Renting a car in Ireland and Greater Britain

It's been my experience that cars in Ireland get much better mileage than those here. I have rented from Irish Car Rentals and from Dan Dooley. You will want to get the extra insurance that brings your deductible to 0. It's an expense, but if something happens you can just turn in the keys and walk away.

Further to Nancy's comment: Many on this forum like Dan Dooley for car rentals in Ireland. They're one of the few agencies that clearly represent up front all of the costs associated with one of their rentals - the insurance in particular - so you know exactly what you're booking. With some of the other agencies trying to sort out exactly what you're getting can be a frustrating experience - lots of low-ball quotes up front until you realize that you need to pay extra for a variety of things you thought were included in the first place.
Recommend booking an automatic for your first time. Need to specifically request it since the default rentals in Ireland will come with manual transmission, ie a left-hand shifter, an added fun-factor you probably don't need your first time out.

Gas is currently going for around $5.00 a gallon in Ireland when you multiply it out (maybe a little less). Since most cars in Ireland and Europe in general do get better mileage than the average car in the US, your total gas costs for the trip of equal miles might come close to what you would pay in the US depending on your car and the price you pay for gas. Since I pay less than $2.00 a gallon where I am in the US, it will cost me more to drive in Europe per mile unless I can get a car that gets over 100 miles per gallon. :-)

Thanks you guys.
We are going to rent a car in Dublin and bringing it back there, then flying to Birmingham and getting another there and do the same: loop around and bring it back whre we rented from....

All thise replies were REALLY HELPFUL. Thank you.
Can anyone recommend a car rental company in England as well please? Or is Dan Dooley there too?

I definitely agree on the automatic. If you're going to be driving country roads, as we did in the west of County Kerry, get the smallest car you can with the automatic. These roads are often very narrow, no shoulders, a wall of greenery right up to the pavement and sometimes rock walls. We were upgraded to a Ford Focus when we had reserved the smaller Fiesta which would have made things easier. When we dropped off the car in Cork, the Enterprise rep was impressed that there was no damage. We bought the full coverage, since the coverage provided by our credit card sounded a bit sketchy. We did not drive in Dublin, but took the bus to the train and picked up the car in Tralee. People we talked to suggested that if you rent in Dublin, avoid driving in the city and take the motorway directly out.

Drive carefully, mind the roundabouts, (I like Rick's suggestion of just going around until you figure out which turn to take) and have a great trip.

For rentals in Ireland or elsewhere in Europe I can recommend AutoEurope. Compared with renting directly from Hertz I saved about 10% ($50 or so) renting from Hertz via AutoEurope. You pay in advance and print out a voucher, but the reservation is cancellable and fully refundable up until just before the rental period. In fact, I noticed that Hertz's rate (and AutoEurope's discounted rate) had dropped by an additional $50 so I cancelled and rebooked the AutoEurope voucher. The refund for the first voucher came a couple of days aftermath I cancelled.

AutoEurope didn't used to tell you in advance which agency you were renting through (you could figure it out if you Googled the address for the rental offices that they did tell you in advance) but now they show you different prices with each company identified.

By the way, diesel fuel in Ireland was priced a few cents per liter less than petrol, and (I assume) diesel cars get better mileage than the same car with a gasoline engine. I got 45-50 miles per gallon in a diesel powered Skoda Octavia (essentially a VW Jetta or Passat). As someone said the fuel price worked out to around $5 per US Gallon. For a 13 day rental with over 1400 km driven I only spent about $86 in fuel.

Thank you so much for your input. I saw that you mentioned Entreprise, is that the company you used there? And did you like them?
Also, would you remember how much was the total cost of your car renting experience.
I know that isa tough question. I am just looking for an estimate ;) thank you.

Hi Peter,
Well thank you so much for the awesome input. We were looking at AutoEurope last week. So I guess we will look at it more closely and definitely go for a diesel car.
Was the type (like a Jeta...) of car you rented not a bit big?
Also, since you seem to remember your #s and budget pretty well, may I ask what the rental cost you for those 14 days? And did it include a full insurance coverage, please.

Hi,

Our 13-day rental cost was about $440 including fees (one way drop fee was around $10). It included the basic CDW which has a €2000 deductible. The full Super-CDW adds considerably to the cost (on the order of €30 per day, which would have almost doubled the rental cost). I didn't like the mathematics of paying €400 to insure against a €2000 loss.

I assume you're aware by now that most credit cards that provide car rental CDW don't offer it for rentals in Ireland. My travel insurance policy covered "damage beyond my control" but that wording didn't lend confidence.

AutoEurope also offers a CDW add-on (independent of the rental agency) that bridges between basic and super CDW but I didn't look closely at the price. I don't think it was much cheaper than Hertz's.

The car didn't feel overly big on the roads (I'm fairly used to driving in Ireland & the UK, though) but parking spaces felt small. It had sensors in the rear bumper that made it easier to back into a space and pull out later but sometimes the spaces were narrow.

You'll save much more choosing a manual transmission car rather than automatic than you'd spend on gasoline vs. diesel. Both this car and last year's VW Taureg rental have a helpful section of the dashboard display that reminds you which gear you're in and recommends a higher gear if appropriate (it seemed to be happy with driving along with the diesel engine running at 1000 rpm).