Abused Rental Cars

[Audi Junkie]

My rentals were typically Acura oem loaners. I got new TSX a lot, even took the shrink wrap off one, I was the first civillian to drive it. funny, the window sticker was basicly blank, declaring it a "loaner" from the get-go. I got RDX too, sweet vehicle.

Needless to say, I babied them, washed, even a hood pop.

Last time around, it was a KIA Rio from Enterprise the body shop arranged for me (that or a Silverado). Anyway...the KIA. That stands for "Killed In Action", right? Let's just fairly say I did some "testing" over the 450 miles I put on it in a week. Only real damage was a scraped hubcap. They didn't care. It only happened because the thing sticks out an inch! My fault, I guess.

 

[alphasparky353]

Well I see it this way. If I buy an ex rental with lets say 40k on it and has been driven hard but not abused, and I treat it with great care and such, I think its a good buy. So it might have lasted to 400K with me owning it from new and now it might give me 350k of service due to abuse.

I might loose ten perscent of its life due to hard use/abuse, I still save lets say 20-30 percent of the cost....good bargain?

 

[Steve S]

Some non rental cars are abused as well.

 

[CROWNVIC4LIFE]

Originally Posted By: alphasparky353
Well I see it this way. If I buy an ex rental with lets say 40k on it and has been driven hard but not abused, and I treat it with great care and such, I think its a good buy. So it might have lasted to 400K with me owning it from new and now it might give me 350k of service due to abuse.

I might loose ten perscent of its life due to hard use/abuse, I still save lets say 20-30 percent of the cost....good bargain?


I don't think I would by a rental car with 40K miles on it...I think that might be 2 much abuse as you get a different driver every day of the week...Mine had 20K miles on it...It was a 6 month rental and 6 month lease...I now have 83K miles on it now...My step dads x rental had 9K miles on it and my sisters x rental had 7K miles on it...All cars were 1 year old or less when bought.

 

[CROWNVIC4LIFE]

Originally Posted By: Steve S
Some non rental cars are abused as well.


My neighbor has a 2 year G6 and changed the oil for the first time last week...It was in for major repairs at the dealer otherwise it still wouldn't be done.

 

[ls1mike]

I am always good to rental cars. Treat them like My Truck, Equniox and Buick,I drive them nice and easy. Now no car I currently own or have rented gets abused like the Trans Am. That car hates life, but with over 400 HP at the wheels off the bottle, it deserves it. I do, however, take very good care of it.

 

[crinkles]

i drive rental cars like they are my own. i don't get the mentality that because it's a rental it can be treated badly because it is "someone else's problem"

 

[daves87rs]

Nope, easy on mine...just drive normally.

 

[JTK]

Originally Posted By: crinkles
i drive rental cars like they are my own. i don't get the mentality that because it's a rental it can be treated badly because it is "someone else's problem"


+1 to that. 99% of the time it's when I'm on the clock anyway. If I pile one up it goes on the corporate safety record and bad things can happen to my employment status.

Joel

 

[occupant]

The local Enterprise banned me from renting. I'm not sure if it's national, I haven't had a need to rent a car since that episode over a year ago.

My wife and I needed a vehicle, found an awesome coupon code which renewed each week we rented the car. For $108 a week, we got unlimited mileage on a 2008 Cobalt sedan. That's about $15.50 a day and was cheaper than buying a new one. We only needed the car for a few months until tax refund time (when we bought the Durango we use now).

So we drove that Cobalt EVERYWHERE. Put an average of 600 miles a week on it for those 3 months. That means about 8000 miles went on the car taking it from 13K to 21K. The oil life monitor still said 42% oil life at the end. We called at the 3000, 5000, 7000 mile marks and they told us unless the oil life monitor said less than 25%, not to worry, but to top it off if it was low (it wasn't) and they would change it when we returned it or we could come by and get an oil change ONLY if the dash display said less than 25% oil life remaining.

We called them when our tax refund arrived to say we were ready to return the car and this would be our last week renting it. They asked us when, we told them, and that was that. The day we were to return it, we went to top off the gas tank. Our debit card was declined. Enterprise had gone in and charged the price difference between half price coupon we had and the full price for the week we were in. So now we were ten miles from home, thirty miles from the bank, and forty mile from the Enterprise, in a car with NO fuel, with NO cash on us, and NO money on the debit card.

