smelly french rental cars?

I have never experienced this as a problem with renting cars in France and have seen no such complaints reported on this board.

What leads you to expect that a rental car in France - as opposed to one in Chicago or Spokane - will necessarily smell like cigarettes?

No folks I only asked the question because this problem has occurred in about one-third of the cars I have rented in the US over the years and I do not expect France to be any different. Thanks for the replies.Jim

I suspect your question comes from an observation that smoking, generally, seems to be more ubiquitous in France than in the U.S. Nevertheless, my own personal experience with rentals from Paris is that I have never noticed a cigarette smell in the Hertz cars. I do have a non-smoking preference in my Hertz Gold profile, so I suppose that helps. The cars I have had have all been either Peugeot or Renault – nearly brand new. The new car smell makes one of the kids a little ill/feel like crap, but there's been no smoke smell at all.

Jim....take a small spray bottle with Febreeze or similar, and spray all the seats before you load up.

We rented from Alamo out of Paris and their contract had a pretty strict no-smoking clause and a stiff penalty for cleaning the car of any smoke smell afterwards, so maybe that may be a good company to look into to reduce your chances of getting a smelly car. If your car does happen to smell like smoke, I suppose you could return to the counter and ask for another car.

What happened to that very helpful reply from yesterday recommending air freshener spray with a cheese fragrance? Strange how replies are often mysteriously deleted with some degree of regularity.

"What happened to that very helpful reply from yesterday recommending air freshener spray with a cheese fragrance? Strange how replies are often mysteriously deleted with some degree of regularity."

Michael: I can clear up the mystery, I deleted my own post, which was frivolous but served its purpose if it made someone smile--smiles are good.

Unlike some internet forums, a poster here can "self-Delete" any of her/his own posts, using the Delete button under his name.

Ah, mystery solved indeed! Yes, smiling is better than the alternative.

Jim: You might wish to give Hertz a go and request a non-smoking car (no guarantee but why not try). When my company "suggested" we begin using cheaper agencies (big names) for business travel, I ended up with a bunch of sub-par rentals that didn't meet my expectations to say the least (including rancid odors). My experience suggests to me that Hertz has newer cars and fewer smells. There may be other good ones out there, but I haven't found a better customer experience with any of the others in the U.S. And, my rentals with Hertz both in France and Germany were exactly as I expected. Good luck!