Anyone ever buy an "Ex-rental" car?

Looks like it might be time to replace the family truckster. We still sort of need a minivan and are thinking about a lightly used, relatively new Mazda 5. Unfortunately, they are relatively rare . . . unless you look at various Hertz sales centers. They seem to be cutting them loose at a year or two old with roughly 40K on the clock within our price range. My question is, has anyone ever bought a former rental car? Any reasons (besides the way we all drive rental cars) not to? I assume scheduled maintenance is done. Or is it? Just wondering if the hive has any feedback on this one.

I had a 2000 Corolla ex rental car for a while. It ran fine, but then, it was a 3 speed automatic Corolla. They are hard to kill.

One of my neighbors bought a rental Altima. Never had a problem with it.

Had a Dodge Magnum SXT (bland 6-cyl version) that was a Hertz rental, and then re-sold by Dodge. Couple minor issues, but nothing I'd say was related to its rental service. More just that it took the dealer 3 tries to realize that when you get constant "Check Gas Cap" indications that it may just be a gas cap, and not needing an ECU re-flash or a new intake manifold.

-Hans

I began my automotive career working in the maintenance department of a rental car company. They got oil changes roughly when scheduled with cheap bulk oil and fleet bulk filters. Which is better than most lease holders take care of their cars

The biggest issues we saw were from abuse. I swear some people were TRYING to destroy a car. Not wreck it, but tear it up to the point we couldn't send it out to another customer. Many cars avoided falling into purposely abusive customers and passed through 20-25k miles fairly unscathed.

Four years of so on my ex rental dodge minivan.

The alternator broke, which cannot be related. The rear caliper had a bolt back out, which was probably the fault of the mechanic that Carmax used.

That's it. It's been flawless otherwise.

My Mazda5 was a former Hertz rental car.

Deep water in New Orleans killed it, nothing from the rental years.

I've bought two Expeditions that started out as rental cars. The first was a 2005, and I just replaced it with a 2014. My use is towing the 24' enclosed race car trailer and not much else so it gets about 5k miles per year. I figured that as rentals they wouldn't have done much towing (one didn't have any scratches in the pain inside the hitch receiver) and my wear and tear on the drivetrain would wear it out faster anyway. I just replaced the first one because of rust. Buying an ex rental wasn't an issue at all.

The Mazda5 we got was also an ex-Hertz rental. No problems after a year of ownership. Price we paid was about two grand less than a comparable model at Car Max. Didn't find out why until the day after we got it home. Shame on them for not telling us about the hail damage, shame on us for not seeing it when we test drove. Still very happy with the car and my wife couldn't care less about the zillion little pock marks.

As part of the deal on the car, Hertz gave us a voucher for a free week rental for a mid size. We used that for our annual Thanksgiving trip to Nashville.

Idk, i know what ive done to rental cars. I subscribe to the Jeremy Clarkson school of speed....and i live in tourist central. You want to see how people treat rentals, drive past disney.

My wife has had three ex-rentals so far. A '94 Taurus that had blue rear rotors when we got it, and had a transmission under warranty (and if you know anything about '94 Tauruses, you know that's not a surprise). We got it at 12k, and sold it at 135k. The '01 Taurus lasted to 165k, and I sold it needing a front trans seal. The '14 Impala has been good so far. We got it in July 14. So far, so good. The local Huge Ass Used Car Dealer gets cars for pretty good prices.

My Rondo was a Kia "program car" which means the factory used it in some fashion as a demo or whatever. It only had 13,000 miles and I assume was treated like a rental in good and bad ways. I have never had any trouble with it, certainly nothing related to the previous owner.

Also, I am a frequent car renter. You basically can't rent if you are under 25, and most people who rent from Hertz and the bigger companies are businesspeople When I pick up my car, I drive it to my hotel, out to dinner, to the client meeting and back to the airport. It's a mid-sized sedan, what am I going to do with it? Family cars driven by travelling salespeople get little abuse in the real world. So sure, avoid rental Corvettes or Mustangs and cars from Budget, Dollar or Thrifty but a used Enterprise or Hertz or National car will be just fine.

