Europcar Italy

[paulred]

I rented a car from Europcar in Civitevecchia. I drive standard, and there were just the two of us, so we had no trouble getting a car for our needs. It did take us over two hours to be served. There were several North American tourists ahead of us. All had ordered 4 person cars with automatuic transmissions. There seemed to be two problems. First, the company did not have enough automatic transmission cars on hand, despite having customers with confirmed reservations. Secondly, the cars they did have would not hold 4 people and the luggage associated with 4 touring people.

 

This, I think, is more a case of the expectations of the customers being wildly optimistic. Europe is the home of the small car. They don't expect every car to have enough luggage space to move the 5th Army all at once. Its also not a good idea to pilot any North American sized car through Italian roads. Much better to rent two.

 

The car we got was a nice Fiat Panda. Not as cute as a panda, but excellent for driving through Tuscany and Umbria.

 

Then, a funny thing happened. Our rear window imploded - while parked!

The possible culprits are a flaw in the glass, or a malfunction of the rear window defroster. Neither one of these conditions would show up on any pre inspection of the car, yet they insisted on charging us. This happened on a Sunday night, and the car was fully operational, but they insisted on picking it up right away. they told us to take a taxi to the nearest office to get a replacement. They promised to pay the cab fare. We are still waiting!

 

Finally, they did the self conversion trick. The bill was in Euros, but they billed me in Canadian dollars at a rate they selected, and with a premium of 3.5%.

 

I emailed them 2 weeks ago, and have yet to have a response. This may only be a Europcar Italy problem, but be warned.

 

Paul