I’m curious about any recent experiences buying cars. I will need to buy two (probably used) cars by the end of next month. I’ve read that disrupted supply chains have caused a shortage of new cars, and thus increased prices for both new and used cars. I would think that demand would have dropped as well, but I guess not. Any suggestions about what I should expect?
The shortage of availability has definitely made dealers less willing to negotiate in my experience. Also the shortage in supply seems to be more relevant than any shortage of buyers. The dealers know when they have vehicles that are now difficult to find elsewhere, and if you don’t buy it, someone else will in a few days. I decided to put my search on hold for now.
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Hertz considering rentals by the month as more of a general subscription where you can get a particular tier of car based on how much you pay.
Ouch. $600/mo for economy or $1400/mo for average vehicles. That’s more than the daily rates I used to pay on vacations.
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How is this different from a standard long-term car rental/mini-lease? Maybe Hertz didn’t offer that before, but Avis certainly did.
Speaking of, my Avis corporate rate is about $650/mo (about $800 with taxes, assuming you don’t rent from an airport location) for a full-size car with free 1-2 class upgrade depending on status and CDW. I realize not everyone is going to have access to such a rate, but that Hertz rate seems pretty steep. Hertz does include liability cover and “premium” roadside assistance, but those aren’t very expensive.
That’s still more expensive than leasing, though it is very nice to not have to worry about maintenance and to be able to swap cars. Cracked windshield? Want something more spacious for a road trip? Funny noise in the suspension? Just swing by and get a different car.
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Interesting conversation on the used car price topic. Sorry if you don’t like podcasts:
THey do make one point about how the rental car situation have maybe had the opposite effect of what we (me at least) expected. With them going bankrupt I expected a flood of used rental cars to drag down the market. However they point out that in normal times the rental car companies sell 2 million cars and that has not been happening. Because people aren’t using rentals the rental car companies have just been sitting on their cars and not selling them off like normal. And they haven’t been dumping all their inventory due to bankruptcy either. So they are actually starving the market of up to 2 million cars a year. THats another factor decreasing supply and keeping prices up.
You can hear it all from them in the podcast but that was the main interesting item I got out of it.
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$1400 a month is crazy. Someone could buy a car for $3,000 - $5,000, drive it for a few months, sell it, and come out ahead.
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Well that would be tough with a ~$40k new vehicle…
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At first blush, that surprised me. Then I realized that with paper so cheap it really only costing them insurance (self insured?), registrations, and if they’ve stupidly registered cars in auto property tax states, that chunk of change.
I’ve been scratching my head on prices and lack of supply for a few months. Thanks for recapping the podcast. I would probably have fallen asleep, or had a blood vessel burst, in the first couple of minutes of listening to it. 
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Random Hertz observation.
We are on Kauai and rented a car from them 5 days ago. I paid a bottom barrel, pennies on the dollar rate for a compact in Hawaii - $80/wk plus taxes.
Despite the glut of American sedans on the lot, they gave us a Camaro SS convertible with 13k on the odometer. It is a pretty fun car for 80 bucks a week and I have no clue why they wanted us to add mileage to a desirable car like that instead of a Malibu or Impala. I am surprised they gave it to us instead of someone paying a higher rate. Might be one reason Hertz is having issues.
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Maybe no one is renting a car because they have to quarantine for 2 weeks … or is that just Honolulu? Maybe the agent thought you were hot, or was stoned and thought “camaro” spelled cavalier. 
They first need to have someone paying a higher rate.
How many miles did you drive? I’m guessing you driving it for a week was not material to the value of the car. So the free perk cost them virtually nothing.
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Trust me when I say that I know there were higher rates to be had. I rebooked this rate a number of times and it dropped about $100 over that span. It is a corporate rate, I work for a large tech company that has Hertz as the preferred supplier and it is always lower than the usual public discounts.
We’ve added about 600mi so far and turn it back in this coming Monday. I’d expect it to have about 1000 mi over that span, which is about 10% of the mileage currently on the car. The thing to keep in mind is that this car has ultra high performance tires, which while they are awesome, they don’t last very long - they usually go bald in 20k miles. So that’s another reason why I was surprised they gave us this car.
Now that things are opening up and some leisure demand is coming back from vaccinated travelers, the sales in rental car fleets mean there can be high prices and shortages.
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Easy workaround for this - find a contract rate. My employer has a personal use, fixed contract rate with the three major rental companies… comes in handy during situations like this.
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I don’t know what it’d do without this. Rent/travel less, I guess? I have a rental next week that would’ve been twice the price even with a coupon code (I always compare, though the negotiated rate is almost always better).
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How is that an easy workaround?
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If your employer doesn’t happen to offer this fringe bene then how do you go about finding a fixed rate?
Not sure that this is a very common employer bene.
Costco, AAA, other organizations?
Employer rates are often limited to employer business in the actual terms
This. Searching for AWDs, Contract IDs, etc is particularly easy on the internet. Flyertalk is good for this.
I’ve rented more cars than I can count and, despite only using IDs that I’ve been entitled to, have never once been asked for ID. This is particularly true if you have a membership that allows you to bypass the counter, where they assign you a vehicle and they just check your ID at the booth on the way out.
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