to our dealer-use courtesy cars in that it hasn’t yet been titled, so the person who actually buys it is listed as the first owner. I am guessing on that. I do know that I only had to sign a couple of papers upon the return, one of which was an engraved paper that looked similar to our US titles. The only restriction for this program is that the lease has to be at least 21 days.

I’m not familiar with the size of the SUVs you mentioned. Dimensionally, the 3008 is similar to our Porsche Macan, which is considered a small SUV here, BUT Europe’s tiny streets aren’t similar to our roads here! I guess it depends on where you will be driving. In our case, nearly all of our route took us through very small towns, and that’s where we noticed the size. No collisions or scrapes, but we did have to slow down to accommodate oncoming trucks. On the open road, no problem. I wouldn’t worry about it, especially if you need the SUV for extra people or luggage. The 3008 does have an excellent nav system and parking aids, and it is a comfortable car.

One thing I will mention—many cars, including the 3008, control lane excursions. The idea is that if you’re lazy or inattentive, the car will steer itself back into the proper lane. This isn’t an autopilot, of course, just a bit of a reminder to stay where you belong. It can be turned off in the Macan, but we couldn’t figure out how to do so in the Peugeot. Why is this an issue? When we went, many roads were under repair, and the lanes were temporarily reconfigured to be narrower or slightly different from normal. The car didn’t like it, so there were a few fights trying to override the sensor’s steering. When you pick up your car, be sure to ask if and how it can be turned off.

We rented a compact car once that has side mirrors that folded all the way into the car so they hardly protruded. Impressive! As it turned out, we needed that feature. And it's not just a question of small villages, can be the case in the old town of cities. However, when we were a group of five we rented a minivan, and that worked out ok too. You just have to be a bit judicious about which streets you go down.

We leased a car in France once, but many years ago (1994, I think). The only requirement that we had that was a surprise and a bit of an annoyance was needing to have it serviced after a certain number of kilometers. I don’t recall how many, but it meant finding a service station and spending hours waiting for it to be worked on. It sounds like this isn’t a requirement anymore, but if it is, something to be aware of.