People Thrash Rental Cars: UL or Fact?

We’ve all seen or heard the advice to never buy a used rental car because renters beat the heck out of them. I read it here just today from several people.

But is it fact, or UL / myth / “everybody knows” stuff?

I rent a few cars per year. And have since my 20s. I drive them about like my own cars. I don’t crash them, take them over curbs, go 100mph in parking lots, etc. Regardless of weather, I start them up and drive away normally. No extended warm ups. Which no modern car needs nor manufacturer recommends. Since rentals are pretty gutless, I usually have it floored the whole time getting on the freeway. But IMO most folks driving gutless cars do the same to their own cars every day. And there’s no harm in doing so.

So am I just a wimp and most folks are out autocrossing in their rentals? Or is the whole idea of routinely thrashed rental cars pretty much BS?

I have worked with people who have driven the crap out of rental cars, to the point where I was scared to ride with them.

What puts me off buying a used renter was the time I rented one from a major company. When I stopped for gas, I checked the oil, just like with my own car. It was two quarts down. When I returned the car I reported it and no one seemed to care.

My concern is that the companies are skimping on the routine things.

My name is Kopek and I’m an addicted rental car beater. If it has a manual mode, I’ll be in it and busting gears like there is no tomorrow. If it doesn’t I’ll spend at least half my time in passing gear one way or another. Some relatives claim the Camry I rented the last time I flew up to the Valley may have been the fastest recorded car in Pennsylvania; I say not. At least one Jag managed to pass me on 81.

(But I did pass him back once we hit Rte 11)

Probably never so much before or since Hertz decided to add Shelby GT350s to its rental mix.

It was far from unusual for weekend rentals to be returned with holes where the roll cage had been bolted in, and needing brakes, tires and full servicing.

Terry Galanoy also tells of rental cars used as chase and camera platforms for shooting ads (usually car ads) that were returned with an empty tank, bald tires, a wobbly passenger seat that had been bolted back in and “four burned-out, blackened holes where the brakes used to be.” :slight_smile:

The thing is that there’s very little you can do to a car in the course of a few days that will have any long term effects AND won’t be apparent on the turn-in inspection. Sure you can think of some deliberate sabotage like draining all the oil out and putting it back before you turn it in, but the way most people “drive it like it’s rented” is just a lot of hard acceleration and braking. That might wear out tires and brakes and such a lot faster, but it’s not doing any major long term damage, at least not if it’s only the occasional bad apple renter.

It certainly wasn’t always the case, but these days the model most major rental companies operate under of only keeping cars for a couple of years entirely depends on being able to resell them for most of their value, and that depends on taking very good care of them. I’d argue rental cars are generally better taken care of than cars that are leased or bought by owners who intend on trading them in short-term. With the rental, sure the car was probably flogged a few times here and there, but with a one-owner car you have the risk that it was abused the whole time including a shoddy maintenance regimen.

I have one friends who is not allowed to rent from Hertz anymore because he trashed one of their cars when he was younger. But I think that’s sort of a rare exception.

But assuming most people drive them normally, is 50,000 miles on a rental car different from 50,000 on your personal vehicle?

I remember an article in one of the big car mags, back about '86. It said there was a frozen lake racing crowd that would rent Chevettes for a weekend (with the extra insurance), race them on frozen lakes, then turn them back in on Monday morning.

I went halves on a rental car in Dallas one time. My buddy wrecked it, but that was due to unfamiliarity with the stupid sideways stoplights.

Why?

I would assume that the average driver of a rental car is older and more affluent than the average driver overall.

Not counting services like ZipCar, if you’re behind the wheel of a rental automobile, saying to yourself, “how do I work this?”, you’ve probably taken a plane to another city, either because you went there on vacation or personal business, or because your employer flew you there. So you’ve got a decent job and/or money for personal travel.

There may be great stories about the exceptions, but I bet these drivers don’t drive the rental cars much differently than they drive their own.

The other thing I’ve noticed when driving rental cars is, they don’t stay rentals very long. It’s been rare that my wife and I have rented a car with >10K miles on the odometer. Maybe that’s just Budget, which we rent from when we travel, but it’s hard for me to believe that, places like Rent-a-Wreck aside, practices vary wildly across the industry.

I probably treat rental cars better than my own car, 'cause, you know, it’s not my car. I sure as shit don’t want to be on the hook for any damages.

When I drive rental cars I admit I drive the shit out of them, I’m not running over curbs but I do like to gun the engine and ride it hard. I think it’s fun to drive different types of cars and see what they’re really made of and what they can handle.

I helped a friend buy a used car once from the Avis inventory. Avis gave a respectable warranty, and claimed that they maintained their fleet meticulously, unlike your average Joe. If true, that might counter the claim that all renters bash their vehicles, or compensate for it.

Avis was able to show us the maintenance records, and they let us choose any car in the inventory. I believe they were priced by mileage and model only.

My friend bought the car, and seemed happy with it as long as she had it.

Because I’m overly curious how good modern sidewalls are? :wink:
To be more fully honest, I’ve just always wondered what the limit is of different cars - especially on roads I know. And given the chance I like to try to defy not just the laws of Pennsylvania but the laws of physics as well. I have driven the Giant (the road used for the Giant’s Despair Hillclimb) with everything from a 9 passenger wagon to actual race cars on actual race days. It’s a good benchmark for me of what a car can do if I decide to push it.

And besides, its just sitting there and oh so tempting. :smiley:

I bought a used rental car and drove it for 11 years. Part of that time was commuting 3 X per week to college, 150-mile round trip. I loved that car.

I don’t know about the rentals but the boys at the dealership beat the piss out of the cars you bring in, to “test” them.

My wife and I actually did buy a used rental car about a year and a half ago. In part, we felt good about doing it because it was priced below many comparable options. Also in part, it’s a 2013 model, so it didn’t have very long to get beat up as rental.

We did have some repairs required to the fuel system shortly after buying it. About $900 cost, and the mechanic explained that it’s a common result of topping off the tank. Makes sense as a problem for a rental.

Maybe my tune will change in a few years, but we could put another couple thousand into repairs before I’d consider it to be a bad decision.

Just wondering what damage would be caused by frequent tank topping off? Worn out filler cap threads?

Topping off the tank in the sense of adding more gas after the gas pump automatically shuts off, which can force liquid gasoline into the evaporative emissions systems.

Not sure why that’d be more likely on a rental car, though. I usually do the opposite and try to get it riiiiiight at the lowest point where the gauge reads full when I’m “topping it off” to return it.

I’ve been doing this to my car on a weekly basis for 9 years — I fill it till can see the petrol in the filler tube, and haven’t had anything negative happen yet

I remember watching a UK show about traffic cops -

At one point they were chasing a Porsche that was being driven at better than 200 km/h - it turned out to be the mechanic who was taking it back to the customer’s house