My '14 T&C is an ex-Enterprise van. Enterprise seems to take pretty good care of their fleet, and I figured if it survived 58k of the worst driving imagined, it should hold up ok for me.

pinchvalve wrote: When I pick up my car, I drive it to my hotel, out to dinner, to the client meeting and back to the airport. It's a mid-sized sedan, what am I going to do with it?

Pretty much how I use a rental as well. I've never figured out why people would purposely abuse them.

stuart in mn wrote:

pinchvalve wrote: When I pick up my car, I drive it to my hotel, out to dinner, to the client meeting and back to the airport. It's a mid-sized sedan, what am I going to do with it?

Pretty much how I use a rental as well. I've never figured out why people would purposely abuse them.

Because i read the car and driver where they blew a rental neon up with a dry shot plumbed into the intake when i was like 17.

stuart in mn wrote:

pinchvalve wrote: When I pick up my car, I drive it to my hotel, out to dinner, to the client meeting and back to the airport. It's a mid-sized sedan, what am I going to do with it?

Pretty much how I use a rental as well. I've never figured out why people would purposely abuse them.

This. I don't treat them any worse than I would treat my own vehicles.

A couple of my customers bought ex-rental Focuses from Enterprise. One was totaled in an accident after a year or so. The other one is just a car, nothing spectacular one way or the other with respect to maintenance and repairs, still chugging along 5-6 years later.

I suspect that the abused ones get turned into parts cars for their depots, or just scrapped.

I give rental cars a little throttle now and then, like my normal cars. But my days of rental car but outs are long gone.

stuart in mn wrote:

pinchvalve wrote: When I pick up my car, I drive it to my hotel, out to dinner, to the client meeting and back to the airport. It's a mid-sized sedan, what am I going to do with it?

Pretty much how I use a rental as well. I've never figured out why people would purposely abuse them.

I don't understand it either. I used to work as a driver for a large rental company back when I was a student and got to drive a lot of soon-to-be-ex rental cars. Most of them were in an unbelievable state, which is why to this day I won't consider an ex-rental for anything but a Lemons car.

Seems to be a theme. We bought my wife's '07 Highlander in 2008 as an ex-rental. It had 35k on the clock and no discernable damage / abuse from its previous service.

For safety's sake I bought Toyota's Platinum VSA plan, basically an extension of the bumper-to-bumper out to 7/100k. Cost me $870 which I bought through another dealer since ours gave me the hard sell for the same coverage and wanted $1,500 for it.

Turns out the extra warranty was unnecessary since the car ran flawlessly until the summer of 2014 when we traded it in w/ 87k for a Nissan Quest.

Anyway, I wouldn't shy away from an ex-rental but I would be looking for some price break over something with less vigorous usage.

Most of the cars that mom has bought over the years were ex-rentals, in fact, most were from Hertz. None have been lemons.

There were some odd issiues wth the Ford tempo she bought back around 1990. It seems the fleet sale tempos had some significant differences from the general sale units. It was necessary to explain that it was an ex-rentals fleet car, not standard issue, to anyone who worked on it, or they would get wrong parts.

You know what the fastest car in the world is? A rental car.

I can't imagine a harder life than being a rental car so I am surprised by all the positive experiences. Half the rental cars that I have been in were already beat to death while they were still in service. I would take a pass an buying one.

I worked for budget rent a car in Tulsa in 90 and 91. Their cars ray had oil changes. It was not uncommon to see some with 10-14k with same oil or sludge. The oil drum was in the wash bay. I won't touch a ex rental unless it is 500 or less.

Feedyurhed wrote: I can't imagine a harder life than being a rental car so I am surprised by all the positive experiences. Half the rental cars that I have been in were already beat to death while they were still in service. I would take a pass an buying one.

I rent 2-3 times a month and the ones from National are in great shape, always.