Italy - Hire cars, chains and snow tyres

Another question about snow tyres.

Is a car hired from Turin airport at the end of March likely to come
with snow tyres as standard? We're heading up to Sestriere for a long
weekend and I doubt there is likely to be any fresh snow but it's sod's
law that if we're not prepared then there will be a big dump. The
sales droids we've spoken to say that snow tyres are not available.

I'd stick with having a set of chains just in case, but they're quoting
an additional 50 quid for the four days. Surely it's cheaper to buy
them than pay this? Think we'll leave it and just buy some if it looks
as if we're going to need them. I assume you can just buy them in the
supermarket like in France?

Any advice appreciated.

Cheers.
Iain.

On 22 Mar 2004 03:04:35 -0800, (J.B. Memascii)
wrote:

Another question about snow tyres.

Is a car hired from Turin airport at the end of March likely to come
with snow tyres as standard?
I very much doubt it.

We're heading up to Sestriere for a long
weekend and I doubt there is likely to be any fresh snow but it's sod's
law that if we're not prepared then there will be a big dump. The
sales droids we've spoken to say that snow tyres are not available.
Sounds about right.


I'd stick with having a set of chains just in case, but they're quoting
an additional 50 quid for the four days. Surely it's cheaper to buy
them than pay this? Think we'll leave it and just buy some if it looks
as if we're going to need them. I assume you can just buy them in the
supermarket like in France?
They are easily available in service areas.
Don't forget that they are supposed to be obligatory in ski resort
areas anyway, snow or no snow.


Any advice appreciated.

Cheers.
Iain.
We recently hired a car (Renault Laguna) in Bergamo (Milan) airport to
go to Livigno. It cost £212 for the week. On top of that we hired snow
chains (which we didn't use) and magnetic ski racks. The chains cost
an extra 18.60 Euros and ski rack an extra 31.0 Euros. Sounds like you
are using an expensive rental company. We are using
Alamo/National/Maggiore yet again. They seem to consistently provide
the best deals. We were originally going to use Hertz but they
couldn't supply the snow chains!

Maris