Car seats in hire cars - all dodgy? Or OK?

[Caz10]

That's it really! Going to Italy, flying Ryanair, car hire would be with Hertz.

I've had a bad experience with hire car seats - filthy dirty, overpriced and not fit for purpose. I think this was with Avis, also in Italy.

how old / tall / heavy are your dc?

we used record go and the car seats were absoltuely vile.

a friend regularly uses hertz in france and says she usually gets nice britax ones. so you might be ok~!

The thing you need to be careful with is that you may not be covered with your insurance if you are found to have a car seat that doesn't comply with the regulations (similar to UK kite mark) in the country you are visiting if involved in an accident.

It is the case in Canada and Australia.

DH says we should just be stroppy at hire place if they produce a minging old seat, and insist on better, which obviously we will do, but my worry is if they don't have better.

We have a non-Isofix Maxi Cosi one in my car which we could take, but it would then have to go in the hold of a Ryanair flight which to me is asking for trouble!

Good point inscotland I didn't think about that. Going to look back at Hertz website and see if they specify a brand.

DD is 20mths, just over 2 stone

A couple of years back we booked car seats with Hertz in Ireland, and when we picked them up and asked for help to put them in the car, we were told that no help could be given with fitting them, because they weren't Hertz' responsibility. There were not even instructions. Took us (and to be fair, the man at the car hire place, even though he wasn't supposed to go near the seats) nearly an hour to work out how they fitted in.

Ring them and ask.

We've had a varied experience. In Mallorca we were given a brand new Maxi Cosi Cabrio for 6 month old DS which was great.

In Lanzarote we were pointed to a pile of awful ancient old seats and told to help ourselves.

jojay I hope Italy is more like Mallorca then!

We're going in October so I'm hoping it'll be quieter and therefore more seats available.

Will ring and will post back in case anyone else is interested!

I'd suggest you go with Avis, they have published a new policy (2008) about car seats and allegedly stick with it: once they're requested in advance when you turn up to get your car they're properly installed, cleaned and sterilised.

Have used them in the last 2 years in England, Italy and France and had a very good experience. They have liaised with chicco and in order to be able to keep the seats completely clean from one user to the next they use white cotton covers, which I guess they then boilwash.

Have heard about people having bad experiences with Hertz and am not aware of a similar policy, but don't quote me on this

HTH

Thank you very much mummygirl that is great info. You don't happen to have a link to it? (to convince DH, he thinks I'm being loopy about this!) Searching to no avail atm

Now have hired cars and seats in the Canaries and New Zealand. In both cases the seats were OK but problematic to fit and no support from the hire co...on balance would hire seats again as a real PITA to transport across the world but expect the worst.

I would take your own

Do you think it would be safe in the hold EldonAve? That's my worry!

My Father in Law had booked car hire via a small company in spain, and on arrival the seats offered were awful, dirty, broken, not even for the right age. I was prepared to sit at the airport until someone had gone a bought a better one, however on remonstrating with the staff a brand new one appeared.
But it was a stressful beginning to our holiday, if you can take your own, I would.

We had 2 car seats in italy last year for a 3 year old and 6 month old. They were dreadful.

I'm not a cry baby type person but was nearly in tears at how dreadful they looked. So car-hire man (it was one of the big ones at pisa airport) threw me the keys to the car-seat cupboard so i could pick my own one. Well they all looked pretty dreadful.

It has actually really put me off hiring a car in italy again to be honest although interesting about avis - perhaps we should try them.

They are usually fine in the hold - only had to claim on the insurance once

We saw the hire car seats in Mallorca - not good
We hired once in Germany and they were also crap - cheap, old, poorly fitting

Arrgh this is quite scary.

Does anyone then have any experience of how best to pack a car seat to go in the hold?!

Will try to find out more about Avis too.

who are you flying with?
we usually stick it in a big plastic bag - some airlines will provide one

clear plastic

whne moving countries we put ours in bubble wrap. It took A LOT of bubble wrap though.

I don't have the link but I'm sure you can findit in the Avis site. Maybe their blog. But if in doubt about the specific service in Italy (where about BTW?) then email them -I have always found them VERY helpful and quick in responding. Oh my, I sound like a marketing troll, lol.