Self-Driving on Germany's 'Romantic Road' is a Must

The service was good, and the car was great.

There was no counter at the airport, we had to wait for the staff in the parking lot. They arrived late, and it took about 20 minutes to complete the paperwork. All charges were deducted from the credit card. We were a group of four with a lot of luggage, so we rented a mid-sized Passat, but they gave us a small Mercedes. The car didn't feel as spacious as the Passat, but considering it was an upgrade, we accepted it.

CARO provided excellent service and the car pickup process was convenient.

After arriving in Munich, we called CARO customer service from the Starbucks near customs. The customer service asked for our exact location at the airport and said an employee would pick us up since the office is a bit far from Munich Airport. We waited about 20 minutes for them to arrive. We booked a manual diesel Passat wagon or similar, but we got a Mercedes C180 wagon instead, likely because of the emissions scandal with VW. The car was very new, with less than 10,000 kilometers, and we were very satisfied. However, it was switched to a petrol car that runs on 95 octane, which made the fuel more expensive. The staff was very thorough during pickup, carefully noting all existing scratches on the car. The in-car navigation system was very convenient with English voice prompts, so no need to change settings (unlike our previous rental in France where the system was in French and we couldn't change it to English). The QEEQ navigation was slow in finding satellites, and some addresses were not found, so we relied on the car's GPS and Google Maps. During drop-off, we faced some issues because we aimed to reach the airport early for tax refund and shopping. We called the day before to arrange a 7 am drop-off, but the gas station near the office opened at 7 am. The prices were higher than the market rate, but we didn't need much fuel. After refueling, we returned to the office, but no one was there. We called again and were told someone would arrive in 7 minutes, but it took nearly half an hour for an employee to return from picking up another customer at the airport. He was short-staffed as his colleague didn't show up, so he called a friend to help. The return process was finished around 8 am, and he drove us to the airport in the rental car, unlike the shuttle bus used during pickup. If you are catching an early flight, allow extra time. Initially, we set the pickup time as 6:30 am and the drop-off at 1:30 pm, but the actual pickup was at 7:00 am, and we arrived for drop-off at 7:00 am but had to wait for service. We effectively lost a day of rental, but we were in a rush and didn't argue as they didn't even use a computer for the return process, relying on the printed documents from pickup.

Caro is not at the airport, you have to wait for their staff at the McDonald's next to T2. There's a gas station next to their office, which is very convenient. The Germans are very meticulous in their work. We rented two cars, and they handled the paperwork for one car before starting on the other, so we waited a long time, but the instructions were very thorough. We reserved a C5, but got a brand new Opel with only 4100 km on it, featuring auto start-stop and lane assist. These features are very important for driving in Germany. The car also has radar systems at the front and back. The condition and performance of the car were excellent, and it had a 6-speed manual transmission.