Automatic Car Hire in Dalaman: Rent an Auto Gearbox
Two pedals for the coast road. Compare the automatic half of the Dalaman fleet on live prices.
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Drivers who paid for the second pedal
Most cars parked at Dalaman still have three pedals. These are people who went the other way, and what it was worth to them.
We had the hill up to Oludeniz twice a day for a week. My husband drives a manual at home and still called the automatic the best money we spent on the trip.
Fethiye in August is one long queue along the harbour. In an automatic that is boring rather than tiring. The car itself was nothing special, which was fine.
I only drive automatics at home, so I used the filter and booked in about five minutes. The listing said automatic and the car on the bay was an automatic.
Four roads that decide the gearbox
The gearbox question is really a question about which roads you will actually drive. These four cover most holiday itineraries out of Dalaman, and they do not all point the same way.
Oludeniz sits 62 km from the airport, roughly 55 minutes, and nearly all of the effort is packed into the last ten of them. The road leaves Fethiye, climbs steadily to the saddle above the lagoon, then drops again through a run of tight bends.
- In a manual you spend the climb between second and third, feeding the clutch at walking pace behind a coach that is doing exactly the same thing.
- Coming back down, the gearbox matters more than the engine. Whatever you are driving, hold a low gear instead of riding the brakes for four kilometres.
- An automatic with a manual mode or an L position gives you that low gear without having to think about it at all.
The mountain standing behind the lagoon is Babadag, and the lanes threading beneath it towards Hisaronu and Kayakoy are the tightest driving you are likely to do on this trip. Narrow, walled in places, and shared with minibuses that will not be giving way.
- Hairpins here are often taken from a standing start, because something was already coming the other way when you arrived.
- That is precisely the moment a manual punishes a driver who is out of practice, and the moment an automatic quietly does nothing at all.
- Kayakoy sits just inland of Fethiye and Oludeniz, so plenty of people meet these lanes without ever having planned to.
Marmaris is about 90 km away, around an hour and a half, over a long pine covered ridge. Of the four roads here this is the one where the gearbox matters least, and it is worth saying so.
- The gradients are long and steady rather than sharp, so you settle into a gear near the bottom and stay there.
- Overtaking lorries on the climbs is the only real demand, and a manual arguably gives you slightly more control over when the power arrives.
- If this is the only big drive on your list, the automatic premium is genuinely hard to justify.
Fethiye is 45 km from the airport, about 40 minutes, and it is the largest town on this stretch of coast. Through July and August the harbour road and the streets around the market move at a crawl.
- Stop, start, stop again for twenty minutes at a time is where a clutch leg actually gets tired, far more than any single hill does.
- Parking is mostly angled bays off a busy street, which means creeping in and out under load with a queue behind you.
- If your week is based in or around Fethiye rather than up a mountain, this is your argument for an automatic, not the climbs.
What an automatic actually changes
It is a comfort choice, not a safety requirement. Thousands of people drive this coast in a manual every summer without incident. What follows is what the gearbox genuinely affects, and what it does not.
The honest summary
- An automatic removes clutch work. It does not shorten the drive, flatten the hills or widen the lanes.
- Manual is still the regional default, which is why automatics carry a small premium and empty out earlier in August.
- Of the 100 cars in our last live Dalaman search, 57 were automatic. That is more choice than most visitors expect.
Hill starts
On a gradient the car holds itself while you move your foot across. No handbrake choreography, and no rolling back towards the minibus that stopped a metre behind you.
Fuel on gradients
A modern automatic is close to a manual on consumption. Older boxes were thirstier. Either way it is the climbing itself, not the gearbox, that empties the tank on this coast.
Queues and junctions
Every stop in a Fethiye queue is one clutch press you never make. Across a fortnight of harbour traffic that adds up to far more than one mountain road does.
Unfamiliar roads
Signs in a second language, junctions you have never seen and someone reading the map beside you are enough to occupy anyone. Taking the gearbox off that list is worth something.
The climb to Oludeniz, stage by stage
This is the most common first drive out of the airport and a fair test of whether the gearbox will matter to you. Read it before you decide to save the premium.
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At the airport gate
The D400 begins here. Turn east for Fethiye. The first stretch runs flat and straight across the delta and asks nothing of any car, manual or otherwise.
