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Old 07-10-2015, 08:10 AM
 
6,749 posts, read 5,424,339 times
Reputation: 17556

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Drago45 View Post
Ok thanks for the responses. Now what if the vehicle is a "fleet lease vehicle"? I inquired about another vehicle and she said it was not a rental but leased. Any red flags with that?
Dtago:

ANY used car-even one owned by a regular "Joe Schmoe" -can be "used & abused"!!

SO I take no offence to a rental, or a fleet vehicle over or under a "regular used car".

The ONLY way to know ABSOLUTELY how a vehicle was driven/maintained/cared for/fixed is to BUY BRAND NEW vehicles!

I have seen county "fleet cars" with low mileage on them as they may sit for a while {for MY county!}, others get driven a lot.

To my knowledge, at least here where I live, a national car rental place has a garage that is always busy with maintenance activity whenever I have been there with the need to rent a car. As mentioned, they may actually be better maintained by the rental company, as no company wants a breakdown on their hands!

BUT, IF YOU are skeptical, then DON'T BUY it!

ANY vehicle, upon reaching 5 years of age, will have some problems crop up, same at about 8-10 years old {If one keeps it that long}, besides the routine maintenance things. Mechanical things DO wear out. Parts WILL need to be replaced, it is a given. Even on a brand new car, you are NOT guaranteed to have 'zero' problems, hence the reason for a warranty program!

Good Luck in your hunting/buying!
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Old 07-10-2015, 08:18 AM
 
Location: Raleigh
13,623 posts, read 12,242,954 times
Reputation: 20013
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyRider View Post
People think they are giving them away just because they are done with them. Our local Enterprise Sales is anything but cheap. A 13 4Runner for $38K? Is this a good deal?
A good deal? Hard to say. In line with the market? Yes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyRider View Post
Not sure if this was a rental problem or a Toyota problem. I guess some Toyotas don’t run “forever” after all.
No one ever said they did. Every manufacturer lays an egg now and again. Toyhondissan has a longer history of laying fewer eggs than other makers.
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Old 07-10-2015, 08:26 AM
 
Location: Floribama
18,923 posts, read 43,211,623 times
Reputation: 18717
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogarven View Post
I guess I am really wierd but if anything, I drive more carefully. I certainly don't want to pay for damage to the car when it is returned. Yes, I may not dodge the pot hole or worry about parking in a tight space, but I am not going to race or drive like the Dukes of Hazzard with it either. I don't want to pay for any damages.
I have had much older cars lately for rentals, it seems like they are keeping them longer and with higher mileage. The last one, I noticed a chip on the windshield and worried they might try to say I did that, but I was lucky.
I'm the same way, the last thing I want to do is to walk to the rental counter and tell them I damaged their car, especially when they have my credit card on file.
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Old 07-10-2015, 11:31 PM
 
2,429 posts, read 3,997,052 times
Reputation: 3382
My brother has bought three cars from a major car rental company and has ben pleased with them all.
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Old 07-11-2015, 04:32 AM
 
Location: NWA/SWMO
3,106 posts, read 3,951,416 times
Reputation: 3279
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drago45 View Post
I emailed a dealer and asked since the price seemed a bit too reasonable. He said yes and that rentals are better taken care of than single owner vehicles. Really?
I have and would again. People are stupid and abuse things whether they own them or not. At least the rental is frequently inspected and maintained by some sort of legit policy schedule. Would I pay MORE for a rental? No. Would I rather buy from someone I personally knew? Maybe. Depends on who it was, lol
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Old 07-11-2015, 05:44 AM
 
Location: SW Corner of CT
2,691 posts, read 3,308,210 times
Reputation: 3609
I worked P/T for Enterprise Rent a Car.....I can honestly say their cars were abused for the most part. They were maintained thru the cheapest service center they could find, and body work was done by the body shop that they had an agreement with that would perform to cheapest repairs......anything under warranty would go to the dealership. Some customers would treat the cars well......most would abuse them, bringing them back needing body work, frame work, and nasty dirty......used condoms in them, needles with blood droplets on the console....had one come back with a trunk full of garbage.
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Old 07-11-2015, 09:01 AM
 
3,046 posts, read 4,085,479 times
Reputation: 2131
I bought a rental car was a great car was the Chevy celebrity the Malibu of the fleet cars. Had the ecotec 2.2 created by opel never had any problems drove it for 3yrs.
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Old 07-11-2015, 07:43 PM
 
Location: ohio
3,550 posts, read 2,504,832 times
Reputation: 4400
Ive had ex rentals. I bet most people who have bought 1-3 yr old typical cars (sedans, vans, SUVS) have also had them and not even known. Before Carfax there wasnt really any way to know. When I was shopping in 2003 for a small car I bought unlimited Carfax checks for a month. About 80% of the cars I checked out came back as ex rentals or fleet.

As someone already said, just because its not a rental doesnt mean it wasnt abused. The ones I had and my family had were good cars. But my last purchase, last year, was a one owner off lease. Because now, almost all the ex rentals and had 40K or more miles and were priced at 80% or more of the same car brand new. Not a good deal, in the 90s the price of these was 60-75% of new and nearly all had under 25K miles.
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Old 07-11-2015, 11:47 PM
 
Location: Out there somewhere...a traveling man.
44,540 posts, read 61,201,075 times
Reputation: 125490
The company I worked for leased cars for all the sales people. The sales people and the company were held responsible for the proper care and maintenance of those vehicles. At turn in time the company had to pay for anyone's mis- handling of any leased vehicle. Avis would chargeback heavy fees for those vehicles that were not maintained by contract. The difference from blue book value and what Avis got when the vehicles were sold our company had to make up the difference.
The vehicle I turned in had 80,000 miles, was in perfect condition, papers for all maintenance and was sold the minute I got out of the vehicle for above the KBB price at that time. That's what our company aimed for so they didn't have to have any charge backs.
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Old 07-12-2015, 02:08 AM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,599 posts, read 24,739,140 times
Reputation: 18835
Accord was a rental... or more likely fleet vehicle, not many rentals with manual transmissions. The only problem it had in 140k miles was the LED light going out on the clock. Rental Mustang? I'd probably pass. Something more pedestrian wouldn't be a huge deal to me.

Really, you never know (if buying through a dealer) what the cars been through. I'm sure some people drive rental cars hard... on the other hand if you're looking at lease returns you have all the same reasons to drive the **** out of it and you might just get lucky and get that one person who does rather than a few people out of the many that don't. Rentals being better taken of, maybe. I've gotten rentals cars with the maintenance lights on many a time. On the other hand, how many people properly maintain their own cars?
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