I will be in Germany for two weeks in October. I will be arriving in Munich and hoping to rent an Autobahn worthy car there for the weekend and travel to Oberkochen (where I will be during the week). I'm interested to hear suggestions of which car rental companies are favored by the members here. I've already seen than Avis offers the new 3 series with a manual transmission.
All of the major car companies rent in Germany. Not sure what your definition of "A-Bahn worthy" is, but they can all run flat out on the unlimited areas of the A-Bahn without issues. FWIW, Hertz, Europcar, Avis, can all supply a nice ride. It's usually cheaper to book online from the U.S. than rent when you arrive in Germany. Some airlines have promo discount codes. Also see the German Tourism website for possible deals. Be aware that Germany is using a lot more speed cameras these days and there are a lot of speed traps you will never know exist until the traffic ticket arrives in the mail. http://www.germany-tourism.de/ Now that I've given you this valuable information will you take me along?
Thanks for the info ForcedInduction! I know about the speed traps. One of my German colleagues last time I was there told me about getting flashed by a speed camera on his motorcycle. This was back in 2004, and I don't know if he was on the Autobahn or another road. I also saw a speed camera flash while I was on the Swiss Autobahn and though I was toast. But apparently it got the car ahead of me. Bastards put the camera on a downhill slope coming out of a tunnel. On the Autobahn, you observe the speed limits when they are there. I've noticed German drivers might go a little faster, but remain within 10 km of the limit. Once you see the wonderful "restrictions lifted" sign, there are no worries. This is a business trip and my company is paying for it. I will only rent a car on the weekends when I don't have business to do. So I can't take you along, but if you can get to Munich on the 2nd of October I'll take you for a ride!
I would go with Europcar. The location by my old house in Germany had BMW's, Benz' and Audi's...most even had nav. Prices were higher than some others, but their service was good.
I rented from Sixt last year, got the express card from them and got to choose the car I wanted, and ended up with a 3 series. Continental and United airlines both had links to Sixt with some good deals, I got mine last year for $400/week with nav.
