I need to hire an estate car for a couple of weeks, ideally with a roof box. There is four adults with two bikes and the usual luggage. Perhaps a couple of small tents too.

Sixt and Europcar can rent an estate car of various specs with unlimited km's which is great, but they don't appear to be able to provide a roof box.

Any suggestions!? I live in Switzerland but have historically found it significantly cheaper to hire from the same company over the border. For a two week trip I have no problem getting the train for an hour or so first.

Any help appreciated.

I don't think you will be able to organize a roof box directly with car rental companies. If you manage, the rate for a couple of weeks would probably cost the same as buying the roof box. I'm basing this on how much they charge for children car-seats or sat nav.

For roof box rentals (and I assume also bike carrier), you can try www.dachbox.ch. I'm almost sure that a similar German company exist that offers the same service for lower cost, try to search around.

If you ask nicely, some friendly EF chaps might lend you one

I'm pretty sure if you have a Swiss driving license you aren't allowed to drive a foreign registered car in CH so bear that in mind.

Have you got a source of this rule by any chance please? If it is related to the recent revision of the 'EU Hire Car Rules' in 2016 I understood that be concerning 'Swiss hire cars in the EU' rather than 'EU hire cars in Switzerland'.


Lifted from another thread; The rule bans EU citizens from driving non-EU registered hire cars in the EU”. The rules refer to “habitual residence”, not citizenship. It is where you live that matters, not what passport you carry. If you are a British citizen living in Switzerland, driving a Swiss registered car into the EU for no longer than six months, then no duty is payable.

It's not those rules, but I'm not sure where it's covered. I think it has been mentioned here before and it's a Swiss law, nothing to do with EU.

Not exactly - the thread is here:

https://www.englishforum.ch/transpor...itzerland.html

You are allowed to drive a car with foreign plates on a Swiss license.

You are not allowed to drive your own car on foreign plates if you are a Swiss resident, you must import it (within a certain amount of time, and declare it to customs on entry).

So driving a hire car, which can be easily demonstrated to be not yours and not going to stay in Switzerland for long should be OK.