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I think people that rent then trash the car by beating on it are immature. Thankfully I think there are less people doing that today then in the past. When I worked at a dealer many of the used cars we sold were 2-3 year old former rental cars that our buyer picked up at auction. The cars were mostly buicks and they were gone over and put out on the lot. It was rare that we got one that wasn't a good car. Rental companies do take care of their cars so they can get top dollar when they turn them back in after a few years.
Cars are built better and to much tighter tolerances then they were 10, 20, 30 years ago so they generlly can take more abuse and keep on running. Remember the days when if you got to 100,000 miles it was amazing. Even if the car was abused by some clown renting it chances are the dealer you will buy it from has checked it out and warranty it plus you could buy an extended warranty for the power train.
I am one of those "know nothings" - that ABUSED every rental car I ever rented. Not mine. I drive them like hell. "well taken care of" is a stretchy statement. You may have routine maintenance done, but no one really goes deeper into drive trains. Why do you think they sell them at such "low" mileage? Because REAL repairs are looming on horizon?
I don't understand how someone can rent a car and then brag about abusing it, sounds very immature. I've rented plenty of cars, and I drive them like I would my own. I guess I'm just not a destructive person, I don't get pleasure out of tearing stuff up (whether it belongs to me or not).
The people who really abuse them are likely not even on the rental contract. When it's YOUR credit card on the contact you'll make sure not to damage anything, because they WILL charge you for it. I make sure to walk around the car and look for damage before driving it off the lot.
Last edited by southernnaturelover; 01-06-2013 at 11:39 AM..
While those guys weren't babying the car, i didn't see anything that was going to be damaging to the car minus destroying tires, and making the suspension work a bit...I saw a lot of emergency brake usage, and you can guarantee that's how the big burnout was done on the FWD car. Heck, it's not uncommon for folks to get banned from renting cars in Germany when they put their rental on the Nurburgring...but even still, the cars return with worn out brakes, and tires...but besides that, unless you put it into the rail, the cars aren't beat up that bad.
I did have a friend who did some major offroading in a van he rented. The had purchased the "fix everything" insurance because the rental company made them (they were under 25 at the time). Because they were required to pay a ton of $$ for the extra insurance, they thought it'd be a good idea to see what the car could do...so off they drove into the rugged hillside of Phoenix, and put the van through it's paces.
They're trying to come off as some kind of rebel when they're really coming off as childish.
I don't know, these are probably the same types that trash their home when it's about to be foreclosed on. It's all part of the "I'm getting mine, screw everyone else" culture we live in today.
I bought my Altima with only 11K on it as a former rental, and it had no major issues until 172K. I always figured that fleet maintenance was likely to be pretty good. The company wants to resell the cars in good condition to maximize value. And for liability reasons, it must have a system set up for regular maintenance.
Mine was driven 11K in five months, so I also figured that meant some serious highway miles. If I were to buy a rental again, I'd look for the same things: very reliable model, low miles, and hopefully buy from a place where highway driving is likely.
I'm no expert, but I also question whether the driving most people do in a rental, while maybe more agressive than normal, really qualifies as severe for the car, especially in the short term and while the car is young. I always thought the most common driving that's actually hard on a car is urban stop and go.
PS - a friend worked for Enterprise in their car sales department and he mentioned that the vehicles sold by enterprise are typically corporate vehicles, while many rentals make their way to the auction house. I don't know how much of that is true, and how many rental vehicles are sold after they come off the lot, but it's always a possibility.
I'd really be interested to know just how you "abused" the cars to that extent...Most folks that I know don't "baby" their rental car, but not babying a car does equate to abuse...you can only drive so fast here, you can only brake so hard, unless your revving the engine up and dropping it from Neutral into Drive, taking it off road, or draining the coolant and oil just to see how long the engine will run before it seizes up, i doubt you really do anything that's going to destroy the car.
I agree, sure the occasional auto renter may push the car harder than they push there own cars, but they only have them for a couple of hundred miles. I doubt they can damage the cars in such a short amount of time, short of crashing them into something. Personally I never abused any of the rental cars I had.
The only thing that would make me think twice about buying a car rental is if some of the renters smoked in the car. You can hide the smell by over power it with other smells, but it will always come back once the other smell begins to wear out. Cigarette smell gets into everything, seats, carpet, air vents, cars with a serious smoking smell would probably have to have the entire interior of the car replaced to get rid of it.
Last edited by TechGromit; 01-07-2013 at 07:50 AM..
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