Do Rental Car Companies Change Oil?

Maybe this is one for the mythbusters, but going to ask here to see if anyone is "in the know"...

Rental car companies tend to flog the cars off to new owners while the "New Car" blush is still on them. I have heard rumors that they save a ton of cash by not even doing the most minimal maintenance; such as oil changes. It does make sense from an economics point.

The reason I ask is because the rental (big company) I had for a week ran out of oil. I did add 4 quarts to bring her back up, and the lifters DID stop chattering, but poor thing was dry! Figure I did 2500 km on a tsp of oil.

This car had 32000 km on her. I pity the person who ends up buying it in a few weeks time!

Pete

I was a frequent customer of a local Hertz store. As I knew, they had an account with one of the oil change places which was nearby. Of course, do not think 3k mile changes. It was whatever the book said so as high as 10k on modern cars.

One of Hertz's internal scams would be if you were taking a one way rental, the shop where you picked up the car would provide you with a car that was due for an oil change. Then, you would drop off that car on an unsuspecting store who's store budget would then get hit for the oil change and often the negative of the car not being rented for a day while it was at the oil change place. Basically, store #1 pushing their problems off on store #2.

Now, Enterprise on the other hand, I could easily see where it would be possible that they never bothered to change oil.

When my company switched contracts from Hertz to Enterprise, boy was I disapointed. I went from Hertz's highest status in their award points system to Enterpise who had no award points at all.
I supplied my local Enterprise branch the lowest score possible, often, on their post rental surveys. I got it escalated to the point where the Area Manager for the entire region had to call me directly.
I had for him just one question: "How does it benifit me as a customer that you will not provide me with a full tank (like Hertz) when I pick up? You will penalize me if the tank is short but you will not refund me if I return with more than half."

I had for him the follwing senerio: If I am at a 1/4 tank on a G6 and I have 150 miles to get home, how many gallons should I buy so that it is even for both of us?"
I asked to be supplied with tank capacities and average mpg for each vehicle since I would need this info so we could arrive at "fair".

To this day, my Enterprise account is tagged with, "vehicle must be delivered with a full tank."

Rant over. Boy I hate Enterprise.

The company I dealt with (Enterprise) changed oil on their cars religiously. I would have thought it was a one office thing but I had the experience at Widetrack Goodyear in Pontiac and at Williams in Lansing.

I once had a rental for a couple weeks while out of town on business. The rental car company called me and swapped cars because the one I had was do an oil change. I think it was Enterprise but I don't remember. I usually just get the one that comes up on the army travel system.

On a side note (thread jack) I went to Germany last year for work. The rental car company had a bunch of messed up reservations that day but guarunteed us cars, just take a little longer to sort it all out. They asked if I knew how to drive a stickshift, told them yes I drive a Miata and an old Opel GT with stickshift at home. Figuring I would get a Puegeot or Opel. The guy said you have an Opel GT, they are worth a lot here now. Told him not so much in the states and showed him a pic of it. I left with a fully loaded C-class Mercedes.

The Enterprise in my area had contracts with Midas and did their oil changes every 3K or so miles. They had us rotate the tires every time and when the brakes were worn out but still safe they would sell it.

A friend of mine (really, it wasn't me!) rented a new Camaro, V6 auto, for a day of autocross. It was to have 4 drivers - him, two first timer friends of his, and myself.

The oil was full at the beginning of the day. The two first timers took 3 or 4 somewhat timid runs a piece. They didn't baby the car but they didn't flog it very hard, either. Change run groups, and my friend took his first run in it. More aggressive, but certainly not at the limit either as he was learning the car. Coming through the finish, he heard rod knock and immediately shut it off. It was down 3 quarts. Worst of all, I never got to drive it!

Now, whether this was the result of rental company neglect, previous abuse by renters, or simply taking a Camaro to an autocross, I can't say...

Enterprise wasn't so good back in the late '90's when I worked there. We had an Aspire that hadn't had an oil change in 20,000 miles.

They were good most of the time, but if a car could be rented it was. The LOF (lube/oil/filter) was not the priority.

I used to work in an oil change place down the street from a National/Alamo office. They had a contract with us and brought their cars in for oil changes all the time, but it was hardly what I'd call regular maintenance. I removed factory original oil filters from their cars with 20 000 - 30 000 km on the clock regularly.

Also, those rental cars were inevitably subjected to back-lot burnouts and tomfoolery. Once we had one of their (V6 sadly) Mustangs. While we were busy turning its rear tyres into finely powdered rubber, one of their office staff came by to collect it. His comment was "you guys are weak, I can do better than that!" and then he proceeded to do donuts until the cords showed up. Guess who replaced the tyres under contract later that afternoon?

I guess the lesson here is not to buy a used car from a rental company. And after all that the prices aren't very good either.

I can't imagine that large rental companies think that ignoring inexpensive ( imagine the deals they can set up based on quantity) routine maintenance is a sound business model.

