Hertz rental with over 100,000 miles?

[SwampSurvivor]

I worked for haul im 1996. At that time they were still running mid 70's dent side Ford's with the 330 cuin fe engine.

I believe the FE330 in F-350s was only a uhaul option? Usually those were reserved for medium duty IIRC.

When my grandmother moved in 1999 we rented a bricknose IDI box truck to help. The transmission failed

But they weren't advertising lowest mileage / newest fleet back then!

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I bought a Hertz 2015 Altima with 85K. Has about 175K now. Services, tires, battery only. I did service the CVT several times when we first got it. Dang thing has been bullet proof.

The key is the frequent CVT fluid changes. And you probably know that nothing gets beat on like a rental so the fluid changes worked

 

[dishdude]

They watch values closely and sell when it is most advantageous to them, this worked well when manufacturers would offer them huge discounts to buy excess capacity or hit sales goals...since they probably aren't getting as generous of discounts as they used to they are probably keeping them longer.

 

[fdcg27]

Hertz, like most big companies, are utterly incapable of long-term thinking, so they sold all their cars in 2020, then the following year, it became impossible to even get a car, so they scrambled to find whatever they could get, and that includes older high-mileage random used cars, and kept those longer than they would've otherwise kept a car in their fleet

Hertz was in Ch 11 by May 2020 and had little choice but to liquidate much of its fleet. There would be little car rental business for the next couple of years anyway. While Covid was not the sole cause of the company's difficulties, Covid did push them over the edge. Business travel was always the heart of the rental car market and that dried up in 2020 and has yet to make anything close to a full recovery, to the chagrin of both Hertz and the airlines.
Airlines were never all that healthy even in good times, so even with massive federal help, they too had little choice but to trim fleets, crews and ground operations.
When the house is on fire, the only plan is to pour on water. There is no room for longer term thinking.
When the bleed is measured in eight or nine figures each month, long term thinking is an unaffordable luxury.
Our Hertz rentals in 2021 and 2022 were both cars with under 30K and were clean, fully functional, readily available and a whole lot more expensive than in 2019.

 

[CKN]

Hertz was in Ch 11 by May 2020 and had little choice but to liquidate much of its fleet. There would be little car rental business for the next couple of years anyway. While Covid was not the sole cause of the company's difficulties, Covid did push them over the edge. Business travel was always the heart of the rental car market and that dried up in 2020 and has yet to make anything close to a full recovery, to the chagrin of both Hertz and the airlines.
Airlines were never all that healthy even in good times, so even with massive federal help, they too had little choice but to trim fleets, crews and ground operations.
When the house is on fire, the only plan is to pour on water. There is no room for longer term thinking.
When the bleed is measured in eight or nine figures each month, long term thinking is an unaffordable luxury.
Our Hertz rentals in 2021 and 2022 were both cars with under 30K and were clean, fully functional, readily available and a whole lot more expensive than in 2019.

Your post is very factual and not just armchair CEO pontification.

 

[Owen Lucas]

I am shocked that car lasted 100k miles, especially as a rental.

 

[Speedbird001]

Hard No on buying a used rental (you how people drive them?).

$0.02: Add add to that absolute minimal mait. And surely above average wear and tear. Astric top tier like Hertz and Avis are likely better than the rest. MAYBE if one of these two had a chapter 11 fire sale and you’re not too particular, it works. But the slimy “buy here, pay here” lots probably gobble up the best cars.

Note, I like Hertz a lot, always the first choice, great service. Interesting. Late 2021, short notice I needed a rental for 3 days in NM. Reserved standard; got upgraded to a sweet Mercedes for only like $79 dollars total (for the 3 days). CLA I think? (I usually reserve standard for a few bucks more and upgrades seem to happen often)

 

[svtrit]

Hard No on buying a used rental (you how people drive them?).

$0.02: Add add to that absolute minimal mait. And surely above average wear and tear. Astric top tier like Hertz and Avis are likely better than the rest. MAYBE if one of these two had a chapter 11 fire sale and you’re not too particular, it works. But the slimy “buy here, pay here” lots probably gobble up the best cars.

