I have a few reasons. Here are two of them: Because I follow them and I find their car advice to be very good and consider them experts in their respective fields. Because they are not making any money by telling people not to buy rental cars. In fact, you could claim that they are actually reducing their pool of potential customers by giving people this advice (if they truly believe it and I think they do).
I understand why you would think that, but I actually had already seen these videos and been fans of these people BEFORE I made up my mind about whether it was a good idea to buy a rental car. I wasnāt totally against it before hearing them out. There was no way for you to know that of course, so I understand why you would think this was confirmation bias.
I give the amount of weight to each party as I see fit. I donāt have personal experience buying a rental car, but I do have (negative) experience buying a fleet owned car, and that is also a factor in my opinion.
One thing that I will admit that is a negative toward Scotty and Lehtoās points are that mechanics and Lemon Law attorneys donāt do much with cars that run perfectly. Their viewpoints CAN be skewed by the fact that the former rentals they deal with are brought to them because they are bad. There are thousands of former rentals sold every year that their new owners are perfectly happy with (like you). That may discount some of their personal experience with bad rental cars, but it doesnāt negate most of the facts they point out about why buying a former rental is a worse idea than buying something that was privately owned.
I agree. This all started out because you started taking my comments as a personal attack on your car purchase. I said people shouldnāt buy a rental unless they are getting a significant discount over a comparable car. I didnāt mean to imply that there is never an instance where someone should buy a former rental. Just that former rentals are generally a worse option than a similar privately owned car and people should consider that when negotiating. If you have a problem with that, I can only conclude that is because you didnāt get a significant discount. If you did get a significant discount, then we are more or less on the same page.
The reason I posted those videos is because @slappycakes is in the market for a new car and said ākeep the posts coming.ā Iām trying to provide additional info beyond your āI had a splendid experience.ā
I donāt think anyone thinks that. But whatās the difference between a mechanical inspection each time itās returned, and a mechanical inspection before purchasing the car? I mean, Joe Blow who owned that car sitting on the dealers lot didnāt have it mechanically inspected each day after he returned home from work, either.
And a check engine light or difficulty starting are common car problems unrelated to it being a rental.
Is there anything anywhere supporting this claim? I admit Iām completely blind to the manufacturing process, but I find it hard to believe a car manufacturer will retool their assembly line for a couple days just because that batch is going to a rental fleet.
I understand that looking at a rental fleet you might see a lot of base models that donāt include features a typical car buyer would want. So in those terms, the rental cars are ācheaperā, but not because corners were cut during the manufacturing process.
My responses have been in the context of Argyllās now deleted post asserting that rental cars are not abused because ā¦
If they come back with any damage or problems, the driver is on the hook for them.
If the check engine light starts flashing in my car, Iām putting a reader on the on board diagnostics within minutes to figure out why. If it isnāt something I can understand, I might call for a tow, or at least not continue to drive it another 600 miles before checking into it. A rental car with the same symptom? Iām very likely to tell the guy I return it to ā12736 miles ā¦ full tankā and head for my flight. I just donāt think a rental car has received the TLC that oneās own car does.
I just donāt think a majority of individually owned cars receive nearly the amount of TLC you think.
Comparable cars are bought under warranty, and are often leased. Maintaining the engine for maximum life isnāt exactly a high priority when your not keeping it past the warranty expiration anyways.
Both good points, glitch99. I even conceded in my first response that rental cars could possibly be getting scheduled maintenance more reliably than individually owned cars (for those cars that still require a specific maintenance schedule based on mileage/time).
Lease cars, rental cars, fleet cars, cars on the dealerās lot, cars on eBay, etc. ā¦ all in the same category to me. Iād never consider them for all the same reason ā¦ I donāt know how that car has been cared for.
To be honest, though, I havenāt bought a used car in decades. I buy new and drive them for 8-10 years. And when I do sell one, the potential buyer gets to peruse every single maintenance receipt and gets the name of the mechanic who worked on it. Maybe thatās why Iām picky about how Iād buy a used car. I would only buy one from me.
Do I have any evidence beyond what these two guys said? No.
But to a certain extent, itās common sense, isnāt it? I wouldnāt go so far as to say that their assembly line gets retooled. But new cars arenāt perfect. Not every dashboard, fender, door panel, or seat on a Ford Focus is hand built/painted with Rolls Royce precision. There is a certain amount of variance that is acceptable. If there are 50 dashboards waiting to get installed, 5 of those might have a slight but noticeable quality defect. Not enough to get thrown away, but enough to notice. If the next 15 cars rolling through the line are base model rentals, isnāt it more likely that those 5 dashboards will make it onto those rentals rather than the next few cars that are going to dealer lots? If I were the foreman of the plant that heard back from dealerships after they lost a sale because a potential buyer found a blemish on a door panel, I would be instructing my guys to put those blemished door panels on the rental cars, not the cars that will be on a dealer lot.
Common sense? Maybe. But is it even practical? Again, I have no insight into auto manufacturing, but I find it hard to believe that anyone in the factory has any idea where a particular car is being shipped, while itās being assembled. Or that any time is spent picking and choosing individual parts for specific cars; either a part meets specs or it doesnt.
Perhaps they may mass-allocate such ālower qualityā parts to the base modelās assembly line, but even thatād just be a function the car being a base model, not a rental.
Most people who buy a new car think theyāll drive it for life, take it to the dealer for maintenance until they want something different or get hooked on the newer loaner model the dealer is providing while the car is in the shop.
Car rental places are getting rid of cars every year or so because it allows them to skip on maintenance. They donāt want them to be sitting in the shop; they wash them and put them back on the lot, especially when it is busy. And what maintenance items are they doing anyway other than oil changes?
I doubt they are even doing regular oil changes. Itās not something that will show up within the first 70k. The car rental place has no way of knowing how many miles the next driver will drive. For cars with maintenance systems, Iāve seen the oil life go negative quite often on longer road trips. Plus tons of people are driving the crap out of rentals, so the oil should probably changed under the severe schedule.
Not all of these problems will show up immediately. And sometimes people do get lucky. But I would especially stay away from small engine cars that tend to be constantly in short supply. Any abuse is a lot harder on small engines and probably more common to floor the pedal in order to get it to āaccelerateā.
I picked up a car once where the rental car company reset the oil life because it went off as I was driving it out of the lot.
Iāve also been told by off-airport rental car personnel that the rental agency has arrangements with the manufacturers which allows them to extend the time between oil changes. This was in response to my complaining that my rental indicated less than 5% oil life and I was about to put 3500 miles on it.
No I didnāt believe him, but I asked him to repeat it to make sure I understood ā¦ and to record it with my phone.
