Rental Car Age Limit?

[NoSpin]

Ah, so the lease car wasn't brand new. The two sites I listed are operating under a program authorized by the French governement, hence only French manufactured vehicles (Renault, Peugeot and Citroen) qualify.

The idea of the program is to assist the domestic car manufacturers and to make vehicles more affordable for French residents. Once the short term lease vehicle is turned in, it will be sold to a French citiizen. Since the vehicle is used it is sold at a cheaper price than new, and also taxes are less.

I should have added earlier that only citizens of the US, Canada, Australia and I think New Zealand are eligible to lease a vehicle. EU citizens do not qualify. There is a fee if you pick up or drop off the vehicle outside of France, but sometimes they have specials where they waive the fee. We often go to Italy, so we pick up in Nice (which we love any way) and then drive into Italy.

 

[NoSpin]

The only complaint I’ve heard from friends re these programs is about limited availability of several car models in recent years (chip shortage), so if one is interested, early booking probably still a good idea.

Yes, during and after covid the selection of models available has declined. Also, it used to be that you could select between gas and diesel. Now it seems most choices are tending toward hybrid or gas only for most models.

 

[Lorac]

Sounds like a very unlucky rough start to your well planned vacation, Lorac. Like NoSpin, and for all the same reasons, I have become a convert to the short term lease option. I have not experienced any essential difference in service or benefits when booking a lease arrangement directly with either of the orgs listed by NoSpin or with AutoEurope (very minor differences in cancellation policies). We’ve used them all and for the last few years have settled on booking a lease through AutoEurope. The only complaint I’ve heard from friends re these programs is about limited availability of several car models in recent years (chip shortage), so if one is interested, early booking probably still a good idea.

Allen:
Thanks for your considerate note. This discussion has raised the question as to whether or not trying a lease arrangement. It is very likely we had ourselves a car leasing agent who didn't take good care of his inventory and allowed our car, and others on the lot, to run down their batteries.
As I wrote previously, there are lots of advantages to leasing over renting, so we have some thinking to do.

 

[Lorac]

Ah, so the lease car wasn't brand new. The two sites I listed are operating under a program authorized by the French governement, hence only French manufactured vehicles (Renault, Peugeot and Citroen) qualify.

The idea of the program is to assist the domestic car manufacturers and to make vehicles more affordable for French residents. Once the short term lease vehicle is turned in, it will be sold to a French citiizen. Since the vehicle is used it is sold at a cheaper price than new, and also taxes are less.

I should have added earlier that only citizens of the US, Canada, Australia and I think New Zealand are eligible to lease a vehicle. EU citizens do not qualify. There is a fee if you pick up or drop off the vehicle outside of France, but sometimes they have specials where they waive the fee. We often go to Italy, so we pick up in Nice (which we love any way) and then drive into Italy.

I have no way of knowing whether or not the car we leased at the Munich airport was a used vehicle. It certainly looked and smelled new but those are cosmetics that are easily arranged. Instead, as I just wrote to Allen, there might well have been an absence of responsible care of the cars at that site. As I am sure you know, a car not turned on over a period of time will lose its battery power.

 

[Alpinista]

If anyone is going to have a car for 21 days or more, you cannot get a better deal than a lease from one of the companies I listed above.

I'll take another look, but it's always been around the 6-7 week mark for break even in my research. We only use one driver (my wife is a city driver and I grew up in the country, so she doesn't want me anywhere near the steering wheel when we're in Italy). The difference in our computations might be the extra driver fee for rentals, which we don't incur.