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Gocek, about 25 km
The road stiffens as it enters the hills and runs through tunnels. Headlights on. Gradients are moderate and steady, the sort you can take in one gear.
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Fethiye, 45 km
Roughly 40 minutes in. Town traffic, roundabouts, pedestrians and the first genuinely stop start driving of the holiday. In season, allow longer than the map suggests.
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The turn for the lagoon
Above Fethiye the road for Oludeniz leaves the coast and starts climbing in earnest. Expect to spend part of it behind a coach or a loaded minibus.
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The last few kilometres
Tight bends, a continuous gradient, and vehicles pausing to let each other past. This is the section people remember. Low gear in both directions.
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Oludeniz, 62 km
About 55 minutes from the gate. Then you park, which in high summer is an event in its own right and another few minutes of creeping.
Who should pay more for an automatic, and who should not
The premium over a comparable manual is small, but it is not nothing, and it buys very different amounts for different drivers. Find yourself in one of these three groups.
Worth the premium
- You drive an automatic at home and have not used a clutch in years
- You are based in or near Fethiye and will meet town traffic most days
- Oludeniz, Kayakoy or the lanes below Babadag are on your itinerary
- Two of you are sharing the driving and one is uneasy about hills
Save your money
- You drive a manual every day at home and enjoy doing it
- Your week is one hotel, one beach and a run to the supermarket
- Your longest drive is the open ridge road to Marmaris and back
- You are travelling in the shoulder season, when the roads are quiet
Check before you book
- The gearbox stated on the listing itself, never guessed from a model name
- Whether the car offers a low gear or manual mode for long descents
- The fuel policy, because hill driving empties a tank faster than you plan for
- Whether the terms suit you, including no deposit and free cancellation cars
Booking an automatic without guessing
Gearbox is the one specification worth double checking on a Turkish rental, because the default assumption at most desks runs the other way.
Filter
The search above already opens on the automatic filter, so the grid you are looking at is the automatic half of the live Dalaman fleet, not the whole of it.
Read
Open the car you like and read the gearbox line on the listing. Trim names and engine sizes are not a reliable guide to what is fitted.
Reserve
Enter your real landing and return times. Prices are live, and most listings can be cancelled free if the flight or the plan moves.
Collect
At the desk, sit in the car and look at the gearbox before you sign. A substitution is rare, and far easier to sort out on the bay than on a ridge.
More Dalaman car hire options
Gearbox questions, answered
It depends on your route rather than on the destination. If your week takes in the climb to Oludeniz, the lanes below Babadag or daily traffic in Fethiye, most drivers decide it was worth it. If you are staying near Sarigerme or Dalyan and driving flat coast road, a manual will not spoil anything. Live day rates in the current fleet start at around EUR 40, and the gap between a comparable manual and automatic is usually modest.
In our last live search of the Dalaman fleet, 57 of the 100 cars returned had an automatic gearbox. That is a real choice rather than a token listing or two. Manual is still the regional default though, so the automatics tend to go first in July and August. Search your real dates in the panel above and the grid will show what is genuinely free.
They are the reason people ask about gearboxes on this coast at all. The last stretch above Fethiye climbs continuously through tight bends, and you will stop part way up a gradient behind a coach or to let a minibus through. In an automatic the car holds itself while you move your foot across. In a manual it is ordinary clutch work, just far more of it than most holiday drivers are used to.
On a modern car the difference is small. Torque converter and dual clutch gearboxes have closed most of the old gap, and some handle a long climb better than a driver holding third for too long. What really costs fuel here is the terrain: any car going from Fethiye up to Oludeniz and back will drink more than the same car on the flat D400. Fill up before you head inland, because stations thin out away from the coast.
Yes, and it is worth being careful about. If your licence restricts you to automatics, the car you book has to be listed as an automatic, since a manual would put you outside the terms of both your licence and the rental agreement. Use the automatic filter, confirm the gearbox on the listing itself before you pay, and bring your licence and passport to the desk. Some suppliers also ask for an International Driving Permit.
Pick your automatic for the coast road
The search above is already narrowed to the automatic cars in the live Dalaman fleet. Add your landing time and see what is free for your dates, from around EUR 40 a day.
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