The sex industry has a motto: if you don't get it, it's not for you. Never mind all those activities involving non-reproductive bodily fluids, military fatigues and/or extra-legal restraining orders, I don't get hookers. I'm not saying I don't understand why other people employ prostitutes, and I'm not saying I've never paid for sex (and not in that "one way or another" sense). But if I had done so, I am saying I probably would have found it an incredibly unsatisfying experience. (Can you imagine the tortuous language OJ Simpson must use in his non-confessional confessional?) Same goes for rental cars.
I am fully aware that many pistonheads relish rentals, safe in the knowledge that there won't be any long-term consequences for any motorized misbehavior (provided they tick the right boxes). But I can't stand them (rental cars, not my beloved pistonheads). I suppose I might change my mind if I ever rented a car worth driving– as opposed to the asthmatic pre-beaters the rental companies foist on their suspecting customers. Ford Mustang V6? Chevrolet Impala? Toyota Vanilla? You gotta be kidding. Quite simply, I've never met a rental car I liked.
And while I will never compromise my commitment to calling it like I see it, I have just about enough tact left in me not to want to return someone else's car in pieces. That said, it happens. I've knocked the wing mirror off a Land Rover, watched an electric gate crease the side of a Civic and woken-up to an Infiniti sitting on milk crates (as opposed to tires). And I've seen journos crash press cars. In all cases, the PR flacks involved trotted out the "as long as no one was hurt" shibboleth. Which says a lot about PR flacks– one way or another.
When it comes to lunching a rental car, I reckon the paperwork must make it worth not crashing. Sure, you only pay the deductible, but insurance companies know all too well that traumatizing all parties involved with endless, excessive, obsessive bureaucracy is the best way to prevent future accidents. And, of course, you have to fill out a police report. "I was driving at a safe and reasonable speed when the car's front end suddenly and inexplicably began to understeer. The vehicle plowed nose-first into the curb, at approximately 25 miles per hour." Thankfully, I can only imagine the look the trooper must give drivers of recently creased automobiles when they hand over the rental car agreement.
In short, I don't like breaking cars. It runs against my nature, imprinted into my subconscious mind during all those times I broke my own car with one stupid ass stunt or another. [Note to self: check road for leaves before testing tire adhesion.] And while I can appreciate the skills involved in driving a really horrible car really fast, I find that the really horrible cars that rental car companies provide are so horrible that driving them fast is, well, horrible. And for me, defying death is not half as satisfying as trying to find my way where I'm going without wandering into the middle of a 3am drag race in the wrong part of Philadelphia (no, really).
Anyway, JD Power reckons the rental car industry is getting better: faster, happier, shinier and more customer friendly. Well, good for them. And good for all the poor sad bastards who must take their laptops to places where people couldn't care less if they died in a horrible car wreck, never mind whether or not they made a compelling PowerPoint presentation. I’ve seen those haunted faces in the rental shuttles. I’ve heard their loud locker room talk with their cohorts, as they prepare their egos to drive a car that grinds them down with the mechanical equivalent of an endless loop of Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
I know there are exotic car rental companies that will loan you a Porsche, Ferrari or Merc. And the mainstream players are beginning to catch on that people are willing to pay extra for a car that doesn’t suck-out their soul. But until and unless Hertz et al rent out an Audi S4 for the price of a V6 Mustang, I’m always going to regard that walk to space H8 as a stroll down death row. They can wash them, clean them and de-cigarette smoke them, but rental cars will always be a kind of automotive purgatory, always endured rather than enjoyed. Which probably accounts for so many enthusiasts’ desire to punish their rentals. And that, my friends, is kinky.
I would never buy a used car from a rental agency.
I remember watching a television show about cars. The guy who considered himself to be an “expert” was blabbing about how buying a used car from a rental agency was such a great deal, because you get the vehicle’s complete service history and you know that things like regular oil changes have been done.
BULLSH#T!
I worked for a major car rental agency at DFW (Dallas Fort Worth International) around 1985-1986. When cars where pulled for oil changes, and the mechanics saw that the last oil change was many, many miles ago, they where required (told by lower management) to enter a false date for a false previous oil change.
This was done because the maintenance facility was not adequate for the number of cars. Upper management bragged ad nauseam about how our volume was second only to LAX in Los Angeles, but falsification of maintenance was never brought up and never discussed, and what upper management did not “know explicitly” did not hurt them, because it meant they could go on without additional capital investments and the unsuspecting public buying these used cars from the agency would continue to buy them. (I do not know if the rental agency still operates a used car lot, I know they did back then.)
