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I live in CT. When I was in the market for a new or nearly new 9-5 sedan six weeks ago, I search online and found well over one hundred 2004 9-5 Arc sedans at Saab dealers in the northeast (as well as at other new car dealers and at CarMax stores) that were former Enterprise rental cars. All were identically equipped with automatic transmission and no other options. The average odometer reading was about 6,000 miles. A few were listed as CPO cars, but most were advertised as having the balance of the factory warranty. (It may be that many were not eligible to be CPO cars because they were too new. I know that to qualify for VWs' CPO coverage a car has to been in service for more than 12 months, or, have an odometer reading of more than 12,000 miles). There were also dozens of former "Saab Executive Cars" for sale in addition to the usual dealer demonstrators and service loaners. I ended up buying a new leftover 2004 Arc sedan. It had the HK radio, Xenons, and vented seats that I wanted... and it was a better overall deal.
I know that "former rental cars" have a bad reputation -- some of which is no doubt well deserved. I recently rented a Mazda 6 wagon from Enterprise that obviously been through 16,000 hard miles. On the other hand, if you are careful and inspect them carefully for signs of abuse, they can be great deals. In early 1998, I bought a 1997 Saab 9000CSE with 11,000 miles on it that had been a Budget rental car. (At that time, in an attempt to increase their visibility, Saab worked a deal with Budget to rent 9000s in Boston, Arlington, VA, and San Francisco. Beleive it or not, they also provided (under some financial arrangement) the Aspen, CO police department with police-spec 9000s to use as cruisers... if you look carefully, you can see a few of them in the background of the movie "Dumb and Dumber). I took the "risk" because I was able to buy it for about $4,000 less than a comparable non-rental car, I figured (hoped) that any real "abuse" would show itself before the the balance of the factory warranty ran out (there were no limitations), and because Budget had rented those cars at a $25/day premium over a Lincoln Town Car -- and I figured that it was unlikely that the kind of person who would pay that kind of premium for a Saab was the type of person who would abuse it. The latter turned out to be true... papers left in the car showed that a German couple had rented it for four months while they spent the summer in Bar Harbor, ME. My daughter still drives that car... it has 180,000 miles on it and it has been virtually trouble free.
posted by 66.100....
, Mon, 14 Mar 2005 17:51:24
, Mon, 14 Mar 2005 17:40:40
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