Will it be easy to find an automatic transmission car to rent in Killarney?

score:6

Accepted answer

If you rent an Automatic, you'll be given an Automatic. If you don't rent an Automatic, you will most likely be given a manual.

In countries like Ireland (presuming you mean Killarney, Ireland?), the majority of rental cars will be manual, and renting an automatic will almost certainly be more expensive. On a rental I had in the UK a few weeks ago, the prices for an automatic ranged from 2 times to 5 times the price of a manual, and at least one company was "sold out" of all automatics whilst still renting manuals.

As with any rental cars, there's always the possibility that they will not have what you've booked when you arrive. This is normally caused by people not returning vehicles on time, leaving the location short of a specific type of car. This is no difference regardless of whether you book an auto or a manual, with the exception that as companies in the UK normally have less autos available there is potentially a greater chance of this happening when you book an auto. If this does happen, you should ask the company to make you a booking at a different rental company and cover the additional costs (if any).

Upvote:4

I emailed Europcar UK car hire rental firm regarding this matter at the following email:

[email protected]

There prompt response was:

Dear Simon,

Thank you for your e-mail.

Yes, the category for a standard automatic car in Ireland would be a Toyota Avensis or similar.

Regards,

Abel Murillo

Europcar UK Group | Reservation Agent

So there shouldn't be a problem with hiring an automatic car within Ireland, as we expected.

Upvote:5

A quick search on google for 'automatic car rental killarney' shows that there are several companies, show that many of the resulting companies let you specify.

As you point out, sometimes mistakes happen, and your specification on the online form might be mis-read, or ignored.

However, your best bet is to phone the company you rent from, and specify that you're unable to / don't want to drive a manual transmission, and get them to email in writing confirming that you'll receive an automatic.

Then I'd suggest ringing them again a few days out to double-check that they will indeed have one ready for you, and that it'll be automatic only.

More post

Search Posts

Related post