Risks of buying a rental company car?

[newgame]

There was an ad in my local paper that a rental car company is selling a lot of their fleet. My thinking is that this might be a good buy because I would think that the rental car companies would do all the necessary and regular maintenance on the cars. What do you think? Would this be a good way to get a used car? What would be some of the risks of getting a car from a rental car company as opposed to from a regular used car lot?

[97guns]

i would never buy a rental because the way i drive rentals

your milage may vary

[lorraineb]

I think that is the biggest risk. People tend to take better care of things they own than things they don't own. I would guess that rental cars get abused a lot more than a car that is owned by an individual. It's at least something to think about.

[snafu]

I've bought sell offs from rental car agencies in the past because they were so cheap. There is no handholding and NO after care. You need to do your homework and try to figure out which models have the best ratings. The downside was vehicles with very high mileage, as is, where is, weird models, over-the-top features and they wanted them gone immediately. There may be lots of tiny dings, dreadful tires, the only warranty is what's left by manufacturer sometimes easy to transfer sometimes very aggravating to transfer. I offered whatever sum I had, and it was accepted! You can likely find the ones that didn't sell at the Saturday AM car auction in your area.

[MonkeyMama]

All our family buys is rentals - they are great cars. (We've had several over the years).

Obviously, don't buy a sports car. (People are rough on sports cars and popular cars like a hybrid will have very high miles). It's really going to depend on the car.

Stick with something low mileage. The cars we have bought were always immaculate inside and out. I think it's a great buy because they tend to be dirt cheap (most people won't buy them) and because they tend to come heavy in features. Some rental companies sell their fleet every year, even if the car has barely been driven, so mostly why we have found them to be a good buy (we buy the ones driven the least).

I've actually never bought directly from a rental company - so no comments there. Tend to be more expensive than buying from a car dealership, which is why we have not bought directly from rental company. They may sell them "as is" - no warranty.

I know you will get 90% of comments how it is the worst thing ever and what the risks are, so just had to share my experience (in my perception there are no risks, but it seems to me the best way to buy a used car. We've taken far worse stabs in the dark buying used cars from complete strangers, so, rentals seem preferable. & the cost savings of course makes up for the overall risk of buying used).

[emanon1501]

Many of them have complete history of all services that was done to the car. You can tell if it was a trouble free car or if it spent some time in the shop for unusual services like new power steering pump.

[ua_guy]

I wouldn't ever buy an ex-rental vehicle. They're extremely chancey. Sometimes you can get a low-mileage, minimally-abused vehicle that turns out to be a good value. But most of them are absolute roaches.

Buyer beware. Most of the rental agencies minimally maintain the vehicles and not always per schedule. Also check the origination of the vehicle. For instance, if you're a West Coaster and you see a rental for sale, you wouldn't want to pick up a vehicle that came from a salt state. They end up in weird places as they get shuffled around in auctions, or as sometimes different franchises trade vehicles for one-way rentals.