Anyone work at a rental car agency?

[jorton]

What kind of oil did the agency use in my new x-rental? It's supposed to be 5w-20. I expect it would be the cheapest bulk oil available. Which brand would that be?

Just trying to choose one oil to stick with for the next 5 years. Thanks, Joe

 

[Smoky14]

I don't think I'd predicate what to do based on what a rental agency did. Use what the owners manual suggests and change it NOW.
Exactly 2cents worth

 

[CBDFrontier06]

I can assure you that they did what was minimally necessary to protect their bottom line. Protecting these cars are not a priority to them, as they know they'll be rid of them around 36K or even less. They'll be using the cheapest bulk oil they can find, and may have even run the cars out to the 'normal' driving OCI, even though most of are actually driving in "Severe service" conditions. Change to a good oil asap.

 

[Winston]

On the cars I rent from National there is a little homemade sticky in the door jam. It says something like this:

Oil Change Interval
GM 7000 miles
Ford 5000 miles
Chrysler 6000 miles

 

[Kwas]

I bought an 06 with about 12k that was a rental unit. The car is perfect in every way. One exception was it was about a quart over filled. As soon as I got it home I changed the oil. I would suspect that they take them to the nearist "quick lube", (insert any name) where it is serviced? by some 17 year old high school drop-out. I am now running synthetic.

 

[bdcardinal]

some of the local rental places have contracts with the dealerships for their service.

 

[JHZR2]

I hope you didnt buy from Avis.

I have a long-term rental from them, a ford focus, brand new, and when I called in at the end of last month with 9900 miles, they said I wasnt yet authorized to take it to the service center... Theyll be getting it back August 4th with ~14k on its original factory fill 5w-20.

Avis uses sears auto centers (at least when the cars are out with customers long term) for PM.

JMH

 

[Kwas]

I have no idea who the rental company was.

 

[Laminar Lou]

Odds are the rental company was Enterprise, just by law of statistics (they are the largest in the US).

Have a close dear friend who used to manage one. I've known people to have good success buying rental cars. However, after what I have heard from my friend, I think it is a testament to how badly you can abuse a car and get away with it. One of the locations he worked at sounded like they contracted a day laborer to wash and change oil. They paid no attention to the OEM spec weight, change interval, etc. It was when the one overworked guy had time to do it, and washing the car was given priority over maintenance. And forget about any car that specs high octane gas - if they fill it you are getting 87 in the car most of its life.

I am not saying that you will have the same experience, and I wish you the best with your new car. Just saying that after knowing what I know, I wouldn’t buy a rental car – ever

 

[Hootbro]

Like others have said, Rentals are a "pig in a poke" in that you really do not know what you are getting sometimes. If I was looking for a "ex" rental, I would look for those from areas that mainly rented to business clients rather than primarily tourist and military clients.

Hootbro

 

[obbop]

Don't buy that light blue Pinto I rented in 1975 down in San Diego.

Ship just came back from deployment and had the need to drive and cruise around the civilan world.

Out on Point Loma there was no traffic on the street posted 25 mph so felt compelled to discover the answer to the question that had filled my thoughts for so long....

slammed the auto tranny selector from Drive to Reverse.

Wow!!! sure stopped quick!!!!

Engine stalled.

Started right up.

Ran kinda' "jerky" though. A weird vibration that was bothersome.

So, of course, went right back to the rental agency to complain and got a different car.

Never did that stunt again. No need to. I had my answer.

 

[windnsea00]

My dad worked in car rental for much of his life (Avis in the 70's, owned his own place in the 80's in San Fran (Pacific Car Rental) but went out of business after the `89 earthquake, then went to Dollar for awhile than Budget down in So.cal from early 90's to late 90's and for a few years after at Budget of Beverly Hills which was a franchise with normal cars and exotics

).

I'm 20 now and used to go to work all the time with him as a kid since I'm car a nut and I would def. not buy a used rental car. In the 90's he was a GM of Budget of Orange County/Los Angeles which had ~10,000 cars under his control. Obviously not every car can be accounted for. They had their own shops on location that would just buy bulk oil, whomever is cheap.