Note, I like Hertz a lot, always the first choice, great service. Interesting. Late 2021, short notice I needed a rental for 3 days in NM. Reserved standard; got upgraded to a sweet Mercedes for only like $79 dollars total (for the 3 days). CLA I think? (I usually reserve standard for a few bucks more and upgrades seem to happen often)

Most people aren’t that hard on rentals. It’s the lack of maintenance that would concern me. Airports are the worst for that, whereas the individual offices tend to watch maintenance better.
That being said, I had an Altima that was an ex rental. It was a very good car with no issues the short time I owned it.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Lotsa people are hard on cars. At least Hertz services them. Sometimes ya win, sometimes ya lose.

 

[jstert]

i bought two ex-hertz rentals. i did extensive test drives and saw maintenance records, picking the best on the lot. both of mine were western state, non-snowbelt cars so lots of highway miles and no rust.

#1. 2004 toyota corolla le in 2006 at 24,000 miles. drove it to 103,000 miles all over usa and canada. this was in my pre-bitog days so oci was either walmart conventional at 3000 miles or synthetic at 10,000 miles, two sets of walmart goodyear viva tires and a walmart evermaxx battery, indy brake work. sold off to a high school kid.

#2. 2014 toyota yaris l in 2016 at 42,000 miles. absolute base, even crank windows. still happily have it at 64,000 miles. snowbird ride, spends half its life on a battery tender in a garage. oci is semisyn or synthetic at 18-24 months at 4,000 miles. one set of discount tire yokohamas, all other fluids changed. a greatly fun and airy runabout, zero problems. i will be buried in my yaris.

for me an ex-rental says hertz and simple toyota sedans as a baseline.

 

[PandaBear]

Hard No on buying a used rental (you how people drive them?).

$0.02: Add add to that absolute minimal mait. And surely above average wear and tear. Astric top tier like Hertz and Avis are likely better than the rest. MAYBE if one of these two had a chapter 11 fire sale and you’re not too particular, it works. But the slimy “buy here, pay here” lots probably gobble up the best cars.

Note, I like Hertz a lot, always the first choice, great service. Interesting. Late 2021, short notice I needed a rental for 3 days in NM. Reserved standard; got upgraded to a sweet Mercedes for only like $79 dollars total (for the 3 days). CLA I think? (I usually reserve standard for a few bucks more and upgrades seem to happen often)

We bought 3 used rental in our family: Taurus 01, Mazda 5 and Mazda 2 both 2014. The Taurus was not great due to design but not rental fleet, Mazda 5 had problem with tire wears also due to design, so we mod it with an aftermarket camber kit to straighten it out. Mazda 2 was perfect.

 

[Torrid]

I used to work for Hertz. By work for Hertz I mean I worked for a company that was bought out by Hertz and slowly destroyed and no longer exists today. When cash for clunkers disposed of so many used vehicles that it shortened the market they were keeping cars longer or being stuck with slim pickings when they had to resort to used vehicles. This could have been one they owned the whole time, but they used to get rid of them around 35k miles. Once they bought Dollar and Thrifty they started transferring some of these higher mileage cars to them, but they'd still have Hertz tags and ownership. 50k-60k miles was common for auction at that time and I'd see the occasional one get to 70k miles. This was 7 years ago when I was last on Hertz property and I was there for 11 years. I'm sure this one at 100k miles is an outlier though. It's unusual.

 

[UncleDave]

You could also get this from Hertz....

 

[eljefino]

Our Hertz rentals in 2021 and 2022 were both cars with under 30K and were clean, fully functional, readily available and a whole lot more expensive than in 2019.

I rented an Impala for 3-4 days, with a Federal employee discount, in 2017 for $86, all in. Wife rented a car from ??? for 4-5 days, got the stupid insurance so she could cross the border into Canada, and paid TEN TIMES AS MUCH.