Buying Used Car - Former Rental Car?

Question

Looking at buying a used car, a four door luxury sedan.

Carfax report says it was a rental car in Illinois. It is one year old, has 27,000 miles on it. Has remainder of 4 year 50K bumper to bumper factory warranty. Body has a few very minor dents, interior has a couple minor blemishes.

Questions are:

1) Would you buy a car that was a rental car?
2) Do they use a lot of salt on the roads in Illinois?
3) How much of a discount versus normal used selling price is reasonable given that it was a rental car?

Answer 1

Many auto manufacturers own rental companies and/or sell fleets of vehicles to them. Ford, for instance, owns Hertz & Budget.
Ford agrees to take rental cars back, PROVIDING the rental company proves all maintenance has been done & the vehicle has not had accident reports.
Ford then sells these former rentals to its dealers at "factory authorized sales or auctions".
Enterprise also sells their previous rentals to dealers & to the public.
Since the vehicle is still usually under manufacture warranty, it is safe to assume that it is still in good working order, or that if there were any problems they would be covered.
Nowadays if you rent a car from a major rental company ....You are responsible to pay for any damage that could incure during you useage (thats why they run your credit card before they rent a car to you) & due to the fact that their credit car WILL be charged, I don't think that people will "beat up" a car because they don't own it.

The car that you are looking at has 27k mi. What model year is it ? & How much TIME is left to the mfgr. warr.?
Average mileage on a car would be 12k per year

That being said...in answer to your questions:

#1- I sell cars so I don't buy them ( my dealer provides a Demo) But I sell rentals, in fact my sister, my brother, & my next door neighbor, all bought previously rented vehicles from me & all vehicles absolutely worry free.
#2- Yes, Illinois uses tons of salt. That's where I live & work.
#3- You can expect to pay whatever the normal used car value is. There isn't any additional depreciation assessed just because the previous owner was a rental company.

My dealership ( a very reputable Ford store) buys up every Taurus that we can, from the Ford authorized sales all over the country....We sell '05's for about 1/2 there original MSRP.....And the '06's go for about $2000 more.

We've been doing this for YEARS .....& absolutely NO problems.
We buy & sell 25-50 cars each month that were previously rentals (from Ford owned companies, which can also include Lincolns, Jaguars, Mercurys, etc )

Answer 2

Buying A Former Rental Car

Answer 3

1) Would you buy a car that was a rental car?

I would do. They are usually clean and taken care regularly by professional mechanics. One of my friend bought one 2 years ago, and the car has never had any trouble.

2) Do they use a lot of salt on the roads in Illinois?

Probably. You can inspect the car, anyway, one year is not a lot.

3) How much of a discount versus normal used selling price is reasonable given that it was a rental car?

You can get the car way below the price of the market and get a good deal.

Answer 4

Buying Used Cars

Answer 5

You can never be sure how the car was driven.

You will want to listen for motor noises during cold starts first.

Salt wont matter with that low of miles. Just clean it.

There may not be any less of a price since it was a rental. There should be though.
Your taking a bigger chance buying a rental car. I have rente a few cars and drove them pretty hard but that was only for a day or two each.

a 1 year old car in illinois has no worries about salt. Cars here dont rust for 10 years even with the salt.

Answer 6

Some used carship dealers do check stuff like that and fix stuff like that on cars if needed before trying to sell them but some car lots are lazy and would rather just get it sold. So, you won't even find that it was a rental. But you should avoid it. take a look at the car dealerships in orlando fl market to find the good deals available.

Answer 7

Really it is no big deal...

Many daily rental companies maintain their vehicles VERY WELL. So it really is no issue.

I would much rather buy a vehicle from a daily rental than from that "old lady driven low KM car" ...you never know how well it was maintained.

I own a dealership and we buy daily rentals ALOT and they are almost always better values than not...

As far as further discounts...well...am I not sure that it warrants a further discount....

Answer 8

In my opinion I will never buy a used car that was a previous rental. It's like buying a car with many previous owners, and in the case of this car for 27,000 miles it could be A LOT of people driving it.

Answer 9

1) I have bought a rental car in the past
2) I think they use Salt there in the winter
3) it was very reasonable but had been slightly abused by careless smokers, drivers, passengers who didnt give a heck cause it a rental

Answer 10

Rental cars are driven very hard as we all care less for something if you don't own it, but they are well maintained but I would not buy one.