Hi there - so we're starting to find our feet, and think it would be great to have a car now and then to explore some of the amazing countryside. We have train tickets, and mobility, but think having a car would be useful. We expect to be in Zurich for 18-24 months.
We've a few options:
1) bring our car over from Ireland
- positives - only cost us price of ferry + petrol
- negatives - take 2-3 days to bring over, need winter tyres, insurance is higher here, no car at home when we go home for weekends, also after 12 months we'd have to export OR re-reg, and wheel on wrong side of road

Total cost to us (exc petrol) would be c. 2-3k (ferry / transport over + insurance + tyres etc)
2) find a long term rent - found companies which will rent for 500 / 550 CHF a month all in, if we take the car for 6+ months. That includes X km and insurance. Our only costs would be petrol. So say over course of the year total cost to us would be c.7k CHF + petrol. Positives -no upkeep, no hassles. If we have a problem, we get a replacement
3) buy something 2nd hand - either on lease or just buy it and sell when we head off. Cost to us is difference between buy and sale price + upkeep + insurance etc. Guess talking 5k in the year, if we buy a car for 8-10k
Reckon the most effort is option 1, but it would probably also work out the cheapest. The least effort is option 2 (basically a serviced car). Option 3 we could get caught out if we buy something bad.
Any thoughts / insights / ideas on what you did in our sort of position?
Cheers
G