Aaahhh, American Capitalism. Complete with huge rewards for CEOs for a job well done.
Also, we used to beat the crap out of these cars. We would take ’em to the parking lots to work on our “J-turn ” maneuvers. This is when you get it up to abut 45 MPH in reverse, then throw the steering wheel hard and slam on the brakes intiating a 180 degree turn, then you put it in drive and release the brakes and throw the steering wheel hard in the opposite direction and floor it. This maneuver is taught to the chauffeurs of Italian industrialists so they can make a clean get away from a road block kidnapping attempt. (This also explains why Italian industrialists prefer to be chauffeured in competent sports sedans, unlike their American over-paid counterfarts who prefer ground dragging penile extensions.)
Some years after my rental car employment a yuppie businessman at a bar was telling me how much fun he would have with rental cars. He said he would throw the thing in reverse while it was moving forward at highway speeds, destroying the automatic tranny and spraying the entire engine compartment with tranny fluid. I do not know if he was telling the truth; I never remembered seeing any rental cars towed in with a destroyed tranny like that, so you can take that story with a grain of salt.
I like driving rental cars because it helps me learn, in your words, the “truth about cars.” It’s less agonizing than taking a new car test drive with a salesman on board and it’s more illuminating than ogling the latest vehicles at an auto show. By renting, I learned the pros and cons of the Prizm, the. Contour, the Camry, the Grand Marquis, the Stratus, and others.
Re Allen5h: That was more than 20 years ago that you had that experience. I have friends who have bought rental cars and had excellent luck w/ them (anecdotal, I know). One advantage of rental cars: Iread about a study some tim ein the last year, and although I can’t remember the details at all, the upshot was that a lot of different driver styles, as with getting rented by different people, result in better break-in on the engine. My uncle’s former rental olds didn’t use a drop of oil at around 100k.
Hmm I see thats a nice 079 V8 you’ve got there (rear chain drive).
Some years back I had my A4 sedan in for service, I was given a loaner car I think it was a buick regal or some such crime against hedonistic motoring. When returning the plane jane buick which I drove like I could fix it (which I can’t) I had a improptu exchange of words with the enterprise rent-a-dullard guy. He asked me if I was satisfied, which for the record is the wrong question to ask me when the subject involves a buick. I returned his apt concern for my business with a few words to the effect that I hated the buicks and I dont like american cars a whole lot hence why I am driving an Audi not a buick. There was no reply, I eagerly returned the keys back to his brandy newish buick for those of my much older, higher mile, whipped like the geek in pulp fiction sex slave A4.
Poor rental car guy, I think he may have sincerely hoped I’d be pleased by the regal which smelled like smokes and had a cup holder occupied by some juicyfruit wrappers. Meh, he got his.
Rental cars are there to remind everyone how dull and awful cars can be. Every time I think I spend too much money on my own cars and come to the conclusion that maybe a nice used Camry should be enough to get me to work, rental cars come to the rescue and cure me of such foolish notions with their sheer mediocrity and zero-fun-by-design engineering.
Most are even too dreadful to invite abuse – no matter how you cane it a Malibu, Taurus or Corolla will never bring a smile to your face.
Carguy,
It can be plenty of fun to treat the rental car to the sort of automotive beating and rape common to Law & Order SVU victims. Find a skunk… run it over till the car smells of the stink gland. Find some speed bumps or better yet a railroad crossing and see just how much air you can catch… extra points awarded for style and or hang time. Drive using both feet! Why let off the throttle at a red light, just hold the brake and rev her up… wee check out my oil temp hi score!
If I hate a car enough I can honsetly say I get sadistic pleasure from tormenting it out of existance. I would honestly wreck a rental car and not feel bad about it so long as I had taken out the insurance.
D. Holzman – Thank you for your anecdotal update. It is good to know that people like your uncle have purchased used cars from rental car agencies and have been satisfied with their purchase.
For the sake of the used car buying customers of the car rental agency that I worked for at DFW way back then, I hope they have updated their facilities by now.
Also, I am now completely disenfranchised with “studies.” To me, “studies” are nothing more than some Doctors of Medicine or Phds or political think tanks willing to rubberstamp some pre-conceived agenda in exchange for money. When the MSM gets ready to quote these things I know to prepare and brace myself for a bunch of BS. This study that you refer to may very well have been paid for by one or more rental car agencies.
I frequently rent cars and I always hope to get something nice and it always turns out to be a POS. Depending on my budget and on what I can find on sale at any given moment, I end up with varying degrees of crap. The Cobalt was probably the low point.
