Never Buy a Used Rental Car...

[Laneco]

On another thread, a Pelican mentioned having rented a car (Ford Mustang) that had 20K on the clock. It was falling apart. Another Pelican mentioned that 20K on rental car is like 100K on a private vehicle. That second guy? Spot on...

A few years ago, my husband Steve was working at a BOC Gas facility being built out in White City, OR. Because of the dangerous gases and complicated processing, there were quite a few very "high end" intelligent people on this project who were from out of town. They were contracted to do specific portions, say life-safety, programming, etc., stayed for that portion and the moved on. Got to say, they were the most fun loving bunch I've ever seen!

Every Friday, we'd all head down to the local slick-Kart track. This is go-karts on a smooth slippery indoor track. Everyone thinks they have mad driving skills and the trick is to get away with running your competitor off the track without getting kicked out of the building - LOL! Afterward, dinner and a few drinks.

One memorable Friday, it was agreed that the last one to the restaurant had to buy drinks. My husband is very competitive as are quite a few of the other fellows that were on site, most noteable another Steve who we'll just call S.B...

Steve and S.B. give eachother the eye and bolt for the cars. I run pretty fast so I didn't hold my Steve while we piled into the Isuzu Amigo. S.B. got a pretty good jump though, as a former all-state running back this guy had some serious foot speed. He slammed that Olds Alero rental car into drive and spun a huge cloud of dust as he barrelled out of the parking lot. The first 3/4 mile or so are dirt adjacent to a set of rail road tracks. Then you cross the tracks and hit some pavement.

My Steve blasts through the cloud of dust and realizes he can short-cut S.B. by jumping the tracks. It's pretty much the only chance he'll have because once we're on pavement, the Amigo doesn't have a chance of catching the Alero. My Steve picks a dirt jump and bounds right over the tracks - foot to the floor - he's pulling ahead!!!!

But S.B. spots this and makes a command decision... He knows once we're ahead, he won't get to pass. There's a good sized dirt pile by the tracks... S.B. firewalls the Alero and heads straight for it! The pile is hard-pack in the dry summer heat, the Alero catches the leading edge, the suspension compresses, noses scrapes the top and then that car LAUNCHED!!!

I stared increduously at the underside of the Alero as it arced through the air, contrails of dirt streaming behind it, every inch of 5 feet clearance between the car and Earth! WHAMMMMOOOO!!!! It hits the ground and then bounces a good two feet plus back in the air. On the second impact, S.B. was on the gas again, blowing dirt everywhere - and he was ahead of us...

We pulled into the restaurant behind him and climbed out of the Isuzu. The Alero sat there, still dropping dirt off it's undercarraige, engine crackling from the heat, but no dents or broken glass... S.B. looks at us and says:

"That's why you buy the insurance," and walked into the restaurant.

So. Before you figure a used rental car is a good buy - think about that one...
angela

[looneybin]

reminds me of the scene in Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise when they were meeting for dinner with the track owner

[Heel n Toe]

I've been looking for an Alero that can get 5 feet of air.

[Dave L]

That was a great story, well told.

[The Gaijin]

Always get the carfax.

[URY914]

Where is that picture of the rental car in the swimming pool???

[Heel n Toe]

Anybody here ever haunt the newsgroups in the (relatively) early days of the internet?

I remember hanging out in rec.autos.driving and once in awhile people would post stories of how they'd rent a car and see if they could blow it up or tear it up...

Nose it gently up to a building in some remote area, then tromp on the gas and do a 5-minute tire cook.

Take it to the desert and run it full throttle, stuck in the sand.

Drive it over all kinds of horrible stuff like crossties.

Anybody here remember those stories?

[Laneco]

Originally Posted by looneybin

reminds me of the scene in Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise when they were meeting for dinner with the track owner

I remember that - best scene in the movie! The Alero vs Isuzu was like that only shorter, slower and no dents. But way, way more REAL air and just as much testesterone!

Couple of guys from work rented a single vehicle and drove down to San Francisco to do a weekend job. Bunch of young guys - you just know something is going to go wrong...

Little auto trans rental car - loaded with five guys. Somebody is horsing around in the back seat and kicks between the front buckets. Hits the console mounted shift lever and throws the car into reverse at around 45 mph... I didn't think they actually got it into reverse, but apparently they did lock it up and stopped with stunning abruptness, then it wouldn't shift right and they had to turn the rental car back in because "it doesn't shift right."

