If you are looking for a Europcar Ireland review, we have detailed our honest experiences in the post below. From the booking process and pickup to how the car we received ran and roadside assistance. This post details our Europcar Ireland review for your assistance when booking your car rental in Ireland.
Europcar Ireland Booking Process
We decided to rent from Europcar Ireland for our Ireland road trip in May and found out you could either call Europcar or rent online. Renting and reserving online is much easier and convenient for us, but you are free to choose what works best for you! If you want to rent over the phone, here is the number: 353 1 812 2880
When booking with Europcar Ireland, you have the choice of where you want to rent your car from all around the island. Most typically, you will fly into Dublin which means you will rent your car from the Dublin Airport or Dublin city center. When renting from Europcar, you have the choice of picking up your car from many other areas around Ireland too such as Cork or Shannon Airport.
We chose to pick up our car from Dublin Airport as we would be flying directly out of Dublin at the end of our Ireland road trip. On a previous trip, we picked up our car in Dublin City Center since we were going to be spending time there before we left on our trip. Feel free to choose the location that works best for you.
Picking Up Our Europcar Ireland Rental Car At Dublin Airport
When we arrived at Dublin Airport, the airport was very busy. This is because we decided to unknowingly travel on a double bank holiday weekend! One weekend Northern Ireland [the UK] had a bank holiday and the immediate week following the Republic of Ireland had a bank holiday! This meant tons of people were traveling in and out of Ireland for their vacation.
Europcar Ireland has a rental car counter in Dublin airport and another off-site airport location that is still on airport property just a shuttle ride away. When we arrived, we inquired with the in-airport counter and were told that we had to take the shuttle to the off-site location. The shuttle was quick and easy and within 5 minutes we had arrived at the off-site rental car center.
The rental car center was extremely crowded and we thought it would be an hour before our number was called. We are pleased to say that Europcar Ireland’s office was actually the most well organized and quickest rental car agency we have ever booked with. We were served in under 10 minutes even though there were probably 80-100 people in the office.
The Europcar Ireland service process begins when you arrive and you pick a number. On this very busy weekend, they had every single counter opened for faster service, unlike many places who only have a few counters open and long lines [we have waited over an hour in a line of 15 people for car rentals before!] We were shocked and pleased when our number was called within 10 minutes of arrival.
When it was our turn, the agent was very kind and helpful and provided us a car and took our information quickly. When we picked up our car, it was much smaller than we had requested. We had asked for something large enough to fit three people, three large suitcases, and three medium-sized bags.
We went back inside to another customer service counter and didn’t have to wait in line again and the agents immediately helped us and upgraded us to a much larger SUV style car that fit our needs well.
The vehicle was a Renault SUV, a brand we had never heard of being from America, and it wasn’t parked in the parking space we had been told. We flagged down a Europcar Ireland employee on his lunch break and he happily stopped his break and spent about 8 minutes finding our vehicle. We appreciated him stopping and helping us so quickly and resolving the issue.
When we received the car, the Europcar Ireland employee didn’t do a walk around with us, and in our haste from the check-in process, we didn’t do a walk around either. If you are renting a car in Ireland [or anywhere in the world], we HIGHLY recommend you remember to do a walk around and take photos of any damage you may find.
Our Europcar Ireland Rental Car
We were provided with a Renault SUV in bright red. Being from America, we had never heard of Renault before but liked that it was an SUV. We were thrilled with the car for the duration of our trip. We drove for 8 days straight and only had to fill this car up 3 times! We found out that the car provided to us by Europcar was so great on gas because it shut off when idling! So if you were waiting at a light or outside of a store, the car would shut off to save you on gas!
The car was clean, spacious, and perfect for our group of 3 and three large bags and everything else we brought along with us. We were very happy that Europcar was able to place us in an Automatic car within moments of us asking to switch.
Roadside Assistance With Europcar Ireland
Our entire Ireland road trip went quite smooth and we didn’t have any issues with the car or any flat tires or anything of that sort. One thing about Europcar Ireland that did give us peace of mind was that they offered 24/7 roadside assistance in the event of an emergency or mechanical troubles.
During our check-in process, we were provided with a phone number to call for the assistance and the license plate number was written clearly on our key. Although we didn’t have to use roadside assistance, we appreciated the option for on-demand help if we happened to have needed it.
Check out additional Europcar Extras HERE!
Drop-Off Process With Europcar Ireland
When our road trip through Ireland sadly came to a close, we were emailed instructions from Europcar on the drop-off process. Luckily, the drop-off was the same place that we picked up our vehicle and the email had an address that we could easily plug into our GPS.
When we arrived, things were just as busy as everyone was leaving from their bank holiday fun [seriously check local holidays before planning trips!] The Europcar Ireland drop-off location is on the same property as the pick-up but in a different building near the entrance of the parking lot so they could keep the two areas separated. Even though it was busy, the drop-off building was fully staffed so we were helped quickly.
Our Europcar agent did a walk around with us and found two pieces of damage that he alleged were not previously there. We were quite proud of our driving this time in Ireland and had no bumps or bruises that occurred so we were a bit confused. Since we had to catch our flight and he did a second check and saw that these were indeed not marked before we picked up the car, we went inside, did the damage paperwork, and got ready to catch the shuttle back to the airport.
If you have any damages on your car, the money comes out of your deductible and you are refunded the rest of the money to your card. Since we were in a hurry, our Europcar Agent only had us fill out a little bit of paperwork and provided us with instructions to email him the rest when we got home. This was nice so we didn’t have to spend added time at the rental facility instead of going back to the airport.
