Renting a car in Livorno at Sifracar: things to consider

For those of you asking about rental cars in Livorno, I would like to share with you my experience.

Both Hertz and Avis offer cars just in the dock. This is really convenient, and the personnel are very kind and helpful. However, there are a couple of things you should consider:

First, they will charge you extra (30-40 euro) for picking up the car at the dock. You will not get this however in the original quote, you will only get this by email from them, once you have done the reservation. It is difficult to back out then (given that a taxi to the town office will be as expensive). Personally, I don't like this way of acting, but it is how it is.

The second issue is that you return the car in the evening when there is nobody from Hertz or Avis at the dock, so you cannot check that everything is ok. In my case this resulted in a very bad experience: I returned the car with the tank full, but when I saw an unexpectedly high charge in my credit card, I asked them and told me that the tank was not full so they had to charge me more than 60 euro for gas. I argued over email, but there was nothing of course I could do.

All in all, I ended up paying almost 100 euro more than originally quoted. Not a cheap rental.

I am surprised to read of your bad experience. We had just the opposite in May. I corresponded directly by email with Sifracar (not the Hertz website) and all charges were explained clearly upfront.

A couple of thoughts. When you want to rent from Hertz at Livorno (the port) it is best to do it through the Sifracar website (they are the Hertz franchiser) where they actually have a special link for cruise ship passengers. They do disclose the full rental price. And yes, it does cost more to have a car delivered and dropped at the port...and so it should. The rental car company must position the cars at the port, bring personnel to the port, later retrieve all those cars.,,take them back to their office...and clean them and then drive them back to the port for the next cruise. They also must pay the port a fee to have access to the port. All this adds cost. If you do not want to pay the higher cost you can certainly try to get a taxi (not always easy) to drive you to a local agency office. The taxi will probably cost you 20-25 Euros each way to the rental car office, but I guess you will save some money on the actual car...and of course the extra hour (or more) you lose getting to and from the office (and renting the car) is not important for a port day :).

As to the fuel issue, it has never happened to us in Italy but does happen too often here in the USA (even in our home town with Budget). It drives me crazy so we really are in tune with the OPs post. So when I drop any rental car after hours (anywhere) I now take photos of the outside of the car and also photograph the gas gauge (my camera has a time/stamp). It might be anal, but it actually has been effective on more then one occasion (all in the USA).

Hank

Great idea about the photo of the gas gauge. We always take photos of the car but had not thought of this one.

We once had a similar problem but a time stamped gas receipt did the trick and it should for SpanishCruiser as well.

Great idea about the photo of the gas gauge. We always take photos of the car but had not thought of this one.

 

We once had a similar problem but a time stamped gas receipt did the trick and it should for SpanishCruiser as well.

We also keep the gas receipts, but sometimes the automated European pumps fail to spit out a receipt. But what gets my goat is our local budget rental agency. We often rent a car just to drive to the airport the following morning (we sometimes take very early flights). We can get a rental car for about $18 (total cost including taxes) but a taxi (if they can find our house) will cost us about $50. Budget charges a fee of about $13 if you return the car with less then 75 miles on it (at least that used to be the rule) even if the gauge shows Full. In order to not pay that charge you must produce a gas receipt. One time we stopped on our way to the airport, put in a gallon, and taped the receipt to our paperwork which we dropped in the slot (it was before opening). They charged us the $13 which I spotted on my credit card. Since I was out of the country for 2 months I just sent an e-mail to AMEX putting the charge into dispute and asking them to remove $13 from the total charge. Amex immediately refunded my $13 (they are so easy to deal with) and Budget never responded to the dispute or said a word.

So the next time we go over to Budget I told this to the manager. He explained that we were charged because the man on duty that morning saw that we bought the gas at a station about 5 miles from the airport. There is only one station open that hour that is closer (about 2 miles away) and this guy's attitude was that we should have driven out of our way to the closer station. We did get an apology from the manager. Just love rental car companies :)

Hank

The time-stamped picture is a great idea, that I will use in the future to prevent surprises like this one. So thanks for the great advice.

As for the extra cost, the take-home lesson for future users is to rent directly at the Sifracar website. Of course I agree that taking the cars to the dock has a cost, and in fact it is cheaper and easier than trying to get a taxi, this is why we accepted it. But what I don't like is that if you go through the Hertz website (which for many will be the first option) you cannot see that extra charge and may be misled.

Again, I am not saying that you should not rent a car at Hertz in Livorno. What I said is that you should be careful with these two issues.

Thanks to all for the very useful contributions to the thread.

I have rented a van directly from Sifracar for next June in Livorno.I have read some negative reports about problems if you have a accident.I know their basic insurance is included but can someone give me an opinion if I need to purchase the extra insurance for 40 euro which has no deductble.Should I purchase the extra insurance?

I have rented a van directly from Sifracar for next June in Livorno.I have read some negative reports about problems if you have a accident.I know their basic insurance is included but can someone give me an opinion if I need to purchase the extra insurance for 40 euro which has no deductble.Should I purchase the extra insurance?

And that is the big question. Sifracar does not make it easy to find out how much their deductable/excess is on a particular rental although you can e-mail them for the info. Personally we do not like to take a big gamble so always like to consider other options. Most US Credit Cards will not give you "excess" coverage in Italy, but there are some that do. For example, the CapitalOne Master Card (which has no annual fees or foreign currency fees) does appear to extend their coverage to cars rented in Italy. So you might want to check with each of your major credit card providers (i.e. Visa, MC, Amex) for the coverage info. If you have no coverage you could always apply to get a CapitalOne Card (and pray they do not change their insurance coverage terms).

It is also possible to get coverage through various trip insurance policies (if you have such a policy). There are also specific rental car policies from companies such as Allianz (which you can purchase online) that have coverage for as little as $9/day.

As to whether or not you even should get this coverage, it is simply a matter of your own risk tolerance and love of gambling :).

Hank

Thanks Hank!I was hoping you would answer. I guess I'll go ahead and get the extra insurance.We've rented from them before and didn't have a problem but just my luck with "7" people something would happen.:eek:

Thanks Hank!I was hoping you would answer. I guess I'll go ahead and get the extra insurance.We've rented from them before and didn't have a problem but just my luck with "7" people something would happen.:eek:

This has me thinking about a line from one of the Dirty Harry movies, "Are you feeling lucky punk?" Although we could lose the "punk" word. When I was younger and more foolish we would often rent cars in Italy without excess coverage. Now, in my old age, we tend to be a little more cautious.

Hank