Taking a trip to Europe that’ll last longer than two weeks? First off: lucky you. Second: whatever you do, don’t rent a car. Lease one instead. I do this all the time. For periods longer than 17 days, short-term leasing a car fresh off the factory floor is almost always cheaper than renting a vehicle in Western Europe. And since the car is technically yours, you get full insurance coverage-no added charges for CDW or theft protection, no deductible, and no taxes (foreigners don’t have to pay VAT on purchases). You also get something no rental can give you: that that new-car smell.
This is not a new phenomenon or a fly-by-night operation. These are deals set up directly by Renault, Peugeot, and other manufacturers, and they’ve been offering them since the 1950s — it’s just never been widely advertised.
THE PLAYERS
It’s easiest to arrange a lease through one of three agencies.
Europe By Car (800/223-1516, or 212/581-3040 in New York, www.europebycar.com) has the widest selection of vehicles by far, and while the cheapest are usually something French (a Renault or Peugeot), anything from a Ford to a Beemer is available.
The European car rental specialist Auto-Europe (888/223-5555, www.autoeurope.com), which for standard rental contracts works just like an airline consolidator, also has a leasing program worked out with Peugeot.
If you’d prefer to go straight to the source, Renault Eurodrive (800/221-1052, or 212/532-1221 in New York, www.renaultusa.com) has an office set up in the U.S. that does nothing but arrange these short-term leases on its own vehicles. The big asset with Renault is that they throw in a free cell phone to use while your there.
THE COSTS
Let’s take a 17-day vacation from Rome to Paris. (No, really. Let’s. I’m sick of this cubicle.) This will be a pre-Christmas holiday, from December 2 to 19, and we’re going to drive a Renault Megane Scenic 1.6 “or equivalent,” which is a car rental term meaning you might get a Pugeot 306/307 or an Opel Astra or any other similar compact. To we yanks that’s equal to a Honda Civic or a Ford Focus. (You can lease, or rent, anything; we just need to pick something for consistency’s sake.)
Since our trip begins in Italy, I’ll go ahead and add in the CDW and Theft Protection insurance that the rental agencies force you to purchase there, even if your credit card normally covers this. Though some of the prices I got were quoted in Euro, since these days that’s as close to equal with the dollar as makes no odds we’ll just express all terms in dollars.
As a rental, the car would cost: from National $1,197, from Avis $1,320, or from Hertz $1,572.
The lease? From Europe By Car it’s $984, from Renault Eurodrive it’s $1,004, and from Auto Europe it’s $1,010.
How Europe By Car can beat Renault itself on pricing for a Renault vehicle is beyond me, but you can see that even at the low end, at 17 days, the lease beats out the rentals by a couple hundred dollars. As the rental/lease period gets longer, the price difference gets even wider. Also, I must point out that, even though Auto Europe’s quote is the highest-admittedly by only a few bucks- they do offer a “lowest fare guarantee” that claims they’ll beat any competitor’s price.
THE COMPARISONS: RENTALS VS. LEASES
Rental: You might get a new car, you might get something that’s been mightily abused by countless tourists before you.
Lease: You’re getting a spanking new, straight off the truck, still bits of plastic sticking out of the side mirror swivels, smells like plastic and carpet shampoo, buffed to a high shine automobile. The odometer might read, at most, “000004.”
Rental: You can rent an “Economy” or a “Mid-Sized” model and they’ll guarantee you only “an Opel Astra, or similar” meaning you don’t know what the heck you’re going to get.
Lease: You’re buying the car, so you get the exact make and model you ask for.
Rental: Local taxes, which hover around 19% or more, are often not included in the rate quoted you-you won’t find out until you return the car and they hand you a bill.
Lease: You’re not renting, you’re buying, and since you’re a non EU-citizen (and therefore VAT-exempt) and purchasing something that is, trust me, worth far more than the roughly $250 minimum needed in each country to get over the tax-free barrier, there are no taxes.
Rental: To write an additional driver into the rental agreement (say, your spouse) costs about $5 per day.
Lease: Usually, spouses and direct descendents (assuming they’re over 18) can drive the car and are fully covered by the insurance.
Rental: With the bigger agencies, pick-up and drop-off is available in a pretty wide selection of cities and even small towns. However, it costs more to pick up at the airport, and if you want open-ended plans, they’ll often charge you a “one-way fee” for dropping off in a different location from where you picked up (in our rental example above, Rome to Paris, this fee is a whopping $285 at Avis or National, and a frankly ridiculous $500 at Hertz).
Lease: The network of places you can pick up or drop off is more limited (roughly 36 locations across Western Europe, with half in France). However, there’s no extra charge for dropping off in a different location from where you picked up-though any pick up or drop-off made outside France usually tacks on $50 to $175-and, unlike with rentals, airport pick-ups are (usually) no more expensive than downtown.
Rental: Unlimited mileage (usually).
Lease: Unlimited mileage (always).
Rental: Many grumpy rental firms won’t trust younger explorers with their wheels; most set a minimum age limit at anywhere from 23 to 25.
Lease: It’s available to anyone over 18.
Rental: Unless your credit card covers it (and even if it does, in Italy or Spain) you are charged around $10 a day extra for the CDW (Collision Damage Waver), and many also charge you for a LDW (Loss Damage Waiver) and TLW (Theft Loss Waiver).
Lease: You get a full insurance package of the kind you enjoy at home, covering everything from property damage to injuries, both to you and the other drivers.
Rental: Read the fine print on the agreement: there’s usually a deductible on the insurance scheme. Fender bender on the autobahn? Side-swiped by a double-parking Fiat? Window smashed in by thieves? A rental agency will break the news that, despite your insurance, that CDW, and the theft insurance they made you buy, you still have to pay a sizeable deductible (which can be anywhere from $500 to $1,000 or more) before it kicks in. Some rental agencies now offer a “Super CDW” that waives the deductible, but it costs a few more bucks per day.
Lease: The insurance is deductible-free. The situations described above, while I sincerely hope you can avoid them, aren’t at all unusual. I’ve been rear-ended on a European highway during a traffic jam by some idiot too busy talking on his cell phone to pay attention (joke’s on him and his $60,000 Mercedes), had the passenger side of my parked car nearly sheared away in Sicily whilst I was in a museum, and had my rear window reduced to sparking bits of glass all over the back seat on my very last night in Rome (since I’d lugged my luggage up to my hotel room and even taken the radio faceplate with me, the frustrated thieves didn’t get a thing). All three were leased cars. Each time, I’ve turned the car back in to the guy at the airport with a sheepish smile, a shrug, a “Sorry!,” and, most importantly, without having to crack open my wallet.
THE FINE PRINT
Though it’s called a short-term lease, technically you’re buying the car factory-direct, but the purchase agreement is written in such a way that the company agrees to buy the car back from you at the end of the “lease” period for the cost of the car minus the “lease” fee.
You’ve got to plan ahead for this. It varies from company to company, but the requires at least three to four (and prefer four to five) weeks’ notice to get the paperwork in order.
You can’t lease for a period longer than six months (well, technically 175 days), though students and teachers can get an exception (and, incidentally, even better rates) for up to 360 days, as can people whose jobs are posting them abroad for a period of less than a year.
These leasing schemes are largely available only in Western Europe, though they’ll often let you drive it into Eastern Europe and even Northern Africa (each company has its own restrictions).
