This is our car, Sebastian. For two months, we spent all of our time together. We actually leased through Citroen Europass instead of renting a car for our trip. For a two month lease on this little guy we only paid around AU$40 per day.
As far as I can tell from my research, the scheme is only set up in France and it is used by car companies to circumvent a new car tax. If they lease out their brand new cars to us for a couple of months they can sell them on to French buyers as a used car, without the new car tax attached. I have seen similar schemes for Pugeot and Reanault.
Worked out perfectly for us!
What do you get?
A brand new Citroen C3 with comprehensive insurance (including fire, theft and third party) with no excess. That’s right! No excess! So, no need to worry about any little scrapes or bumps we picked up along the way, they were covered by insurance and we didn’t need to fork out a thing. We also had a 24/7 assistance call centre in the event something did go wrong.
The lease also includes unlimited mileage, a GPS included and no fees for extra drivers. These are the things that start to really add up when you are looking at renting a car for a long period of time.
So, what is the catch?
As far as I can tell, there isn’t one. For Citroen, the minimum lease period is 21 days and you have to be a non-European resident. The car is fitted with special registration plates which may be a big red target for would-be thieves, but let’s be honest, a car full of suitcases is going to be a dead give-away anyway.
You are also limited in the countries you are allowed to drive into. However, the 40 odd countries which are permitted gives you a pretty massive scope. The only one for us that we were keen to see but couldn’t was Albania.
From the research I completed on rental cars, it was a lot harder to find a rental car company which let you travel into anywhere near this many countries. Often the rental companies have a small zone of surrounding countries in which you can drive. To cross between these zones you would have to rent out a different car altogether.
Be informed, be aware
I would recommend doing your research on the different road rules in each country you intend to visit. It is also a good idea to check the laws surrounding parking and paying to use motorways. For example, in Austria and Switzerland you need to purchase a vignette to travel on motorways. Also, in Italy a lot of the Centro Storico areas of cities are Limited Traffic Zones where only local traffic is permitted. We’ve heard horror stories of traffic cameras snapping unwary tourists multiple times in a day as they enter and exit the zones resulting in numerous fines arriving back home a few months later.
If you do your homework, you should be pretty safe. In the end, we decided there may or may not be a speeding fine or parking ticket coming our way, but it wasn’t worth worrying over. This lease working perfectly for us. Sebastian was a dream!
Nikkiwhoop 