hiring a car in italy... help!

[jobnockey]

We need to hire a car for a week in italy... A google search comes up with a few options, obviously the big car hire companies (hertz, europcar etc) but also companies like holiday-autos and auto-europe. The latter are much cheaper but i am concerned there is a reason for this! Don't really want to have to deal with loads of hassle but really need to keep our costs down... Anyone have any experience of these other companies (who i assume are brokers for the main car hire places...) should we avoid like plague???
Thanks in advance!

well - apart from that, have a great time!

Yes jobnockey - the insurance policies are universally valid - the companies may not want to recognise them as such but what it means is that you would pay the original company for the claim then claim the excess back from your policy.

Have a great time.

There's a department store called Coin (it's probably the Italian equivalent of B+M) that do nice, cheap table cloths and napkins, runners etc much cheaper than in the uk. We have bought decanters, cutlery... there, even nice ties and because they look 'Italian' people comment on them and think they are very expensive.

We've never had any probs hiring or driving cars, so you'll be fine!

On the way back there is a petrol station at the front of Pisa airport - before you drive round to the car hire place.

But the machines are all self service, only take Italian cards and don't give change, so make sure you have some cash in smaller bills so you can fill up before you return.

The closer to the airport, the dearer the fuel! Its like in the UK - keep your eyes on the prices and just mark on your map where local cheaper ones are for your return journey.

Have you ordered kids seats?

Top tips about petrol... thanks! Will get DP to ring our car insurance company about excess cover...

Have just bought one of those trunki booster seats for DS as cost the same as hiring one pretty much and we need one for when we got to my mum's etc so made sense...

Also, take your own satnav, obvs update it for Europe. It's not perfect but will make life a lot easier for getting around and getting home when you're lost. Italy's my favourite place in the world ever, enjoy, dine out as much as you possibly can, visit the gelateria at least once every day.

Will the satnav yell at you in Italian? I'd love that!

BTW I am sorry to inform you that the story about PowerGen taking over an Italian utilities provider and it being called PowerGenItalia (childish snigger) is not true. I really thought it was for a long time!

We updated our tomtom before driving from Pisa to sienna a couple of yrs ago. DP then decided to put homer simpsons voice on it. So DP, DP's dad and driving on roads that they didn't know. LMS got cross I can tell you.