Last time I rented one it was from Hertz, and they are really make strides with their offer. They had an S60, an A6, a XC90, plus obviously the “H” mustang. I got a Saturn Vue (somehow the agent thought she was doing me a favor by upgrading me from a Taurus) and the entire two weeks (and 3K miles) I spent with it were spent trying to decide how a company could make such a horrible car. The 250 hp V6 wasn’t too bad, but as a car…I couldn’t even bring myself to beat it to shit, I felt too sorry for it. It’s like the ugly kid in 5th grade. He gets picked on by everyone else…I was just past the point of being mean and thinking, what can I do to for this poor poor creation?
The only car I was tempted to rent for pleasure was a BMW 1 series (surely the 120d, but still), when one of the European renters were running weekend deals. I never did, because they basically doubled the price after taxes, insurance and whatever other costs that threw in there.
I have to rent cars a few times a year, and I always try to get something interesting. I’ll let you all know when this happens – Robert, I hope that this site is around in 2055.
Budget Beverly Hills has a nice collection of sports cars (not supercars anymore, they sold them to Beverly Hills Rent-a-car). You can rent regular boxster (stick), S2000, SLK 350, 350Z (auto sadly), and a couple others in that range for a “reasonable” price. You can also go down two blocks and rent a Viper or Ferrari from Beverly Hills Rent-A-Car for $800 and $1100 per day respectively
Um, yeah, I investigated the insurance deal when I rented a car in Atlanta… I didn’t pick up the insurance, because my credit card would cover it… but it went something to the fact that had I wrecked the car, I would’ve had to pay for all repairs, and then wait for reimbursement through my credit card company. I didn’t want to pay the extra money for the no-hassle crap they offer you at the rental place, and thankfully nothing happened.
Anywho, my dad works for enterprise rent-a-car and you wouldn’t believe the things people leave that never get picked up, children’s shoes, cell phone cases, Game Boy games… They have all sorts of vehicles too, including the Jeep Commander, which he says is the ugliest, blindest beast ever made.
“Most are even too dreadful to invite abuse – no matter how you cane it a Malibu, Taurus or Corolla will never bring a smile to your face.”
Wha?!
Dude, maybe you need more practice with the handbrake.
My personal car sometimes brings a smile to my face, but my recent rental car foray that turned into an impromptu coneless wal-mart parking lot autocross event made me LAUGH outloud as I exited my rented neon. My own cars never do that.
Try harder.
I think like RF on this one.If your any sort of car guy you can’t beat the crap out of any auto any time, and feel good about it.
As much as I detest Japanese cars, if I was ever stuck with a Toyota rental,or god forbid a VW.I would treat it the same way as my own car.I think of the poor soul that might buy it some day.
But that just me,a car guy
Only a true moron would beat up someone else’s property for kicks.
Then again, you would be surprised how many morons get the keys to a vehicle and do just that. In the past two years, I’ve been responsible for liquidating 10,000+ vehicles for a national auto finance company.
The most common finds in these vehicles are…
1) Old fast food bags, wrappers, and half-eaten remants.
2) Cigarette butts
3) Big gulps and other supersized drinks in the cupholders and floor
4) Diapers… most clean, some dirty… these are especially pungent when left in the repo lot over the course of several weeks.
5) Mail – mostly overdue and delinquent accounts along with grammatically incorrect, but ever the more amusing love letters.
6) Prophylactics of varying shapes and sizes – most unopened, some used.
7) Kids toys… some of which are covered in dust and filth
8) Bibles – usually with the spines in mint condition.
9) Speeding tickets, mandatory criminal court notifications, eviction notices, restraining orders
10) ‘Who’s the Daddy?’ medical tests.
With the shape some of these vehicles are in, I really think it would be worthwhile to have exterior and interior pictures accessible online to potential lenders.
Those who may decide to rent out real estate properties to these people, or provide them with a financed vehicle (businesses and individuals), should know whether Bible-thumping Bert is really a clean cut dude, or a sleazebag incognito.
I know that as a landlord, a businessman, or a plain Joe with a distant relative in financial straits, this information would be money well spent. In fact, it would essentially make borrowing costs lower for everyone else.
The same logic should hold true for those who abuse rental cars. It’s not your damn car, and if you can’t respect another person’s property, then you sure as hell don’t deserve to have the keys.
Enterprise and Hertz average over 100+ wrecked cars a week in my market due, in part, to these idiots. If they could simply gauge whether someone has been a good or bad owner of a recent vehicle, they can definitely make the lives of all the subsequent renters… and their employees…. much better.
