Beware When Buying a Used Car!

[johnsears1]

Enterprise buys something like 2% of the cars that GM produces every year, and depending on what type of car it is, will keep it in service for a time and then sell it at auction. (All rental companies do this, not just ERAC to be fair.)

Once sold at auction, it sits on a used car lot and is eventually sold. (In fact, most cars on used car lots are former rentals.) Keep this in mind if you're ever shopping for a car; On more than one occasion I took a car in for it's scheduled oil change/tire rotation service, only to find out from the technition that it NEVER HAD BEEN DONE BEFORE. (This on cars with 15-30,000 miles on it.) Also think about how people treat rentals; Hard braking, hard accelerating, etc...

ERAC also has a retail car sales division, where I was told they took the best cars they had and put them up for sale. (I would imagine that they would only sell cars that were given their routine maintenance, as to protect themselves from selling lemons and hurting their image, but who can be sure?)

Just keep this in mind if you're ever on Fast Eddie's U-zed Cars lot and spot a nice looking Chevy Malibu. Chances are there was once a green E sticker on the bumper.

so...whats your point?

If you want to avoid buying rental car avoid buying a crappy American car. Buy an import like Honda or Toyota, they are very rarely used as rentals and a better overall car.

Originally Posted by johnsears1

Enterprise buys something like 2% of the cars that GM produces every year, and depending on what type of car it is, will keep it in service for a time and then sell it at auction. (All rental companies do this, not just ERAC to be fair.)

Once sold at auction, it sits on a used car lot and is eventually sold. (In fact, most cars on used car lots are former rentals.) Keep this in mind if you're ever shopping for a car; On more than one occasion I took a car in for it's scheduled oil change/tire rotation service, only to find out from the technition that it NEVER HAD BEEN DONE BEFORE. (This on cars with 15-30,000 miles on it.) Also think about how people treat rentals; Hard braking, hard accelerating, etc...

ERAC also has a retail car sales division, where I was told they took the best cars they had and put them up for sale. (I would imagine that they would only sell cars that were given their routine maintenance, as to protect themselves from selling lemons and hurting their image, but who can be sure?)

Just keep this in mind if you're ever on Fast Eddie's U-zed Cars lot and spot a nice looking Chevy Malibu. Chances are there was once a green E sticker on the bumper.

Haha, theres no way a technician can tell when an oil change has been done on a car! He can probably guess by looking at the viscosity break down of the oil, but theres no way he could know for sure. A car that had no oil change for 30,000 miles would most likely not even run or at least being making some pretty horrible noises. Maybe he meant that the car had never had an oil change where ever you took it.....