Jughead

Well I just punched in the VIN # for this 2001 V-10 Excursion into Carfax and its clean except that it's a RENTAL vehicle??? Previous owner was listed as a major car rental company..

Should I stay away....Vehicle looks great though. do you think its beat??? It still has balance of factory warranty.


[Modified by 1970 Stingray, 12:49 PM 12/21/2001]

Garys '68

Thought for the day;
"Nothing parties like a rental."
my $0.02
Gary

Alwyn678

Man u better RUN do not Walk away,,,There are people out there..like me (YEARS AGO)...that use rentals as Test vehicles to see what a car can do and how much punishment it will withstand.....TRUST ME I have a large number of friends that do the same......They will rent a car then literally beat the shiaat out of it for kicks.....ya know throw it drive then reverse and other things as well

GOOD LUCK

UKPaul

NO WAY! :nono:
Paul

Stewart's74

Stingray,
You ever hear the saying "I'm gonna treat it like a rental!"
or after driving over a curb the driver says to his passenger "Dont worry, its only a rental"??
Nuff Said. :nono: :nono:

Stew

Rowdy Rat

The Shelby GT350H Mustangs that were built for Hertz were probably the most famous of the "rent a racers"... Lots of great stories about some of those cars!

My favorite Corvette rental story appeared in a 1969 issue of Car Life... "The owner of a rental fleet in St. Louis has a shopful of L-88s which overheat constantly in traffic; and he wishes Duntov would do something. Duntov wishes people wouldn't buy racing cars for use in cities." Personally, I think that every rental fleet should have a couple of L-88s available... :)

For something special (like the above mentioned cars), I'd probably buy an ex-rental car. For a run of the mill car or truck for transportation, probably not.

Good luck with your decision!

Regards,

Jughead

:(

Not what I wanted to hear. Looks and runs great. No scratches, dents or dings.

Last time I rented a vehicle was a couple years ago and they road tested it before and after the rental and went over the entire exterior & interior looking for dents, chips & scratches??? Has that changed?

This one ran better than a NEW 2001 I road tested. this one's gonna die hard. It was a great price too! :cry

Alwyn678

Buy it at your own risk..I may run well now and blow up in a year......Trust me people do stuff to rentals that they nnever ever would try with their own vehicle :eek:

0Mike69@ECS

:yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod: Guilty :yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod:

Paul L

Dissenting voice. Generally fleet cars are well serviced/maintained. The many I have used were mechanically sound and clean. Pay out an hour's labour to a trusted mechanic and get an opinion.

JB

I'll second Paul. They're maintained better than most privately owned vehicles, and my impression is that a very high percentage of them are rented to business types, not to leisure users who might abuse them. I've owned two "program cars" and have been very happy with both of them.

JB

'78SA

1980 razz

rental cars are driven super hard..im a fine example i drive a rental like i would never drive my own..they are however well maintained by the shops(a few freinds work at rentals here in hawaii)..i would buy a rental car accordingly..they ussaully sell for a lower price due to the fact that they where rental so if u are purchasing for a few thousand below standard price of vehicle ur on the right track..if the price is the same or close to going price of the vehicle,,look elsewhere..lol hope this helps

scottw

Stay away!!
I know that I am a pretty responsible guy with cars but I still don't treat a rental car anywhere near how I treat my own cars. Just think of all the people who actually try and rag the rental cars out!!!

jerryp58

Well, I agree with a lot of the posts here.

FWIW, I just bought a rental (a 2000 Grand Am).

The two main thoughts I had were: 1. I'm sure this thing has been abused by someone or several someones, and 2. I would think it's been well maintained, but there's no way to tell for sure.

I did use the abuse idea to try for more discount (not sure if I really got it; I don't buy or sell cars well).

Also, the car had only 6k miles left on the three year bumper-to-bumper warranty, so I extended the original warranty (a little cheaper than buying a separate warranty) so that I have 45k miles and 3-1/2 years left on it. The car looks great, and I figure if the engine or trans drop out of the thing over the next three years, I'm covered. I guess when it comes down to the "abuse factor", how many in this forum drive their cars not "like a rental", but "like they stole it"?

A dealer car plus: I'll never forget when I traded in an '87 Stanza that I thought was in great condition. I went back to the dealer a couple of days later for tinting on my new minivan windows and noticed the Stanza in the back of the lot with a rejected inspection sticker on it. I asked the salesman what the deal was and he said there was a pinhole in one of the power steering hoses. I was impressed :eek: .

Whatever you decide, Good Luck.

69er

I'm one of the many "rental abusers".
I'll be abusing one in Fla.next month!

I wouldn't buy one.

garagedweller2

how badly can you wreck an excursion? then again, you don't know where it has been in. ;)

76 Shark

It's 6 to 1, half dozen to the other. I definitely wouldn't buy a Vette or one of those Ferraris off a rental place. You KNOW someone beat the crap out of it. Plus it wasn't broken in correctly.

On the other hand, a daily driver might not be bad. They do service the heck out of those cars - they HAVE to to keep making money. And their warranties are good.

On a personal aside, since there were four of us, we rented a Deville to take to the Woodward Ave Dream Cruise this past August. Nice car, and even with 1,000 pounds of passengers we were able to take an IROC Z :D Definitely drove that one like it was a rental...

Scott78

I agree with the well maintained aspect of a fleet vehicle. But I worked at Minneapolis/St.Paul Airport for several years and witnessed the "runners" returning the cars from the airport lot the maintainence facility. And I swear they attempt to keep as many wheels off the ground as they can on the return trip. Thats not to say you can't find a decent one out of the bunch, but I'd say it's risky IMHO.
Scott

76 Shark

Scott 78 has a point there. I ran rental cars one summer during college (drive one to Chicago, bring one back five to Moline, etc). I think we had to be harder on those cars than any customer ever was.

Best story: One of the guys at the O'Hare lot said one of the worst he ever saw was TOTALED ON THEIR LOT BY AN EMPLOYEE (though they never figured out who did it). This person walked away and left it, with 6 miles on the odometer...

EricU

Run, run, run away! I am also one of those business types and I look forward to thrashing the Lincoln LS's that I usally get, though in Dallas all they had were V6 Chrysler 300M's, pretty impressive shifting that thing at 6500 rpm (or whatever the tach said when then computer took over!)

Eric.