erical77

I thought renting a car would be easy, but now that I've read other posts, I'm really confused. We are looking at picking up a car in Siena for 3 days and returning it to Florence.

1. What do I need to consider with insurance? I read where someone used their Mastercard insurance and it reduced their rental rates. Right now I'm considering using SIXT (no one-way charge).

2. Do companies charge a penalty if we return the car say Monday night instead of Tuesday morning if we've paid for the car through Tuesday morning?

I just want to make sure that we have all of our bases covered and we don't get screwed!

Thanks...Erica

erical77

One more question - what is the deal with deductibles? I know AutoEurope has a zero deductible and it appears SIXT does too. I assume that we want this?

ourjetboat

Not sure what your renal car needs are...but I WOULD NOT drive into Florence. Took me an hour or so to drive OUT of Florence...It is VERY confusing. Maybe drop of somewhere else and train into Florence

Cicerone

Insurance is mandatory when renting a car in Italy, i.e. the car rental companies will not let you waive any coverage. It may be that you can get cheaper coverage from your credit card company than the car rental company is offering. Most car rental quotes for Italy already include the insurance, so you would have to back out the insurance cost to compare what the car rental company is offering versus what your credit card insurance may cover.

I would pay for the maximum insurance allowed, as you will find that parking places are quite small and roads are narrow and often lined with stone fences, so you may put more scrapes on the car than you would driving at home, it is nice not to have to pay for these small dents and dings.

You may get a price break if you return the car early, but rates are generally charged on 24 cycles from the time you rented the car, not calendar days, so returning it 12 hours ahead of the end of the cycle may not get you any price reduction, read your rental agreement.

I agree that you don’t need a car in Florence, and I think it is preferable to rent at the airport. It is easy to find the rental desks at the airport (as opposed to trying to find the car rental agencies in the back streets of Florence) and easy to get access to the roads from the airport, and you don’t have to drive in Florence itself which has a lot of one-way streets, streets closed to cars, and some traffic. The airport is about a 10 minute cab ride from the main train station (you can also take a bus), so even if you are arriving into Florence by train, you can get out to the airport to rent the car.

pg

Based on driving out of Florence and into Rome 2 weeks ago, this is what I think:
- Definitely rent, if you have driven in Europe before. I agree with other posters that Florence is confusing - it took me 45 minutes to return to my hotel (near station) from the car rental, which was a 10 min walk from the hotel. It took me 30 minutes to get to the FL-PI-SA highway. I would probably do this all over again, simply because when I am renting, I hate to add another mode of transport - wastes as much time (if not moe) waiting for trains, besides transfer hassles. Also, unlike in America, most likely you will almost never make it to your destination address without asking the pedestrians in the general vicinity.

- Seems like you are renting from America - you are unlikely to get a company to rent you a car without the CDW included. I suggest Auto Europe - for $290, they put me in a EuropCar (compact) with full insurance ($0 deducible) for week. Although I have driven in larger cars (vans/ 9-seaters) when travelling elsewhere in Europe with more people, I found that this is a very decent size for 2-3 people - the car is much easier to navigate while meandering thru confusing streets.

The answer to your second question is - NO. In fact we did exactly the same - but used the key drop-box since the facility was closed at the time we returned. I did call the next day and they told everything was in order. I suggest that you ask about the drop-off location hours and availability of drop-box, besides the ease of getting there (distance from your hotel at the drop-off location).

Happy travels!

bobthenavigator

Save yourself some heartache and book Autoeurope--return it at Florence airport.

winnie18

now i am confused about the rates. people on this board have posted rates that were much higher than what we have reserved. we have rented a mercedes smart car (2-4 doors) from thrify (www.thrifty.com) in florence for a 1 day estimated total of 45€. we actually had the option of renting a cheaper car through thrifty (about 35€ total) but opted for an automatic car. here is the break-down of our costs:

Estimated Mandatory Charges
RENTAL TIME CHARGE 18,00 €
PHYSICAL DAMAGE WAIVER (9,30 € PER DAY) 9,30 €
ROAD TAX (1,45 € PER DAY) 1,45 €
THEFT PROTECTION (8,52 € PER DAY) 8,52 €
VALUE ADDED TAX (20%) 7,45 €
Total Estimated Mandatory Charges 44,72 €
Estimated Grand Total 44,72 €

can someone tell me what i'm missing, if i'm missing anything at all, so that we don't feel like we were misled?

pauldb

Thrifty's policy has a €850 excess, reduced to zero by purchasing Super PDW and Super TPW for an extra €18. Still a good price and full coverage.

Just so you know, a Smart is a very small, low-powered car. I definately wouldn't hire one for intercity if that is your plan. Thrifty seem to have Smart Forfours, also automatic and a little bigger for the same price (extras a little more).

ira

Hi winnie,

Does your insurance provide for zero deductible?

If you add that and include the airport charge it comes to 68E, about the same as www.novarentacar.com.

Ann1

Search this site for AutoEurope. It is a no hassle company. It covers all of the inusrances you need in their prices. Most other car rental agencies will let you know when you get to the desk that you need fire, theft, etc, etc and charge you a fortune. You will also find that American Express and your own auto insurance will not cover you in Italy. They feel that since CDW is mandatory and automatically covered they won't cover you. If you go to the reservations page at AutoEurope, and look at the bottom you will see how well covered you are without paying extra for it.It's also an American company so if you have any problems you can deal with it. We travel to Italy at least one or twice a year. My family is there. We use AutoEurope all of the time. We've learned from a lot of experience.

winnie18

the rate of 45 € doesn't include Super PDW and Super TPW. but like pauldb said, it's 18 € extra, which would still only bring me up to 63 €. we are not renting at the airport and instead renting in the city of florence so i don't know if this would eliminate the airport tax (not that it's a great difference). but i guess we should be expecting to pay about 65 € plus gas for our one day rental? am i correct?

thanks for all your responses, it was really helpful.

ira

Hi winnie,

>..i guess we should be expecting to pay about 65 € plus gas for our one day rental? am i correct?<

Yes. About that.

wlzmatilida

Hi Erica,

Regarding driving from Florence to Siena, I'll be doing the exact same thing in September, however, having driven out of Florence previously, I'm going to take a bus instead.

Last trip, I could SEE the autostrada from the car rental office; I could have WALKED there in less time than it took me to find it!

Unless you feel you need a car to do day trips outside of Siena.....? If you're flying into Florence, you could take a bus that goes to Siena.

Regards,

Melodie

nitajan

Some Florence driving info I posted on another thread:

The location of our rental place made it easy to get out of Florence and it had the latest closing hours.
Avis - Firenze Est - FI5
Via Borgo Ognissanti 128 R, Florence, 50123 , Italy
(351) 39 55 213629
Sun 08:00AM-01:00PM; Mon-Sat 08:00AM-07:00PM

Two tips:
- cross the city on the southside of the river...much easier
- refilling the tank was tricky...the station we stopped at was self-service and since we didn't have a bankcard we ended up losing 14E (no one was there) since we didn't have smaller notes

ira

Hi Nit,

>...since we didn't have a bankcard we ended up losing 14E (no one was there) since we didn't have smaller notes.<

Do you mean that you had no credit cards or did not have a particular (type of) card?

nitajan

From what we could tell it only took notes/cash and bankcards - similar to an ATM debit card I'm guessing. We didn't think our ATM card would work.