Rental car costs will go up as the Big 2.5 stop selling the overproduction (Taurus just went out of production). What this means is there will be less Big 2.5 cars to sell to rental fleets meaning they’ll need to keep the cars longer. Plus most Rental car companies have big relationships with one mfgr or another (such as Hertz was owned by Ford for a long time – reason why the majority of their rentals are…Fords).
When I travel for business I don’t mind the ‘Merican car as it is adequate for travel. When I travel for personnel reasons such as vacation I want something nice and will pay extra. Often that means a PT convertible (yeah a small minivan with no top) or a Chrysler SeaBreeze (purposely mispelled).
But rental cars are cars overproduced by a failiing business model. In fact if you look at % of sales the Big 2.5 have the highest fleet averages with many others close behind such as Mitsubishi and even Toyota has a large contigent of Corollas and Camrys making their way into rental car fleets. They also don’t have souls but why should they.
I’ve also read that GPS trackers are starting to become common place telling if you go above a certain speed limit (so they can charge you for abusing the car). Renting that v12 Jaguar but can’t go over 80mph – would be a big let down.
macarose:
I’m not an idiot… I’m more of your garden variety maniac with a pension for automotive hooliganism. Think back to that old cartoon where the good samaritan who wouldn’t hurt an ant morphs into a vehicular-sociopath once entering his motor car, yeah its like that only the worse than being sodomized by barney & jakko rental car expeience brings out the best in me. Just a few miles in a buick and the devil on my shoulder starts suggesting that I, you know… see just how crappy the Q rated tires really are. Its the land-fill grade autos that cause me to lapse into a calous, cold hearted malicious state. Its been years since I’ve had the opportunity to engauge in such antics, perhaps I’ve “matured” since my last crack at the old buick Regal challenge.
Perhaps I’d be a better person if I had encountered rental vehicles with a higher purpose in life than as a purgatory box or under different premises than a unwanted visit at the dealership. The buick was my whipping boy for my pent up anger directed toward the lackluster service experience.
As for the 100+ wrecked cars a week, perhaps a portion of that is due to unfamiliarity with a new to the user car. I’d also like to believe the lackluster level of driving skill that is so widespread in this nation is playing a key role in that figure.
Jaje:
A jaguar interior and driving experience is worth the extra $$$ to me pretty much any day. I’d treat a jaguar with respect and as much dignity that is deserved by a pedigree as pure as the spice girls.
It’s worth noting that all these zero percent financing for anyone with a pulse sales will dump hundred of thousands of abused cars into the marketplace.
If you own a car used by the fleets or sold under these conditions, you can kiss your residuals goodbye.
i was in that neon with NICKNICK, and boy did we laugh. you can have fun in just about any car, especially if it’s not yours.
It’s funny to read this. I was just thinking today how much I utterly loath my rental car right now.
A few months ago I had a Focus. I enjoyed how tossable it was, but every picosecond sitting in the car annoyed me to no end. The ergonomics were horrible (I kept reaching for the cigarette lighter instead of the adjacent volume control, etc), the controls anemic and plastic suffocating. So many times while driving, I imagined myself as Lee Majors in the Fall Guy, launching myself off grassy knolls beside the interstate to test the suspension. I relished speed bumps and potholes.
I don’t know why, but when I’m in a rubbish rental car, I feel compelled to vent my anger on it, punishing it for being, well, being a twat I suppose. Well, I guess I get angry that such a car is being produced and being sold to the public. As pistonheads, I suppose we demand a lot from our cars.
Now I have a Sonata. Only had it one day, but the engine is weedy and acceleration is jumpy. The tires squeal in protest at any steering input. The doors and trunk feel more flimsy than the tin my Danish butter biscuits came in. My 80’s digital calculator watch has better audio fidelity than the radio. There is no way Hyundai can become the new Toyota with this piece of crap. Sure it’s got the latest checklist of amenities and features, but when the execution and quality are comparable to toys found in my daughter’s Kinder Surprise egg, I get angry.
I had a S80 a month ago. What a refreshing change. I was just so happy to enjoy driving the car. I wish all my rentals could be like that. Earlier in the year, I had a 118d which by far was the best car I have driven as a rental, ever. I can only hope more quality cars could be available at an affordable price.
It’s interesting you mention that. Mitsubishi was a textbook example of what happens when production becomes the priority over profit.
