I'll second the estate - I drive a C-Class estate diesel, get upwards of 45 mpg and can throw all the crap in the back. Only downside is the manual gearbox, the new 7-spd autobox is so much better.

Thanks will keep an eye you for the cameras, we are heading from Luxembourg to Italy, and back up the French coast to Paris to fly back out.

Still in planning stages of where but thanks for the advice definitely helpful as we finalize our route . Not sure how good it will be for me if I put my wife on 20% grades.

Have you raced Luxembourg before?
I signed up for it over Christmas - will be my first ever half-distance but have heard good things from someone who did it last year.

I love the auto. I don't know if it's dual-clutch... but so smooth when getting up to autobahn speed.

Agreed. My colleague has the 250CDI SLK with the auto box, and before you know it you're at license-losing speeds. And indeed very smooth.

http://techcenter.mercedes-benz.com/...nic_plus/detail.html

No we haven't either and signed up over Christmas as well. We picked it because it was a place we hadn't been before and was at a good time of year.

Based on what I have read it is a great choice as your first half.

if at all possible, rent out of germany instead of switzerland. i'm not sure about your flight plan, but it could actually work out being cheaper to fly to, say, frankfurt and drive in a german car rather than fly to zurich and drive a swiss one. rentals are very, very steep in switzerland.

aloha,
-mike

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Just rent an SUV and travel comfortably. I know you might think that you are only two people so what the need of renting a big car but then you can rest in the car while you get tired travelling and you can store as much stuff as you want. obviously, you will not just bring back all the stuff that you are taking. You may like some new items and purchase them. Where will you store them? So, according to me you should rent an SUV. You don't have to rent a new car as it will definitely cost you more but make sure you rent from a licensed company. In feb, 2015,My car broke down & I needed a long term rental car and I found this company- https://www.manaloharentacar.net/long-term-rental/ online. i was satisfied by their services.

I travel a ton for work and have expanded trips to personal so rented a bunch abroad. Couple of things.

• I have used SIXT the past several times and has been great but I prefer a standard. Last couple trips had the Opel Mokka and thought was perfect with a couple bikes and gear.
• Never have needed a different drivers license even when pulled over. You will need to have your passport with you at all times of course.
• Check into fees for additional drivers if you are sharing, they can range greatly.
• Bigger is nicer for space but depending on where you are going know the roads can get much smaller and yo may be less comfortable driving a bigger car.
• Ditto on leaving bike boxes to save space. I have used our offices or partner company offices but might be able to be creative.
• Double check your weight limits on the bike boxes for your airline carrier or face stiff fees

Good luck.

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Banger

I'm in the UK, couple of tips for hiring in Europe.

Make sure you take out car hire excess insurance in advance from one of the third party vendors online - You pay a lot more through the car hire company.
Some hire companies charge you for a full tank of fuel, you return the vehicle empty. This can work out expensive, especially if you don't travel that far. Look for a booking where you return the tank full then top it up a few miles from the drop off.
Inspect the vehicle carefully when you collect then also take a quick video of the vehicle when you drop it off, just in case you do get later get presented with a claim for damage.
Keep all receipts for tolls and fuel in case of dispute over non payment / overcharging later.

Really nice spam job on a year old post, I'm impressed with your effort.

We did a five-person, four-bike road trip to 70.3 Zell am See in a rented Mercedes Sprinter van and it was a blast. Two friends who made a similar trip rented a mid-sized estate: Fold down the rear seats, stack the two bike-cases and you'll have plenty space left for luggage. Passat Estates are popular in Germany and for good reason.

There's no real reason to get an SUV-type car - the critical dimension is length, so an estate beats a mid-sized SUV on that. Plus, it's SUVs are an American thing, in Europe if you need a "big" car you get an estate.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

Sorry if this sounds condescending to the Americans, but I used to work for a US firm in London and we'd have a lot of our colleagues over from San Francisco. Often they'd have ideas of evening or weekend trips that weren't practical because things are further than they thought. My favourite one was a colleague who'd planned to have weekend road trip from London to Southern Italy to see where his Grandfather was killed in the WWII. My colleague and I had to explain that it was a 20 hour plus drive each way. He ended up going, but took a flight instead. So my first advice would be to use google maps to check the distances and be realistic regarding the speeds that you can travel.

As someone else mentioned petrol / diesel can be expensive in Europe. It is relatively cheap at the moment but depending on the country €1.50 a litre isn't uncommon, which works out about $6 a gallon. Also travelling in Europe can be expensive because of the tolls and vignettes required. France, Italy and Spain has tolls, Austria and Switzerland requires a vignette. Or just random roads or bridges are tolled to recover the costs of building and maintenance. There are calculator sites you can use, but I reckon on paying €10 per 100km in France and Italy.

Last summer i was on holiday in the south of france and i had to get back home to Germany ASAP due a family emergency. It took 13 hours for the 600 miles (through France, Italy, Switerland, Austria and Germany), and it cost around €100 in diesel and €90 on road tolls.

As for the car i would recommend are the estate / touring versions of the BMW 5 series, Mercedes E-Class, Ford Mondeo, Skoda Superb, Audi 6, anything smaller would be tough to get the bike boxes in the boot.

Rent your car through the US company (Budget, Avis, etc) prior to leaving with pick up at the airport. You will save money. My daily fuel bill (lots of flat out Autobahn driving) was more than the rental fee for a C class Mercedes Benz wagon. As others stated, my California license worked just fine.

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Dean Wilson
http://www.anaerobiczone.com
Bicycle Protection Indoors & Out

Take a GSM phone with you (AT&T or T-Mobile, unlocked of course) and put a prepaid European SIM card in it. Bam there's your GPS.

++ on auto/manual. Americans are used to auto transmissions in all rentals, or nearly all.

Make damn sure you have insurance coverage squared away before you go. It is easy scraping someone on narrow streets in Europe if you aren't used to driving there.