My partner told me she has seen Smart cars whizzing around with 30SFr. a day to rent on them.
I have tried to find out where I can rent one for about a month but had no luck. Alternatively any other options for cheap long-term rent of a small car would be greatly appreciated!
I'm seeing a lot of those old shape Renault Twingos buzzing around Basel with a daily rate of something like 29 CHF. I can't remember the name of the company, but it has Twingo in the title. I've exhausted Google trying to find it, but perhaps someone else knows who they are.
Seems to be a big market for renting small cars for a few days at a time & I know they do Smart car sharing schemes in the UK but seems hard to find anything here that doesn't cost 15% of what the car is probably worth per month .
If you join Mobility, you get a better rate at both Avis and Hertz. I just did a quick check with Hertz and you can get a small car (Toyota Auris or similar) for 970 CHF for a month or an intermediate SUV (Ford Kuga or similar) for 1117 CHF. Both include 4134 free kms (not sure where they get that number from) then 22 rp for each km above that. I think the basic insurance is included in those rates as well as a second driver. I also believe you can join Mobility for 3 or 4 months for 40 CHF if you have a Cumulus card or a Halb Tax card through SBB. If you put that together, you should be able to rent something for what you need for around 1000 CHF.
Do you actually need the car for a month, or do you need occasional access to the car at intervals during a month? The thing with mobility is you can book it by the hour (or is it half hour?), and return it when you aren't actually using it. Or if it suits, get the train to near your destination, and just get Mobility for the last few km. And, as others have said, mobility includes petrol, while normal hire cars don't. Google suggests a Smart burns about 4.7 l/100km, so for 750km, you are looking at about 35l of petrol, which will cost something like CHF65.
An example might be that you want to go somewhere inaccessible by public transport* for a day trip that's a long way away, perhaps involving some traffic black spot like the Gotthard pass.
I was aiming at the more general point that if you go the "get a Mobility car as and when", you have the extra flexibility of using not just the one car in your driveway, but could make use of any of the multitude of sizes, shapes and locations of Mobility cars throughout the Confederation (and, as the OP was asking about a Smart, it may be that he occasionally finds need of a larger vehicle to shift some bulky object, or visiting friends/family).
* I assume such places exist, though I'm yet to find one in Switzerland.
Hi, I am wondering if I will get into the way of law if I rent my car out here in Switzerland? Does anybody know? Can I even post it here in english forum? Do I risk getting banned?