Filing the car up in Italy

sjw64

Does anyone know what its like filling up your car in Italy? I will be picking a hire car up in Naples & then visiting Sorento in Feb. Is it self service, pay in advance, pumps take credit cards etc

Obviously_the_best

Depends where you are. Generally, motorway services are self serve, and pay at kiosk. Often supermarket ones are as above, or totally unmanned 24/24 places, in which case you'll ideally need a credit card, as the pumps will decline some debit cards. Ones in town will sometimes have an attendant who'll come straight over and ask how much fuel you want, then you can either hand them some money or say full.

Basically, there's no standard, and it could be anything, so have both cash and card. HTH.

benjus

There was one arrangement that confused me at first, I think in Italy, where you first park at a pump, then go over to a little control panel thing away from the pump to pay in advance, then go back to your car to fill up.

I remember some self service places taking cash as well as cards.

peachyprice

sjw64 wrote: »

Does anyone know what its like filling up your car in Italy?

Expensive!

lovesgshp

If it is diesel, then the price can be around E1.29, so under £1 litre, petrol is more. Mine to a full tank, is 90 ltrs, but as fuel prices have gone down quite a lot it is not so bad.
Watch out for the little garages in some towns though, as they can charge up to 20C more a ltr.
Many smaller garages close at lunchtime 12.30-3.30, so you have to use self service. Note the number of the pump you are at, put a note in and you can fill up. Never used a credit card here, so cannot advise.

lovesgshp

peachyprice wrote: »

Expensive!

Under £1 a litre for diesel at the moment!!!!

labp04

Be careful on some service stations ie use your eyes eg self-serve or attendant filling is sometime/often available but you will usually pay more for the attendant fill. Never had a problem paying with visa or mastercard cc.

peachyprice

lovesgshp wrote: »

Under £1 a litre for diesel at the moment!!!!

Lets hope OP gets a diesel hire car then!!!!

emmbrook

We recently drove down to Italy and back, no problems filling up any where. If unmanned then use the self service machine with a credit card. If manned then cash and cards were accepted everywhere we used. Diesel prices do vary from about €1.40 down to €1.25 or so. Best place was Luxemburg, 97.5c per litre!

PeteDoff

I remember when you bought vouchers for petrol before you left Britain (1970's) in 10 litre blocks at a discount price. The trouble was I had a Triumph Spitfire (still have the bruises) so 10 litres wasn't worth the stop and 30 litres was running on empty - so 20 litres it was.
"venti litri di super-Per favore" seemed to do the trick I recall or something like that, you just handed over the vouchers.
Motorway tolls vouchers as well!! That's when they knew how to encourage tourists.
I remember this girl in Naples, so took the fuel vouchers .... but that's another story, but for 10 litres worth of vouchers.................