In fact, just for yuks, I plugged the same criteria into the Hertz site and there’s a bunch of 2012 Corollas with around 50k on them for about $11k.
Seconded. I am also in the process of buying a new used car, and I have pretty much decided that this is what I want. Good reviews from cars.com and Edmunds.com, and very fun to drive. I had a Miata MX-5 when I was younger, and absolutely loved it. (Much to my surprise, so did Consumer Reports, which gave it the same reliability rating as the Honda Accord, which is the gold standard in my book). The Mazda 3, from what I can tell, is the Miata dressed up like a sedan.
My budget is four thousand less than yours, and I’m finding decent cars - for 11k you should be able to get something very good.
Not to derail the discussion but I’m surprised to see anyone advocating buying a rental fleet car. Given how people treat those cars, and all.
My research indicated that the car could be valued anywhere between 8 and 12k. We opted to go through our insurance company and let them fight it out with the other insurance company so this is about as good as my agent feels it is going to get. Beyond that, with everything that is going on in the rest of our lives my husband and I had already agreed we would take anything over 11k without an argument just so we aren’t continuously dealing with this while trying to close on a house at the same time. So the $11,400 plus the cost of the rental car will be sufficient for our needs. Now we have to go car shopping which is my least favorite chore. I’d rather get my teeth drilled but that won’t help us get our new car so off to the lot this weekend, I guess.
They’re poorly treated but carefully maintained.
My Jeep and my previous Honda both came from Enterprise’s fleet. I got a very decent deal on both of them, the Honda for around what your insurance has given you (the Jeep I got from trading in both my Honda and my mother’s, btw). They rigorously maintain those cars while they’re part of their fleet. Once they get over X miles they automatically go to sales and go through the same maintenance – win for you and win for them because it’s worth more to them to sell a car than to sell it to an auction house.
The closest Enterprise sales dealer is in Westwood, just off Rte. 1.
I had a 2005 Toyota Prius that I bought from a friend in 2008. I found it to be comfortable, I loved the audio and navigation system (when he bought the car new, there was a waiting list and he could get the car sooner by ordering every available option), and it got twice the fuel mileage compared to my 1999 Jeep Cherokee. When I crashed it, after 235,000 miles on the clock, I replaced it with another 2005 Toyota Prius (115,000 miles) will all of the options.
With the rear seats folded down, the Prius has about the same cargo floor space as the Cherokee; just not as tall. The rear passenger seats are by far the most roomy and comfortable that I’ve sat in in a modern car. I drive a lot, and I keep a spreadsheet on the fuel economy. Since I bought the replacement Prius a year ago, I’m averaging almost 44 mpg – and that’s with me not trying very hard to maximise economy, and with my lead-footed SO driving it on occasion. (The previous Prius, which I drove more carefully, averaged almost 46 mpg over the five years I had it.) I have maintenance performed on a regular basis, whenever the Check Engine light comes on. This involves a complete inspection, oil and oil filter change, tire rotation, sometimes air filter changes, and (rarely) brakes. It averages about $75, though last time it was about $60. You could have the routine maintenance done for less if you don’t go to a dealer, but I like going to a dealer.
People who don’t like Priuses complain that it’s not very fast on acceleration. I find that I routinely accelerate faster than most drivers where I live. The speed limit is 70 mph, and I try not to go faster than 75 because the cops aren’t as forgiving as they are in L.A. It’s easy to get up to 80 mph or more, and the car is quite happy to cruise there. People also complain that it doesn’t handle well. Again, I disagree. I’m not as aggressive a driver as I was in California, and it’s true that the Prius might make me want more if I still lived there. But there’s a particular curve that I like taking at more than the speed limit, and which most people slow down for. It feels good. What it comes down to is this: You choose the machine for the mission. My mission is to get from Point A to Point B efficiently and in comfort. If you want a muscle car or a Porsche, a Prius isn’t going to cut it. But that’s not my mission. If I want a car that jumps off the line and in which all you have to do is think where you want to go and it will turn, I have my '66 MGB or my Yamaha YZF-R1.
The SO thinks the Prius ‘nags’ too much. There’s an interior beeper that activates when you put the car in revers so that you know you’re in reverse. It can be disabled, but I like the reminder. The SO says the Prius is noisy. I don’t think it is, with the windows rolled up. (And what is she complaining about? She drives a Tacoma!) Both of us would like to be able to enter addresses or phone numbers into the nav unit when the car is in motion. There’s a difference in ‘safety philosophy’ between us and Toyota. I don’t have chains for the Prius, so it’s literally useless in snow and ice. When a wheel slips, power to that wheel is shut down. When both wheels slip, you don’t move. Chains would solve this, but the Jeep needs to be driven occasionally too.
I’m very happy with the Prius. I paid about $9,000 for it, which was a little bit high, but it had the least number of miles of the local offerings and had all of the options. For $15K you could get a newer one with fewer miles.
This is good information for me as well. I rented from the Norwood Enterprise back in July when my car was getting fixed-ish (enough to drive, but it won’t live much longer and I’ve been without A/C for 7 weeks…) I really liked both the car (Hyundai Santa Fe, much to my surprise) and the company.
Yep. I’m not much of a car nut, but I absolutely love my 2004 Mazda 3 and at 120K miles so far (110K of them mine), I’ve had no problems outside of regular maintenance. Affordable and surprisingly fun to drive. My next car will likely be a Mazda again. This is the first time I’ve owned a car that I actually enjoyed.
I might not buy something like an old rental Jeep Wrangler or pickup, but the vast majority of rental cars get driven pretty normally, get fully maintained, and are constantly inspected. Keeping cars in really good shape so they’re easy to sell is the MO of most of the big rental companies now, so they’re good about maintenance and nitpicking the condition of the car when they get turned in. Plus with cars these days, there really isn’t that much a driver can do to damage a car in only a few days that won’d be apparently at turn-in.
I’d even say that a used rental car is a better bet than a lease return (which is what most slightly-used cars for sale are) because in both cases you’ve got the issue of a driver potentially abusing a “borrowed” car, but the lessee has a whole lot more potential to wreck things long term and is being supervised a whole lot less.