Nonetheless, rentals here are sold at 20,000 km. That's about 12,000 miles.

Sometimes the answer is simply "No." 30k mile Saturn Carnage

No oil changes for 20-30K miles?

Sounds like 80% of the driving population. Why should the rental companies be any different from your average driver?

-Rob

I worked for enterprise and we always had to have the cars in for oil changes before they were due, to avoid them rolling over 3K when they were with a customer, the cars do get abused by the customers but as far as up keep we had to be on top of our maintance, that was company wide. just my .02

That's nothing. The owner of a dealership I worked at would give new cars to his kids to use (abuse) them every 2 years. His daughter returned the Escort with 45k on it without even changing the oil. Zero maintenance was done on it. I watched the tech change the oil and about .5 qt came out. They went over it and put it on the used lot and some poor SOB bought it. Ironically, it only came back for regular oil changes.

His son also took my ZX3 that I traded in looking better than new and proceeded to totally wreck the car in 1.5 years. I wanted to buy the car back, but not after the engine knocking, bad clutch, grinding 2nd, trashed interior, and having most of the car repainted.

Interesting responses. Enterprise certainly does come up as the main player!

Whatever the reason, I have a hard time seeing how a car with 32,000 km on the clock came to have no oil in the crank-case? Does not sound like a situation that could happen with a car that received any sort of routine maintenance.

NOHOME wrote: Interesting responses. Enterprise certainly does come up as the main player! Whatever the reason, I have a hard time seeing how a car with 32,000 km on the clock came to have no oil in the crank-case? Does not sound like a situation that could happen with a car that received any sort of routine maintenance.

Could have been a piss poor job done at the last oil change??

In the early '80s I worked for Budget, and they were punctual with their mantanence.

I'd never buy a used car from a rental company on pure principle that I beat mine like no tomorrow, after all, Jeeps should be able to run at highway speeds in 4 low...

Some of my customers have bought used cars with little E's on the back. They've all been in pretty good shape, compared to cars out in the wild. Of course, base model Escorts and Focuses seem to be abuse magnets in the wild, so perhaps the numbers are skewed.

At some point, you have to figure that the car makes them money, so it is good business sense to keep the thing decently kept, and at some predetermined point where the expenses out can be expected to rise, sell it off.

One of our accounts is with a business's fleet of trucks. The old fleet manager would have us repair, basically, everything. Maybe not right away (budgets and all) but rest assured, it would get done sooner rather than later.

The new fleet manager, on the other hand, has the trucks come in for oil changes. If it still stops, steers, and goes, he won't spend a nickel. It's going to be fun when the trucks start breaking down, and he has to deal with repair expenses (how much is it to tow an overloaded van?) AND paying his guys to sit on their thumbs while the units are being repaired AND dealing with the backlash from pissed-off customers.

We promise not to gloat too much...

It really depends on the rental branch itself. I work in the auto insurance claims business, so we work very closely with the large rental companies. All the companies have corporate policies around maintaining the cars, it's just a matter of how diligent the branch manager and staff are in following those guidelines.

From my experiences, most are relatively good about it. As has already been mentioned in this thread, keep in mind that most of these cars, especially the lower cost ones, are subject to abuse beyond what the average private owner cars are. That is often the cause of engines that burn oil, unever tire wearing, etc...

In reply to NOHOME:

I've rented many hundreds of cars from the majors both here and in Europe. I once blew up a brand new Dodge Shadow 2.2 liter an hour after picking it up at SFO before I discovered it had no oil. None. That was from the "we try harder" people. Ever since then I check the oil before I drive off the lot. At least 1 in 10 cars have very low oil. I may have accidently gotten a prep guy fired once a year or two ago when I went back inside to ask them to add oil because it didn't show on the stick on a Nissan Altima. That was from the "We'll pick you up" people. Never found a car in Europe with low oil at pickup, but I don't always check over there either, so I might have missed one or two. All I can say is I think I'd probably tell my son to marry a hooker before I'd let him buy a used rental.

Not to thread jack, but that's why I call them "BoobyPrize Dent a Car" We used to use them at work. 1) Talked to the manager, rented a vehicle for the weekend. Got a "special" price. The special part was I was billed and my company was billed and it took weeks to straighten out. 2) Customer had a one day rental, left the car with us, we called the local office. The vehicle was on our property for a month, because they lost it, despite multiple phone calls. Then they tried to charge the customer for a month's rental. 3) Need a car for a customer, called a week in advance to get a sedan since the customer was under 5 feet tall and had an infant. BoobyPrize drops off a 15 passenger van for her. 4) An employee arranges for a car for the holiday, 4th time he's rented from the local office. Has to drive there because, unlike their slogan, they can't pick him up. Can't get the car because he doesn't have an electric bill on him to prove his address. Didn't need it the first three times, but I guess everyone carries a utility bill with them. If ANY other rental company was in the area they would make a fortune because of BoobyPrize.