A number of people have asked about the company I used for a vehicle and how that worked. The company is Peugeot AutoEurope and they offer a somewhat unique solution for people needing a car for long periods of time -- you buy the car from them paying a fee upfront -- when you're done with the vehicle -- you return it -- they "buy" it back from you for the difference between the purchase price and the "fee" -- it's similar to a lease but technically you own the car while you're driving it.
They handle all of the paperwork and provide 100% insurance coverage in the fee -- something happens, it's their problem to fix. Their rationale is that they make their money by reselling the car after you return it -- taxes on buying a "new" car are very high in Europe but relatively low on buying a "used" car -- when they factor in the "fee" you pay with what they resell it for, they supposedly make enough of a profit to make it worth doing.
Depending upon how long you "buy" the car for, it works out to about half the cost of renting a car in Europe.
Those of you who have been following the journal know of the problems I've had with the GPS malfunctioning soon after I picked-up the car. Apparently the GPS unit they installed in my car was an older unit and/or the software was years out of date. As a result, you can imagine the "fun" it became to have a GPS you couldn't trust while traveling through countries where you didn't speak the language, where the roads are a virtual "rabbit-warren" and rarely marked by roadsigns and where relying on a hard-copy map (if you can find one) isn't really an option. From what I gather, all newer vehicles in Europe come with a GPS unit installed -- even natives find it hard to negotiate the road system without one.
The unit would frequently not recognize the of towns I was staying in, change my destination on-route to someplace I'd never heard of and in the opposite direction and change the lattitude/longitude coordinates (common pracitce is to enter eight digit lattitude/longitude coordinates). Imagine trying to find a place like Green Mountain Falls with no roadsigns, not knowing the area and having your GPS directing you to Durango -- at times just a "tiny bit stressful" and one of the reasons I ended-up cutting my "journey" short -- there were times both the car and myself are lucky I didn't have a hammer in the glove box!!
Yesterday, I emailed a complaint to Peugeot about the car, describing the problems and told them I'd post their response here in the journal -- so stay tuned.
UPDATE: After a few email exchanges, Peugeot, without apologizing for my GPS problems, refunded a few hundred dollars -- the portion I had forfeited by leaving Europe early. At least it’s something -- didn’t make-up for the stress by a long shot -- the vehicle itself performed decently -- probably the only way I’d use them again would be if they gave me a written guarantee that they would exchange the vehicle if I had a problem with the GPS system in the initial car.
Otherwise, my plan is to post another couple of entries about my journey -- recapping some of my favorite places and "must-see/must-do" things in Europe and my thoughts on some of the weird ways Europeans are different from the us (they really are not like us in many ways).
