mega_man

There are many reasons that I would never buy a rental car. Here is just one example. I have been staying in Israel for almost a year now. My company provides me with a place to stay and transportation. I have had Mazda 3's, Ford Focus' and a Subaru Impreza, the majority being the Mazda 3. I currently have a Ford Focus. It came to me with 1200km (744mi) and a service sticker of 7500 km (4650mi), this seemed to be all right. I normally bring the cars in when they hit 500-1000km over the indicated service interval. This time however I took the car just 25km over. When I brought it in the guy checked it from top to bottom. He even had me test the lights. The thing that got me is he never once opened the hood to check the oil let alone change it. After about 10min he handed me keys and said you are ok to go. I got in the car checked the service sticker and it said 15000km (9300mi) until next recomended service. Now the next time that I bring the car in and I do like I normally do with the extra miles. This thing is going to be pushing 10k before its first oil change. Since I am not paying for gas while I am over here and because it is a rental, I am constantly on the skinny pedal and in the revs to get this little 1.8L engine moving.

Just my .02 on why I try to buy new. Anything goes wrong and I have only one person to blame....DC lol

Mlucas

I'd have to agree with you. I get a lot of rental trucks (06 & 07 Dodge Hemi's-1500 /2500.) The first thing I do is, after pulling nicely out of the rental lot, it to find a nice quiet street & light those tires up.

Hell, I don't pay for the rubber or maintenance- so lett'er blow.

Drive it like you stole it.

I once was looking at getting a new to me truck-a 3500 CTD. The thing had 30 000km on it. The dealer insisted that the truck was driven by a local. After a little more discussions, he let me know that it was infact a rental truck.

There was pretty much no paint left on the rear quarter panels & the interior was so badly stained & abused that the seats would have had to be replaced. This was on a brand new truck.

Obviously, I stopped looking at the truck but couldn't help thinking - Did the oil ever get changed? That CTD was given a death sentence as soon as the rental outfit purchased it.
Never buy a rental-unless you can handle the consequences!

Grit Dog

No better vehicle to do Ebrake 180's in than a rental car.
Few years ago, one of my coworkers (buddy too) and I were at a paving seminar in Iowa. Both had separate rental cars. One night coming home form the bar, I showed him a 50mph Ebrake donut.
He spent the rest of the week doing it every chance he got. Even in downtown Ida Grove, IA.
I bet that car had done 200 donuts by the time it was turned in.

dodgezilla04

we had a rental taurus v6 last december(my car got totalled by some blue hair).
2 minutes after getting it, showed the kids what ebrake locked and standing on the go pedal will do in regards to tire smoke.
that poor car.

Rob C

4 grand neutral drops are awesome in any rental car!

Gotlift01

My dad took his Dodge to the shop about a month ago, and got a rental truck for work while his truck was down. It was an '07 Chevy Silverado....had I think 11K miles on it. HOLY CRAP was this thing beat. The truck had brush scrapes all down both sides almost down to bare metal, dents all over, the front bumber was dented and hanging crooked, the interior looked like someone rolled around in an oil slick and had a party in the truck....... I couldn't believe they even sent that thing out to be rented looking like that......it was BEAT BAD!!

I would never buy a rental car, a rental car means a golden ticket to beat the living tar out of it! And the part that I think is funny, is I read somewhere that rental cars were better maintained than any other car on the road........LOL YEAH RIGHT!


~Nick

Homestead

Many years ago I ran the truck rental division of a Hertz outlet.

I was not allowed to have the trucks oil changed. I was allowed to maintain the oil level, but not to change it out. Same thing, the oil change interval decals on the windshield were change to show maintenance but it was never done.

Even the car division was the same way. The cars are only kept for around 30,000 kms so it wasn't deemed necessary to change the oil. More profit!

When it's a corporation running the show, maintenance goes down the tube big time when profits are more important.

Jeff

LOGAN

all i got to say is "Days of Thunder", if you dont know what im talkin about, watch the movie.......you will have a all new appreciation for rental cars......my brother had a rental when his truck was getting worked on a few years ago, man he beat the holy hell out of that 2003 Hemi ram. tires were almost ruined when he took it back.

Mlucas

LOL
4 grand neutral drops.......I've got to do that on my next outing in one.

The other day I was runnin out of town in a 2005 furd f250 rental. Made it about an hour out of town before the truck began shaking so violently that it litterally tossed me across 2 lanes & into the shoulder of the hiway.

Lucky noone else was there ,but friggin scarry. I thought I had thrown a tire, bearing or something else but as it turns out, the torque converter in furds has a problem-it thows itsself out of balance somehow- I could not believe the shaking at 2200rpm.

Don't get Fords for rentals!!!!!

TreeFarm

All the rental contracts I have seen said no going off the paved road. Well, the places I had to go to on the job were often on the top of mountains with the "road" being a potholed jeep track to the top. I always rented sedans, which were much cheaper than the four wheel drives.

Somehow, the contract never stopped me from going where I needed to go, and I almost always made it all the way to the top.

I never had a problem when I returned the vehicles. The sole exception was a Thrify rental that they went over with a fine tooth comb. Fortunately, that trip was entirely within the local city limits, and they couldn't find a thing, but I never rented from them again.

Buy an ex rental. Never.

LOGAN

id buy a rental car no problem..............

















for a demo derby, watch Jack *** the movie, the first one

berner

It's always fun to see how fast they'll go in first gear. Sometimes you have to keep them floored for a good 2-3 minutes.

mtl0727

awhile back my dad used to haul cars, 3car hauler ford 7.3l pwr stroke 5speed, well in the business you get to know alot of people and he would swap work w/ some of the guys, if some one had cars to move from big h auto auction in houston up to the auto auction there on dunkinville road in dfw he would do it, blah blah blah blah....my dads friend was having problems w/ his dodge truck, the transmission was giving him problems, he had to put the truck in the shop and was gonna be down for a few days, but he needed a vehicle to haul w/, as the story goes i never witnessed it myself, he proceded to call around and found a 1ton ford diesel automatic, at a car rental place in san antonio, the vehicle was taken to his shop, the plastic lay in bedliner was removed and a plate and gooseneck hitch was installed a brake controller wired in, and off he went, ran the **** out of it from what i hear, after it was all said and done, the ball was removed the plastic liner was thrown back in the wiring for the break controller tucked up under the dash and it was all kosher

dj_souvlaki

i have destoryed 4 rental cars already.

you have to be smoking cheap drugs to be anything that has been rented out.

Fronty Owner

I have never abused a rental.

Ok, so I drive rental cars like I drive my truck, but I wouldn't call it abuse. my truck handles it.