Sorry, but you should have refused the car as soon as it became apparent that you couldn't fit all the luggage into it. You failed to do so, your own fault.

As to your complaint about not being able to do any sightseeing, it seems a bit of a ridiculous complaint. As soon as you'd unloaded the main luggage at your hotel / whatever, you'd have had space in the boot for the baby buggy and other stuff in the boot.

Finally, the Fluence is listed (by this site) as 4.75 metres long. It was 13cm longer than the Megane saloon it is based on, to allow for battery space.

Always worth complaining if you aren't satisfied. Explain to them how it practically ruined your trip, as you have to us. See what they come back with, could include future discounts, partial refund, nothing at all, etc. Who knows! Be polite but firm/dissapointed as you have done.

The Fluence is a Megane saloon as you say, so it's in the same category as Astra, Focus, golf etc. The Mondeo equivalents are as you have suggested.

Just keep everything in writing, some poor soul in a call centre following a script algorithm isn't likely to be much help.

"Is a 4.6m long saloon (Megane with a boot) classed the same as a 4.8m saloon like a Mondeo?"

I would say yes it is, and not unreasonably so, both being between 4.5m and 5.0m. And I'm willing to bet that a 4.6m Skoda Octavia would have swallowed cases, buggy and kiddies' bags, with room left over for a kitchen sink.

I suspect that the Fluence doesn't sell very fluently in Ireland, any more than it would if sold over here. So Europcar would have got a good bulk deal on them, and the men in suits making that decision wouldn't have known or cared about luggage capacity.

Edited by Avant on 08/10/2016 at 21:51