Wow - you think? Surprised it didn't just yack the trans out right there on the road...

angela

[Steve Viegas]

Reminds me of the joke, what is the difference between a 4x4 and a rental?

There are somethings you just won't do in a 4x4.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

OK true story here:

Some years ago (back when I lived in FL) I was involved in an accident where a bluehair (lots of them in FL) T-boned my Mustang GT in the parking lot of a shopping center because she rolled through a stop sign without looking. Cops showed up, lady was at fault, yada yada. So the car had to go in for repairs (passenger door & rear fender were completely jacked). So I get a ride up to the nearest Ford dealership so they can do the repairs. Okay, fine. Good news is the insurance provided me with a rental car while mine was down for repair. Bad news is it was a really underpowered Ford Escort. And it was a station wagon. And it was white. Screamed "mom-mobile". For a 23-year-old guy, going from a 5-liter red Mustang that was his pride and joy to THAT was just nearly insufferable. But it was tranportation, and it was free. So I took it.

That vehicle did not have an easy life. I'll just put it at that. Within 24 hours of my having picked it up, I had put over 300 miles on it, learned how to make an anemic 4-cylinder Escort do burnouts and donuts, and had to call one of my friends to have it winched out of a swamp with his 4x4 Bronco. That was just the beginning. Over the next few weeks I used it to haul lots of beer, lots more people than it was designed for, heavy band/stage equipment, you-name-it. I took it to a local weekend parking lot auto-x event. Twice. Good laughs.

The crowning achievement was when my buddy in his Dodge Stealth (remember those?) tried to show me up after running an errand one Saturday morning. We were leaving a shopping center and because of the time, there was practically nobody in the (large) parking lot. As he was jumping into his car, he said "I'll race you back". All I needed to hear. He had a slight head start and headed for the exit of the shopping center. Undeterred, I figured I could beat him by cutting across the diagonal of the shopping center (across all the striped rows) since there were no other cars in this expansive lot. He was doing the 90-degree path to the main entrance/exit to the street, I just spun my Escort around and went for the exit on the diagonal path.

A Ford Escort station wagon WILL hit over 60 in a parking lot before running out of asphalt.

The grading of this particular parking lot was... shall we say... "poor".

Just before reaching the entrance/exit of the parking lot where it emptied onto the main street (which necessitated driving across a small bit of curb and about 10' worth of grass landscaping) I saw (too late) a pretty substantial heave in the parking lot. The Escort caught air (yes, really) at about 50 miles an hour and came crashing back down onto the middle of the grass area with a satisfying noise and lots of sod flying about. I had managed to beat my friend to the exit but rather than continuing the "race" back to campus, we stopped - both unable to breathe because of laughing so hard.

I noticed at this point that a plastic air dam on the bottom of the front bumper had been sheared completely off the car and was lying back in the sod. I picked it up, chucked it in the back and we both left before anyone started asking questions or any cops showed up.

When the time came to return the car, I ran it through the car wash and briefly contemplated how to re-attach the plastic air dam (still sitting in the back). Wasn't gonna' happen - zip ties or whatever else would've looked too obvious and the underside of the bumper was "clean" - there was just one piece of remaining plastic hanging down, so I tore that off with my hands and threw the whole mess into the dumpster. Brought the car back, signed over the insurance company check and picked up my Mustang (now looking spic-and-span after its trip to the body shop). They never said a word.

This is where the story gets good... Fast-forward about three months.

My roommate at the time had plans to drive back up to New York to attend a friend's wedding. He didn't really want to drive his car and didn't want to fly (wanted a car when he got there) so he decided to check rentals for the trip. Lo-and-behold the only place that would rent to him (he wasn't 25 yet) was the same Ford dealership where I'd had my Mustang repaired and whose Escort I'd so mercilessly tortured. I offered to give him a ride up there to pick up his rental, with the bemused thought in the back of my mind of "wouldn't it be funny if he ended up with the same Escort". I was so hoping it would happen, and I actually looked for the Escort when we got there, but it was nowhere to be found. Not to be. He ended up with a Ford Probe GT.

