What do we think of ex-rental cars?

The history behind these helps make them both rare and desirable.

Just don't pay a huge premium over a non-Hertz GT, and you should be fine down the road.

When I worked for a race team as a young ‘un, many, MANY years ago, the stuff my bosses would do to rentals...

His personal favorite was to see how close he could get to the concrete parking stop in a parking space, by going 20mph and throwing the car in park.  

Whenever we would leave the track, he would engage the parking brake (FWD car) and drive out to the exit, waving like a shiny happy person to every man, woman, and child trying to tell him his parking brake was on.  And once out on the highway, he liked to pull up on the handbrake at highway speeds (when it was clear) to get the car totally sideways.  He liked stopping for directions, and ‘starting’ the car while it was already running as well.

In Portland, Or., two of our drivers were taking their wives to a restaurant, and passed a garbage truck around the outside of a clover leaf ramp.  The right side tires got the worst of it on the curbing, ripping the valve stem.  They taped it up with duct tape, and stuck the hubcap back on to turn it in.

In reply to racerfink :

That's pretty much the sum of my concerns about ex-rentals.

I probably rent cars, 3-4 times a month on average for business, 99% of the times from Hertz, typically mid-to-full size, although lately, it's been quite a cornucopia of rentals (Challengers, 300s, Jeeps, etc).   It's amazing how rough a rental car can be with 30 or 40,000 miles.  It's like rentals age in dog years or something.  My wife's Rogue with 40k, and a rental with 40k seems like they existed on different planets.

While I'm sure there are exceptions, I'd be nervous about buying an ex-rental, unless I was buying it at awfully good discount.

Maybe Captdownshift will chime in at some point regarding "race vans"...

 The Chevy dealer I worked for bought them by the trailer load.  They would be gone by the end of the week.   Had a couple that needed brake pads.    Oh, these were Cavaliers.

dean1484 said:

I read someplace that cars like this have gps tracking as well as data acquisition units in them that keep track of what you are doing with there rental.  

That's definitely a thing. A good friend* rented a Shelby GT-H back in 2006 or 2007 and took it to the track. He had booked an HPDE but his track car was broken, so he figured might as well take a rental. When he returned it, he got hit with a huge fine and was blocked from renting from Hertz in the future. Apparently, there was a black box and he managed to trigger it.

[*Honestly, it was a friend ... not me!]

If they only made 140 new GT-Hs, and the fact that was always titled as a true Shelby, if you take care of it, I can't imagine loosing any money on it. 

The maintenance is usually tip-top.  No worries there.  If it was a Camry, I'd say go for it.  The base stock is great, they turn them over pretty frequently, so a 20k camry that a grandfather rented at a destination airport to go see his new grandson is a good bet.

A GT-H?  People rent those for one reason.  Hooning.

I suppose if it's relatively low mileage, I could see it being OK, but the specialty cars they tend to hang onto for a little longer to get a return on their investment.  The problem with rentals is that you just can't know.  It might have been rented 20 times by knowledgeable, careful drivers.... or it could have been rented 100 times by the same autocrosser and it ate more cones than a kid at Dairy Queen.

dean1484 said:

I read someplace that cars like this have gps tracking as well as data acquisition units in them that keep track of what you are doing with there rental.  

This could be internet myth and legend but if I was renting this type of car I would put it in and look at it after every rental and charge accordingly for violations of the fine print that I am sure is in the rental agreement. It would be very easy to do and not expensive to add to the car. 

I had heard this also but ran a rental car at Road Atlanta in HPDE for a weekend when I couldn't use my own car due to technical difficulties & logistics. Flew into Atlanta & rented a Cobalt. Turned out the car had a 99 MPH limiter built in (probably due to tire limits) and even going down the hill into 10A it wouldn't go over 99. Was fun driving a momentum car and trying to see how much of the track could be run at full throttle. Went 2 wheels off and 4 wheels off once each. Returned car needing tires & brakes but never heard anything from rental company. Things may have changed with the newest cars.

I will relate two rental car stories.  99% of my rental cars are boring and I just want to get to some meetings and maybe a dinner.  I have never abused them in any way, and they have been mechanically perfect.  I would not hesitate to buy an SUV or sedan that was a former rental.  

I rented a Corvette Convertible to drive out West once, it was so beat when I got it it was scary to drive at a normal pace, let alone at an LT4 pace.  I would never want to buy a "fun" car from a rental place.  

The miles on a Shelby are put on a quarter mile at a time....

There is a couple guys local to me who rent GT-H and do test and tune nights with them. One car might or might not be flashed and might or might not have been sprayed. 

 I will say this, I rented a convertible Mustang turbo, and I am 33 years old. Now granted, I am a car guy, and I did my fair share of freeway pulls up to 100 miles an hour, but I did not trash that vehicle. In fact, I was meticulous about parking it away from things so I would not get door dings and I only did one burn out and one donut in the high school parking lot in Florida. But other than that, I did not abuse the vehicle. 

So you have a few things going for you, namely that the people that can afford that mustang are generally financially intelligent and old enough to have a little bit of common sense. Now, if it was a cheaper vehicle, I would be really worried. 

Being a gt-h,  don’t forget to check and make sure the engine is the correct one. (only mustang fans will know what I’m talking about, LOL)

My 2017 Grand Caravan GT is an ex-rental from Enterprise.  Mechanically it seems OK, but there are a few items I missed during my initial inspection that will be a bit of a PITA to fix.  A cover on the 3rd row seats - not noticed with the seats up, but obvious when down (which for me is 99.9% of the time).  The latch for the passenger side stow-and-go seat is broken, so I have to manually pull the latch lever under the seat to release it to stow.  The passenger side sliding door is flakey, I've got it to open a couple of times, but the key button doesn't always work.

