not rented a car in years.

the deals appear crazy cheap, small car £4/day – RyanAir, Rental Cars & AutoEurope so far

The excess are pretty steep.

In the case of RyanAir – damage excess of EUR 2500.0 , theft excess of EUR 3500.0

Should I avoid anyone in particular & can I pay extra to reduce the excess ?

If relevant – we are off to Sicily but not Palermo

Whatever you are doing, get the excess covered separately.  I’ve used these people before, it’s way better value than the car hire companies.

use a big international company.  If it seems too cheap to be true then it probably is.

As per several other threads … be careful.

Last time I hired a car in Sicily (a decade ago) it was Herz… and we returned the car in Rome and had no issues.

Got back to work and a college had hired an EasyCar and got stuffed on what he was pretty convinced were pre-existing scratches

Either way this seems increasingly common… so either get excess covered or pay more.

TBH there seems to be a fair old business in knowing you have a flight to catch and a limited time to argue … then you have to try and chase when you get back home.

I booked direct with cheaper two previous times on the last 3 yrs (Spain) and the first time was great… second time I wasted a day all told and they still tried to stuff us … we booked the same company buy it had been bought out…

This year I just coughed up…. nearly gave myself a heart attack as there was a dent I hadn’t seen and I was only 95% certain I’d not done it..(I still had CDW but as it was separate would have to pay then claim back). got back to the rental place before I looked in depth at the papers (just didn’t want to think about it whilst on holiday) and they had photographed it…

I probably paid a bit more … but its a question of if you want the worry whilst on hols…?

Palermo isn’t bad to drive … though you need to watch the one way …. IMHO I worried more when you park to get to a beach or go in a supermarket etc.

We went around the houses on this and ended up with Enterprise this time – because they’ve got a downtown office open on Sunday.  The cheaper companies are all at the airport, and we’re arriving by ferry.  On previous trips to Pisa and Siena we’ve used Avis and Europcar for much the same reasons – convenience and the price being not that much higher, particularly, this time, once we’ve added on the one way charge etc.

Contrary to other people’s comments, I’ve taken Enterprise’s insurance – I really won’t be in the mood to argue much at the airport drop-off, and don’t want a protracted battle with insurers, so I’m prepared to pay for the convenience.

You get what you pay for. Avoid cheap and avoid local. Pay extra for the collision damage waiver and drive it like you stole it. Not really.

We hired from a local firm and didn’t take the insurance extra in Sicily. It didn’t go pear shaped but you should have seen how they looked over the car whe I returned it. Buy the insurance and they really don’t care. The cars are cheap because they make the money on the insurance  those are the rules of the game

Great place to go. Agregento is a bit of a drive but you can eat in Montelbano’a favourite haunts!

Thanks again all.

Didn’t know you could get separate CDW.

We are visiting Palermo, but car free for the last few days. The rest of the time will be based in Syracuse.

Can’t wait.

First proper child free holiday in 21 years!