HOWEVER, during the course of our standing in line, the rental chick at the counter overheard us talking about his trip and asked him "where are you driving this?" to which he (honestly) responded "New York - I need it to attend a friend's wedding". She paused and then said "I'm sorry, I can't do that - these cars aren't supposed to be taken out of the state". Hmm. Didn't know that (nobody had asked). As they were discussing back-and-forth about this, the supervisor happened to walk by and took an interest in the discussion. Finally after a few seconds, she said, "oh, you know what? I remember him" (pointing to me). My blood ran cold. "Uh-oh", I'm thinking to myself. "They must've found out about the Escort". Then she goes on, "He's a really great customer of ours - he rented a car from us a while back for over a month and brought it back in great shape - I think you can trust this guy". I couldn't believe it. Yes, she REALLY said this. I'm wondering to myself if she's pulling my leg, setting me up and about to drop the hammer on me, but then she goes on (talking to me now), "are you going to need another rental too?" I was kinda' speechless but just managed to say "no thanks, I just gave my friend here a ride today". The supervisor then told the rental chick to give my roommate the Probe and away he went.

So the moral of the story is (I guess), the more of a young, irresponsible douchebag you are and the worse you treat a rental, the more they value you. I think.

[Heel n Toe]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

So the moral of the story is (I guess), the more of a young, irresponsible douchebag you are and the worse you treat a rental, the more they value you. I think.

L O L ...no, this is probably the reason they remember you:

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

When the time came to return the car, I ran it through the car wash

Great story!

[sammyg2]

My father has bought a few used rental cars over the years and has had very good luck with them. the difference is he buys Lincolns, not mustangs that have been abused by punks.

My guess is that it depends on what kind if car it is and what type of people are likely to rent it.

[fastfredracing]

As a rule , I have always considered myself a "Hertz test pilot". We have had some true fun with retnal cars in the past .

[poorsche930]

Originally Posted by Steve Viegas

Reminds me of the joke, what is the difference between a 4x4 and a rental?

There are somethings you just won't do in a 4x4.

Thats funny and true. When I was younger I severely BEAT ANY RENTAL I had. Not to mention I had family that worked for HERTZ and got to see first hand how the cars were returned.

NEVER EVER EVEN THINK OF BUYING A RENTAL. It's like marrying a prostitute.

[on2wheels52]

Not to put in a plug for the 'Jackas* video group but I caught their section on a car rental. It seems they enter it in a domolition derby.
Jim

[cgarr]

We had guys show up at the rally's and autox's with them!

[porsche4life]

My dad shot the median in a dodge caliber rental.
One of the blue collar boys does a bit on the whole insurance and a rental car think.

[cameron.arnott]

When I was in my 20's and living in London as a backpacker I had a job working for Hertz as a distribution driver which meant that we would basically move cars around the country to wherever they needed to be.

We used to drive as a team, the size of which would depend on how many cars there were to shift and we would start work at 6pm and finish when all the cars were moved, sometime mid morning the next day if it was a big night.

Getting paid by the job encouraged sheer lunacy behind the wheel I look back at what we did in those cars and still laugh about it. It didn't matter if you broke one you'd just go and get another! It used to be a game dodging the police and not getting caught speeding, driving as a team carving through traffic making sure no-one got left behind by blocking other cars to create gaps.

Tiny Fiats on three wheels around round abouts, breaking gearboxes, burnouts, rally driving, handbrake turns, flogging brand new cars as hard as possible, ah those were the days

[lm6y]

Jeff, I can beat the Escort for a rental. My insurance got me an Aries K Wagon with WOODGRAIN sides!

Jumping railroad tracks with 5 guys in the car will blow out the seals in the rear shocks.

It was carbureted, so you could drive down the road, shut the key off, and hold the gas pedal to the floor. when you turned it back on, it would backfire, and "Shotgun Blast" a stream of fire out the exhaust pipe. Old people do not appreciate a "Shotgun Blast" from an Aries K wagon with woodgrain sides.

When you run it so hard it burns the oil out of it, cheap-o "Huck's" gear lube will make oil light go out, and make the ugly knocks go away.

That poor car, I almost feel bad about that.

Nahh, not really.

[Dottore]

P.J. O'Rourke said it best:

"The fasted car is a rental car."