As we were getting on the shuttle, we remembered that although nobody did a walk around with us, we had taken photos of the car for our own purposes about an hour after picking it up. We zoomed in on the cell phone photos and saw the wheel damage clearly visible in the image. We brought the phone back into the Drop-off center, showed our Europcar agent the damage and the date and time stamp, and he immediately removed one of the two damages from the account.
When we arrived home, we zoomed in on the image again taken with the camera and saw the second damage there as well as the first one. We screenshotted this with date and time stamps and sent it back to Europcar. They gave us a full refund, but if we had done a walk-around during pick-up this would have been avoided altogether.
Otherwise, the drop-off process went relatively fast and the shuttle ride to the airport was quick and easy and we were dropped off right at our terminal.
Advice For Renting A Car In Ireland
If you are renting a car in Ireland, or anywhere in the world, we highly recommend you do a walk around and take photos of the vehicle each and every time. Since this trip, we have done it ourselves and taken photos of any damage, even if it may already be documented. Gone are the days of agents walking around the car with you, except in rare circumstances. If you are picking up from any airport, chances are the agency will be quite busy or the cars will be in a garage somewhere [not in Dublin but in other airports] so there will be no one to walk around with you.
If you are looking to save money, consider renting a manual shift car in Ireland too! We can’t drive a manual so rented an automatic and all went smoothly but it is a bit more expensive but the pricing still wasn’t bad!
Driving in Ireland is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and you shouldn’t be afraid to do so! Just take the proper precautions and you will have a great time!
Have you ever rented a car in Ireland or driven on the “wrong side of the road?” Would you want to do a self-drive itinerary? Have you rented with Europcar Ireland before? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Special thanks to Europcar Ireland for providing us with a rental car in exchange for an honest review of our experiences. All opinions are our own and reflect on our personal experience with Europcar Ireland and not the company themselves.
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Thank you so much for this valuable information! I’m sure it will be very useful for future visitors to Ireland who need a rental car.
Be careful with this company. My experience in Spain was horrible. They mistreat the customers and have very poor customer service.
Europcar is the ultimate worse you could rent through!!!
You are right.. Blood suckers and lots of hidden fees. Plus they chrge up to 10 thousands dollar on your card as a hold for not buying the highway robbery insurance they have….
Sounds like a pretty simple and seamless experience!! Just how we like a car rental situation 🙂 Will absolutely check them out when we book our next Ireland adventure ~ Thanks!
Sounds like a fun trip.
Yeah, I’ve rented in Ireland before. I sat at the exit for a while before going onto the road just watching drivers. It’s a mind shift to drive on the other side of the road, but its fine. I rented in Galway and drove to Shannon stopping all the way.
Always take the full local insurance even if your card covers it. It just makes life easier as sometimes they won’t accept the fact that your credit card will cover the full insurance. Unless you have the car insurance policy documents from the credit card insurer.
And just make time and insist they do a walk around and document it on the piece of paper. Every scratch including those on the roof and the hub caps MUST be documented. This is for your protection and that of the car company. International rental is a different animal.
Also, if you are a member of the loyalty programs, then your wait is much short if any as they will have your car ready for you :-).
Glad it worked well; sounds like you had a good time. Cool car pics; would have loved to see the interior.
PS: Some Americans do know about the Renault brand ;-).
Kerwin.
Thank you for this very thoughtful comment! All of your tips are SPOT ON! We do have full credit card insurance and have a letter to provide in the future as well. We chose to not showcase the interior of the car as this wasn’t a Renault review but a Europcar review and more about their service 😀 Thanks for stopping by and for the tips!
We had such a terrible experience with Europcar in Dublin in October and based on the fact they NEVER answered any of our customer service inquiries we will never book with them again or refer our readers to them. It was such an awful way to start our trip moments after getting off the plane. We have the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card which has car insurance coverage for Ireland, we confirmed this before arriving and their employee working refused to accept it. Our hands were tied as we had already booked with them and we had to be somewhere meeting a friend in about an hour and had planned a 10 day road trip before the TBEX conference. We were charged over $800 for 10 days of insurance, even though we had coverage from our credit card. The customer service during the experience was awful – for many reasons that I could write a novel about. Long story short, we tried to contact their customer service multiple times and we were ignored. They didn’t care. I had a friend tell me the same thing happened to them with Europcar. It was really sad because the entire experience and the woman behind the counter who helped us really was a terrible first impression to Ireland (a place known for such friendly people). Your story is a great reminder to check closely for damage to the car, I am not surprised they went after you. This company, especially this location is up to shady things.
They are a shitty company, scamming tourists on many locations. Beware!
correct.. Please to all USA turist… AVOID. AVOID. AVOID this company… They are bad and they will scam you…no kidding…they are insurance pushers..SCAM. SCAM. SCAM…. use an american company.. Better service and reasonable rates.
I would like to think of myself as reasonably streetwise but less so after my recent shake down by the practised con artists at Europcar Ireland Dublin T2. I pre paid for car and on pick up had a nice chat with the guy on the counter who took a ‘deposit in case the car was returned empty’. After returning the car full I now realize I was defrauded into paying for ‘express fuel’ (which I now assume is car returned empty) and additional insurance cover, none of which was communicated to me on pick up. Over €140 worse off (not including the cost of the full tank of fuel) I shall be following up with An Garda. For anybody reading this the ‘customer agent’ who ‘dealt’ with me is a middle aged male with an Irish accent.
PS dont waste time trying to call or emaii – you wont get a response.