Will Garmin car charger work in rental car?
 

We will be bringing our Garmin w/ us & are renting a car for a portion of our trip in Italy. This may be a silly question, but does anyone know if we will be able to use the standard car charger that plugs into the "cigarette lighter" that we use here in the United States? Obiously we know about the electrical converter for "appliances" but I wasn't sure if the "cigarette lighter" plug was standard on all vehicles, regardless of where you are. Thank you, & feel free to point out if this is a stupid question! ;)

Cigarette lighters are the same in Europe and the US. No adapter needed!

Yes. They are all the same. You proabably don't need a converter for most electrical goods, just a socket adapter. Check the voltage plate - if it says something like 110 -240v you are good to go.
Don't try using things like hair-dryers or straightening tools in Europe - buy cheap one when you get here.

We rented a Fiat Punto through AutoEurope which we picked up in Milan. As part of the rental deal they mailed us a complimentary Garmin for Europe before we left home.
The plug did not fit in the Fiat that we rented from Hertz/Linate through AutoEurope. Luckily a regular charger was included which we could use in the hotel rooms with a plug adapter for Europe.
Before we picked up the Fiat in Milan we had another rental car in Italy where the plug did fit in the cigarette lighter. Sorry, I don't remember what car model that one was but it was rented directly from Avis, also at Linate.

We have just come back from Italy and we took our own Garmin sat nav with us and the car charger. Unfortunately the cigarette socket in the car was broken, we didnt discover this until we had been going a while and the battery started running down. Thinking that the unit would charge up each time we plugged it into the car we hadnt taken the home charger with us, thankfuly our blackberry charger fitted it and we were able to re-charge it each night in the hotel.

Thank you all! I really appreciate the info. Hopefully it will work. We will plan on taking the home charger with us as well, just in case.

Not necessarily. Rented a car last year in Rome and this year in Switzerland and the plug that works here is too long and does not stay in.. Last year I could hold it in the outlet with Duck tape, but this year tape would not stick to the plastic around the lighter outlet. Garmin does not have the shorter plug. I am looking for one with no luck yet. Would like to know if anyone has found one.

I took my Garmin with me and used it in Italy in the car charger for two weeks with no problem.
In fact, I have used that Garmin in every rental car in France, Italy, Croatia and Portugal.

On a recent trip to Turkey, my charger fit - but the cigarette lighter had been disabled, so it did no good. I was very glad that I had the charger I could use in my lodgings!

Used our Garmin Nuvi in three rental cars: Austria, Norway and Denmark. No problem with the cigarette lighter. Never occurred to me that it might not work until I just read this.