So you have a few things going for you, namely that the people that can afford that mustang are generally financially intelligent and old enough to have a little bit of common sense. Now, if it was a cheaper vehicle, I would be really worried. 

I wish I felt comfortable saying anything other than “BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!” Perhaps I’m in the “1%” ...err.... “minority” though.

Not too long ago I remember someone asking for bottle in a bag advice for a Uhaul or home depot rental truck. 

Having bought police vehicles before, I'd be very leery of a rental.

Unless it's a Chiron, because idiots are spending $20k/day rental just to take instaberktard pictures with. 

poopshovel again said:

So you have a few things going for you, namely that the people that can afford that mustang are generally financially intelligent and old enough to have a little bit of common sense. Now, if it was a cheaper vehicle, I would be really worried. 

I wish I felt comfortable saying anything other than “BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!” Perhaps I’m in the “1%” ...err.... “minority” though.

Believe me, the thought crossed my mind many, many times. Each time it was “WTF is wrong me?!?!? Am I growing up?”

my parents have purchased from the enterprise lot here in town and other former rentals. they've all been surprisingly good to them. 88 olds cutlass ciera back in the day, 05 century and 11 fusion

they all fall squarely into the boring category though, so that helps them. the other end of the spectrum i would worry about would be the cars that are so ANNOYINGLY underpowered you will absolutely ride it as hard as you can. for instance i borrowed a friend's new-to-him 20 year old geo metro with the big 4 cylinder. i drove it 250 miles that night, keeping a new challenger just on the horizon as radar bait. however, in order to keep it on the horizon at 90mph i had the car floored, completely floored, for 2 hours straight while following the guy.

afterward i realized that was a pretty jacked up thing to do to them and apologized for it.

meanwhile the car still managed 46mpg

My wife's last three cars, a '94 Taurus, a '1 Taurus, and a '14 Impala were rentals, and fairly good cars, with 140k (sold, crashed), 120k (trans front seal failure, sold, crashed), and 60k (still going) respectively. 

_ said:

poopshovel again said:

So you have a few things going for you, namely that the people that can afford that mustang are generally financially intelligent and old enough to have a little bit of common sense. Now, if it was a cheaper vehicle, I would be really worried. 

I wish I felt comfortable saying anything other than “BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!” Perhaps I’m in the “1%” ...err.... “minority” though.

Believe me, the thought crossed my mind many, many times. Each time it was “WTF is wrong me?!?!? Am I growing up?”

Oh. No. What I meant was:

GT-H, Maserati(s), C63 AMG(s), Ferrari California, XKR, R8, and the “Track Slut” C7 vette.

None were driven in the “adult” manner which you describe. 

We considered an ex rental-fleet caravan, and even those were so trashed, we’re leaning toward buying new. For a luxury/sports whatever car? Not just no, but HELL berkeleyING NO.

As far as these cars being “religiously maintained” I don’t buy it. Not for a second. You’ve worked with the employees at the rental place, right? The “track slut” vette never has four matching tires. Neither did the Ferrari.

Unless the OP is just buying this thing hoping to make money at auction 20 years from now, you could do much better with way less risk.

Some of th worst cars I've ever driven have been rentals, and it's the reason that I take rental car reviews with a grain of salt. I have looked at previous rentals in the low mileage, boring category as a daily, but the price has never been low enough to justify the risk. A performance car? Not unless it was priced at pennies on the dollar.

I'd probably just buy a new Mustang GT premium with the 10spd auto for the same price (and very likely less) and call it good. 

In reply to z31maniac :

Where are those mythical beasts then? I can't find an on-the-lot GT Premium with the auto for less than $40-42k then? Truecar shows a market average of 43k for one with roughly the options I want. And no, I don't have the time to scour the market all the way across the country to find one and deal with the shipping hassle.

That said, I've not driven a recent GT - I have driven a couple of Ecoboosts, and I'm not that big a fan. Probably should find the time to check one out in my ample spare time.

The comments above pretty much reflect my concerns and prejudices. As there are ample threads showing how well this type of gamble tends to work out for me I think I'm giving these cars a wide berth.

BoxheadTim said:

In reply to z31maniac :

Where are those mythical beasts then? I can't find an on-the-lot GT Premium with the auto for less than $40-42k then? Truecar shows a market average of 43k for one with roughly the options I want. And no, I don't have the time to scour the market all the way across the country to find one and deal with the shipping hassle.

That said, I've not driven a recent GT - I have driven a couple of Ecoboosts, and I'm not that big a fan. Probably should find the time to check one out in my ample spare time.

 

Looks like it's all 2017s at that price and lower, which don't have the new 10spd and Gen III Coyote engine (if that's important to you). But that drivetrain is a better comparison to the car you're looking at. 

MSRP on a 2019 Mustang GT Premium with the $1600 auto transmission ~$42k. Of course you can option it up to $50k+ if you want. And you can always get Mustangs a few thousand less than MSRP.

When I ordered mine years ago, I called the dealer I wanted to work with. Got the guy on the phone whom I had done a test drive with the previous week and said, "I have a $1000 deposit check for you to order me a white, base '13 Mustang GT w/Track pack. Call me back with a price good enough I won't have to bother another dealer, and I'll be there within 15 minutes of your call."

$3700 off MSRP. I've ready here that some dealers don't seem to want to order cars, but I've never had a problem with it.