My wife and I just returned from a trip to Ireland & France to visit her family. We took your recommendation to use Auto Europe. We made reservations for both a car in Ireland & France. We spoke with the staff at Auto Europe and they never mentioned that we would be required to purchase insurance through Hertz. The cost for 12-days in Ireland was $454.51 - paid in advance. I spoke with my credit card company prior to leaving the Bay Area, and was told we could use our card as deposit for the car insurance, (as we have done in the past). When we arrived at the Dublin airport to pick up the car, we were told that we were required to provide documentation to prove that we had insurance. Since we did not bring this, we were charged $788.02 for car insurance, in addition to the $454.51 we had prepaid for the rental. The agent was quite rude, and told us that we had no other option. The insurance at that rate excluded coverage for scratches on the wheels, or windshield damage. So for 12-days, the rental of a compact car cost a total of $1,242.53! For the rental in France, there was no such requirement. An Irish friend has also just returned from Ireland, and had rented a car from Hertz. She did not bring insurance documentation, but was given the option to pay 7-euros per day for insurance through Hertz. We called Auto Europe to make a complaint, and today, we received a response saying that since we signed the agreement at the rental office, there was nothing that we could do. Our recommendation to anyone reading this is- beware of Hertz Ireland! You may end up paying nearly 3-times the cost you had expected. Since we had just gotten off of an 11-hour flight and had prepaid for the rental, we were not at liberty to just go to another rental company. We won't be recommending Auto Europe, and we intend to further contest this outrageous charge.
Regarding the rental from Hertz in France, we did not have the insurance documentation requirement. We upgraded the car for an additional $420 for one that supposedly had a better GPS, but we were never able to get the GPS to work properly. At random times, and quite frequently, an extremely loud alarm sound went off that nearly made us jump through the roof. There was no manual for the car, and a French speaking friend was unable to find what the meaning of the alarm was.
All in all, we had a very bad experience with Hertz!