Local car dealer picked up 60 ex-rentals at the auction.

[mrsilv04]

I've been noticing since the first of this year, that the level of used inventory at one local car dealer has been growing disproportionally, as compared to all of the other car lots.

Uh-oh. They've been hitting the auctions hard. So, I took some time this afternoon to see what they've been buying.

Mostly rentals, and some off lease units. The off lease units are mainly 2020 Ford Fusion SE's with miles in the 20-30,000 range. A few lower mileage Explorers and Durangos as well.

The rentals are mostly 2020 models, with a few 2021s mixed in. All have 60,000 to 75,000 miles on them (yikes, but not surprised).

Prices aren't that bad... but they're all higher mileage units (20,000-30,000 miles a year).

 

[LazyDog]

Very interesting, thanks for the info.

 

[Malo83]

Watch out for the swamp water.

 

[NismoNVT]

Did they end up holding the proverbial bag on those or deals of the century?

 

[supton]

I'd be wary how optioned. Fleet buyers can pick and chose a bit easier, so you might find something "oddly" optioned, like leather but no cruise, something stupid like that. [I'm just making that combo up. IIRC I did see in the past rentals with odd options.]

I'd keep an eye on it. If prices keep going down, maybe they'll sit, and then the prices will drop more. One could hope.

 

[eljefino]

Wife and I both had ex rentals back in the day. RPO codes in the glovebox literally said so.

She had a plain white (no basecoat-clearcoat) 1993 Corsica with V6 and AC but no cruise.

I had a 1992 Cutlass Ciera with the V6, air, and cruise, but the 3 speed automatic vs the available 4 speed.

They were from back in the day when the Big 3 owned rental agencies and dumped cars into them for later resale with 6000 miles as "program cars" or whatever. The deals were good, as the very slightly used cars were positioned to not compete with the actual brand new ones. Yeah those days are long gone.

 

[mrsilv04]

I'd be wary how optioned. Fleet buyers can pick and chose a bit easier, so you might find something "oddly" optioned, like leather but no cruise, something stupid like that. [I'm just making that combo up. IIRC I did see in the past rentals with odd options.]

Vast majority are low-level trim (example: Altima S or Charger SXT) or mid-level trim (example: Malibu LT) versions. Of the window stickers that I pulled, very few had any options above whatever was standard equipment for the trim level.

Majority are white, some in silver, then a few in random other colors. No huge surprise there.

 

[fantastic]

This is precisely how the big chain auto places resell cars. They are mostly bought from car rental fleets. In my younger days without knowing any better I went to car-mart & bought a 99 cavalier.. Overpaid & yes it was a prior rental. They did put some extensive work on the engine before purchasing it but still overpaid.

With covid supply chain issues at the forefront of auto dealers these kinds of auctions are how they've learned to cope with inventory issues. They've got to have something to sell you but we all know how rental cars are treated.