We called Enterprise. They sent a tow truck for the car, but nothing for us. A friend took us to the bank and we bought them a tank of gas. And yes, Enterprise DID charge the debit card for the tank of fuel at their inflated price a week later when they thought there might be money on it (and there was). Really annoying.

I treated that car well except for their insistence that the oil NOT be changed unless the dashboard said to do so. We all know better. But after the way we were treated, I won't be paying any special attention when renting from Enterprise in the future. If the car runs out of oil or coolant, that's THEIR problem.

 

[CROWNVIC4LIFE]

A friend visiting rented a 2010 Impala recently...It only had 1500 miles on it...The bumper covers were all banged up and it was dinged everywhere...Its really sad how some people just do not care.

 

[JTK]

Originally Posted By: occupant
... That means about 8000 miles went on the car taking it from 13K to 21K. The oil life monitor still said 42% oil life at the end.


My 2007 Cobalt would easily exceed 10Kmi between oil changes is I let it go down to 0%. I usually changed it when the OLM indicated in the teens, which put the oil at ~7500mi or so.

Joel

 

[Q451990]

Hope this isn't alreay in here, but I didn't have time to read the entire 8 pages. The best description I've heard for a used rental car is that they're the equivalent of a used motel mattress in the used furniture market! I included dealership loaner cars in this same category. I am amazed at how much abuse some of the low mileage Infiniti vehicles I have been loaned have sustained.

I have never intentionally abused a rental, but I'm certainly don't baby them as much as my own cars... e.g. I'll start them up and drive them right off without letting them warm up, and I'll occasionally smoke a cigar in one - which never happens in my own vehicles.

Heath

 

[bigmike]

I purchased my truck at 1 year old and it was listed as a rental but I eventually found out it was used by a construction company foreman. From the seat, it looks like he mostly just sat and sweat in it, and aside from a few scratches it looked good. I had to dump the rotors at 15k or so and put Powerslots on it. Other than that, I can't think of anything that was abused or looked any worse than any other 1 year old vehicle. Sometimes it's worth checking into.

 

[ahoier]

I've rented 2 different vehicles, Nissan Sentra, and a Kia Spectra. Both had low miles. The Kia was "on it's way out" Enterprise told me, since it was at around 25k miles. I guess they only keep the vehicles til ~30k or so....lol. Makes sense....cause the "new" cars have appeal to customers needing rentals, and a car with ~30k is still basically "new".

I'm surprised with the posts about coolant/oil fills....they never told me anything about that, obviously I still took care of the cars as I do my own, but I didn't go adding anything, don't wanna mess with their chemistry

Both vehicles I've owned have been rentals, Kia Rio and an 08 Kia Optima. Both drove good. what "sold" me on getting a rental was the dealer told me that most car rental places change the oil/filter weekly....I don't know the truth in that....but they said since it's hard to account for who is actually "driving" the vehicles, it saves their [censored] in the long run to follow "severe" maintenance than risk killing an engine.

Then again who knows....the dealer didn't have maintenance records on either of the vehicles But, I did get a manual lol.

 

[mrsilv04]

Originally Posted By: ahoier
Both vehicles I've owned have been rentals, Kia Rio and an 08 Kia Optima. Both drove good. what "sold" me on getting a rental was the dealer told me that most car rental places change the oil/filter weekly....I don't know the truth in that....but they said since it's hard to account for who is actually "driving" the vehicles, it saves their [censored] in the long run to follow "severe" maintenance than risk killing an engine.


Ummmm.... no. They don't change the oil weekly. Not even close.

They change the oil around every 7500 miles.

I rent a lot, and if it has less than 7500 miles on the odometer, the factory oil filter is still on the engine.

You actually believed that "weekly" line?

If that were true, there would be always be a long line of rental cars that were doing nothing more than waiting for an oil change in huge airports like Dallas, Chicago, and Atlanta. These rental car companies would be spending more time and money changing oil than anything else.

 

[The_Jeff]

+1, I rented a taurus with 15k that had a "champ" ($1.50) filter that looked like it had 7500 on it already...