Let's drive to Eindhoven – a rented car from Sixt.nl

Thursday, 22^nd December 2011 – Personal experience – permalink

Eindhoven Airport is closed over night, so we needed to changed our plans concerning spending the night before we fly to home for Christmas. One solution was available and worth trying - renting a car, so we can get at the airport exactly on time. How to rent a car in Maastricht? It's actually pretty easy.

Sixt.nl, Source: www.sixt.nl

I never rented a car, so obviously I had a lot of questions and I was not sure wheather I want to do it now. But the thing was, that it was a really nice solution to our problem and not that expensive. After my friends dig out more information I made a reservation via internet at the home page of Sixt.nl for a middle class car – Open Astra or similar. The day after, I called there and made a reservation for a smaller one, as no bigger was available – I was not sure, if my previous order went through, as I got no call back. Ok, deal is to pick it up at 1 o'clock – the office is near the train station in Maastricht. After some stuff I needed to do in the town I met my friend Petra at the train station and we went to pick up the car that we need the next day morning. Well, because of my double order, we got lucky – we got bigger car for the price of a smaller one! One day, fully insured, leaving point Eindhoven Airport and 150km included cost about 55€. We also add gas consumption as we have to return the car with the full tank. It's strange rule, as for example in our case, the nearest gas station is about 4 km away and I could not find on the map, if it is open 24/7. Well, renting a car showed to be easy.

Book the cheapest car online

Sixt.nl

Opel Astra, source: my picture

We used services provided by Sixt.nl – car rental company. We got Opel Astra combi TURBO, 6 gear manual in black color with 28 000 km, full of electronic (tempomat, electronic parking break, electronic pneu pressure control, ...). Actually I do not like the electronic parking break. It may last longer, but it's weird feeling, that you have nothing to grab in case of emergency. On the other hand, I later on found very useful the tempo-mat, as it saves fuel and legs The electronic also tells you, that it's time to shift, at least it does not shift by itself, I prefer manual gearbox.

The pick up fo the car was fast and people were pleasant, everybody with perfect english and I got my contract in englisch language. Well I had to sign the Dutch version :/ Actually, they didn't mentioned where the insurance card or technical certificat is stored in the car, they only gave me the keys and as it didn't come to my mind at that moment, I had to find by myself. I only did not find and set of reserve bulbs, that has to be in the car according to the rules in Czech Republic.

Every document provided has to be of the driver – a driving licence, an ID card and a credit card. They made a copy of my ID and driving licence and booked 150€ from my credit card. It's a fair approch I think. I expected that the card will be with a GPS tracking device or at least with the gear box lock, but nope, obviously they are not affraid about the car getting stolen.

To evaluate my first impression of Sixt.nl, it was possitive and I only hope they will not disappoint me.