I rented a 2002 Astra 2.0 DCi 4 door hatchback a few years ago in Spain. Very impressive torque, fuel economy that I have never experienced again (at speeds of 110 mph). And I took it down some rock roads fit for land rovers, without hitting the chassis.
It’s a good size inside (had to sleep in it one night, when I discovered the french gas station operators leave at 9pm and the only card the automatic pumps accept is a good old carte blue,
which i must have left home..
no visa, no mastercard, no cash.. you need a french debit card!
stranded in a semi industrial city at 10pm…. waited until 7am for the attendant to come back and filled up.
lesson to be learned and shared (i laughed when looking at some coverage of the Gumball 3000 race, and the same thing happened to all the competitors in France for their nighttime fuel stop.
Some found willing frenchmen to exchange debit for cash and they were able to pump up.
should have done that.
This Carte Bleu might be very useful if you are one of the 32 million card holders IN FRANCE. You can do automatic debit transactions and lots of very useful things. So it´s not the card´s fault.
But what does a foreigner, a tourist do when you have to travel through France, say, late at night?
The only thing I can recommend is make sure you fuel up early and don´t rely on gas being available late into the night.
If you do run out, do what the gumballers did and talk some local into exchanging cash for debit on their card.
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