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Re: buying a used rental Posted by Andrew [Email] (#1013) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Andrew) on Sat, 3 Mar 2001 01:55:55 In Reply to: buying a used rental, hr, Fri, 2 Mar 2001 09:26:41 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
I always end up with either a rental nearing the end of its service, or one that has just been put into service. Witness:
Recent trip to California- rented a Dodge minivan and a Mercury Mountaineer from Hertz. Both had less that 1K! They still smelled great inside and were spotless all around. Heck, the Mercury had the optional sunroof!
Two trips to Detroit in last three months- first rented a Dodge Intrepid from Thrifty. Had about 25K on it and smelled horrible. Reasonably good condition, considering Detroit roads. Second time rented a Ford Taurus from Hertz with similar mileage. Smelled ok, had bad wipers. Far more solid than my Saab, however!!
Trip to Washington, DC this fall- initially tried to rent an SUV from Thrifty. They tried to give me their last "SUV-class" vehicle. It was a GMC Sierra 4x2 single-cab! So I stormed out and went to Dollar just down the street. Ended up paying triple my initial rate for a very high mileage (30K- a lot for a rental) Mitsubishi Montero that threatened to not start several times. It had been seriously abused- I saw damage underneath to the independent suspension.
What have I learned? You never know what you're going to get. Besides the bad wipers on the Taurus, Hertz does a great job. They have huge fleets with solid cars. Thrifty has very inconsistent fleets. In DC, they had everything from Volvo S40s to an Explorer Sport Trac. Dollar doesn't seem to maintain their cars well. The moral: don't buy an x-rental unless it's really cheap!
Andrew
9-3SE
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