The benefits of renting a car

Before we moved to Scotland, we decided to get a rental car instead of buying a car or bringing our own from Norway. We wanted a Volkswagen Passat, but the car rental company could only guarantee that we would get a 'Station wagon', or a 'People carrier' as its called over here. I found this very strange at the time, but I soon understood why.

Our first car was a black Peugeot, but after a couple of  months we were told to take the car back to the car rental company and have it replaced with a new car.  This process was repeated every two to three months while we lived in Scotland. While we lived here we had two different Volkswagen Passat, two Peugeot 508 and a Hyundai Blue Drive.

I especially liked the Hyundai. When we were sitting in traffic or waiting at the lights it automatically stopped the engine, but instantly restarted it when the clutch was pressed. It was really smooth and I also liked it because it's good for the environment.  Another thing I liked about it was the really nice blue colour, which made it easy to spot in the car parks.


The main benefits of having a new car every couple of months were:

• We got to try different brands/models
  We're not very interested in cars and know very little about them. The car we have in Norway is the second one we've ever owned, though my husband did have an old car before he met me. This means we have very few cars to compare with, so we don't really know much about which cars are good and which cars are not. So far we've asked around and read a bit to try to find cars that best suit our needs. My ideal car is a car that is always reliable, has a decent acceleration and speed and that we 'never' have to take to the garage to get fixed. 
• We hardly ever had to clean the car
  By the time the kids had started making a mess in the back seat and it was starting to get a bit dirty, it was time for a new car. This meant I didn't have to hoover the car or clean it inside - perfect!
  Come to think of it, I never cleaned the exterior of any of our rental cars either.

We've really enjoyed having all those different rental cars, but in a few days we go back to Norway and our own car, which means we'll have to start cleaning our car again. Life's tough!