Plus with so many different people driving the car, it's a gamble buying a used rental car. Could be lucky and it was driven relatively easy or could get one that was beaten the crap out of. As you can well imagine even the people working at the car rental agency wouldn't drive the cars easy. Start it up and shuttle them quickly (forget about easy driving to warm up the oil lol). Oh and believe me I saw a lot of interesting things back in the day. At the age of 10-12 I would go way back to the end of huge lots where cars were parked and teach myself brake stands and what not haha. I remember hopping in a Ford E-350 with the large V8 at that time, turning it on and flooring it...obviously leaving some massive lines of rubber behind. It was so loud, scared the **** out of me...for about an hour

 

[jorton]

quote:

---

Originally posted by CBDFrontier06:
I can assure you that they did what was minimally necessary to protect their bottom line. Protecting these cars are not a priority to them, as they know they'll be rid of them around 36K or even less. They'll be using the cheapest bulk oil they can find, and may have even run the cars out to the 'normal' driving OCI, even though most of are actually driving in "Severe service" conditions. Change to a good oil asap.

---

The Ford dealer serviced the car when they bought it at auction. It has fresh oil and Motorcraft filter. Looks like the car was based on the coast(Texas according to Carfax report.) There was sand on top of the valve cover before the dealer cleaned and detailed. The exhaust is rusty.

Motorcraft shows very good performance and add pack in UOA reports but I can't really tell from that if it's a very good formulation.

 

[brianl703]

Ford's rental buyback agreement requires documented oil changes every 5K with a Motorcraft filter.

 

[TallPaul]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Winston:
On the cars I rent from National there is a little homemade sticky in the door jam. It says something like this:

Oil Change Interval
GM 7000 miles
Ford 5000 miles
Chrysler 6000 miles

---

Based on that alone, I would tend to buy the Ford.

 

[John Hilmer 2]

In April of '05 I bought an '03 Echo that had been a fleet vehicle. The first thing I did was change all the fluids and plugs. I dumped the first OCI of Mobil 1 at 5K and it was relatively normal. I then ran A-RX as prescribed. The next OCI was on GC green for 7.5k with LC-20 and FP-60. This showed a very good UOA. The car is still getting better than 40MPG, so I'm pleased and probably lucky. I don't think I could have done better for the $8,900.00 I spent for it. John

 

[JHZR2]

ummmm, note my current avis experience - theyre getting back a ford focus with 14k on it, and wouldnt authorize PM at 9900!

JMH

 

[JHZR2]

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Hilmer 2:
In April of '05 I bought an '03 Echo


I don't think I could have done better for the $8,900.00 I spent for it. John

---

Yeah but how much is a new one, with no careless users or questionable history??? $11k?

JMH

 

[John Hilmer 2]

Well, in '05 there wasn't any new ones. I saw the gas price thing comming and bought this one while comps were running 12 - 13 K$.

Still, I take your point well and would have prefered the new alternative.

Last weekend I was at the Toy dealer to get pars for the wifes Camry and saw a new Yaris, the replacement for the Echo with a sticker of $11.5K.

If that had been an option... John

 

[eljefino]

Just rented a corolla from enterprise.

29k miles, which to me seemed like a lot for a rental. Car was still tight though.

The hood rubbed on the plastic cowl when I opened it, which I would call sloppy assembly, not abuse. Made in Canada.

Car had clean oil and a newish napa proselect filter. But the state inspection was 4 months out of date.

Tires were never rotated and the fronts were probably at 4/32.

They use the Firestone dealer down the street for all the PM; Enterprise has a hose and vacuum on site. I would trust that firestone to have an adequate selection of oil weights and filters and even competent techs.

They're staffed by a bunch of twentysomething ex-frat boys in fancy suits. They take the cars home then rent them out with, say, 5/8 of a tank of gas. They say to bring it back with 5/8-- of course if you're under they bill you $6/gal... over, you eat it. I'd prefer to just start with a full tank, thank you.