But then again the same has also been said for Daewoo, Hyundai (during the mid to late 1990’s), Chrysler, Nissan, and of course you have to take on the individualized charity cases of just plain inferior products like the Toyota Tercel, Dodge Spirit (aahhhh… the good old days!), Toyota Echo, Ford Escort, Ford Taurus, Chevy Malibu, etc.
Rental car companies in this day and age tend to have a lesser effect on vehicle valuations though due to the fact that the inventory has become more diversified.
However, the auto finance firms are working in an intensely competitive environment when it comes to lending. Even Toyota Financial Services has lowered their lending standards over the past few years in the hopes of increasing overall profitability.
It wasn’t their choice. The market has now become so intensely cut-throat that even the most successful automakers have to deal with the fact that a lot of multi-national banks with far greater lending resources and market knowledge want to literally take away those profits.
When your competitors have hundreds of thousands of computers filled with specific consumer information, you’re already at a substantial disadvantage. Capital One, Americredit, and CitiFinancial to name just a few, also hire tens of thousands of analysts to develop sophisticated decision making tools that literally make these firms tens of billions of dollars at the expense of the automakers.
As an automaker, you’ve got a situation today where you almost have to acquire other smaller auto finance firms constantly to compete well with the larger banks. You also have to go beyond lending on your own products if you’re going to be able to build the mass needed to get that marketshare.
The 0% financing isn’t what will hurt the automakers. It’s the low beacon scores and weaknesses within their own decision making systems that will have a far greater impact on the bottom line. That’s because once all the product has been established, it’s the competitiveness of the credit lending environment that eventually determines who will get the biggest chunk of the profits.
Rental car companies are barely a blip on the radar these days compared with the danger of high delinquency rates for financed vehicles.
I love rental cars…it’s a chance to drive all types of iron you wouldn’t dare think of owning. If you love cars, truly LOVE cars, I don’t see how you could dislike rentals.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to keep 95 percent of them. But I find goodness in all types of cars, from lowl Camrys and Caravans to the higher end Mercedes and BMWs that rental lots here in Palm Beach must keep in order to placate people who are visiting the island without their own wheels…there’s something redeeming about almost any car, even if it’s only the experience to be gained from driving it and knowing what you would NOT do if you were designing a car.
I think automotive engineers should be made to drive a different car every few days – and be forced to drive 4 hours or so a day.
To me, that’s what rentals are kind of like….a forced education of mass market vehicles.
Anyone who takes a car that is not their own and trashes it is an idiot. Trying to make it into some sort of heroic venture and calling it “automotive hooliganism” is just silly and frankly, the epitome of stupidity. It makes it hard for all those auto enthusiasts who are responsible, most especially when done by auto journos with press fleet cars. Back in 1997, some idiot who probably needed to reassess his (or her) own life (and drinking) took a press fleet Chevrolet Camaro and competely trashed it (heard he lived). Not only did the Chevrolet public relations contact for the West Coast tell all the other public relations people, for all the other manufacturers he knew, to take this person off their lists, but GM made any journo who had a car to evaluate, put it on his or her own personal insurance policy. A auto press organization on the East Coast boycotted GM. The group I belonged to, at that time, the Northwest Auto Press Association, voted not to boycott GM. I was personally told by GM’s (then) fleet representative, “Look, as long as you don’t do anything yourself to cause an accident – getting drunk or street racing – GM will still pay for an accident. They just want people to act responsibly.” Today, we now have Hertz renting Ford Mustangs that are called Shelby Mustangs. An account in a recent Car and Driver told how much C/D had to go through to get four such cars to drive to a Mustang meet. They didn’t trash the cars and that’s great; it means others will be able to avail themselves of the same program. If people started to practice “automotive hooliganism” on these cars, the program would go away. I once had a person who wrote me a number of e-mails, after he’d become a fan of my work at a (now defunct) web site called Themestream.com; and he encouraged me to take a press fleet car and “run it like you stole it.” I quit corresponding with him, shortly after that. If you want to act like a fool, do it on your own time. But when you are driving a car, especially one not your own, and most especially a press fleet car, don’t muck it up for the rest of us. Driving a car, any car, is a privilege and not a right. The U. S. Constitution guarantees the right to “freedom of movement” not ownership of a car (or in its time, ownership of a horse). Back when the Constitution was written, stealing a horse was an offense punishable by hanging. What does that tell you?
I believe the legal term that might apply to someone who destroys, to whatever level, a rental car or press fleet car (essentially, a rental car) is “misdemeanor theft of services.” Certainly one of the attorney who reads TTAC can tell us.
I’ve never abused a rental car in all the times I’ve rented for business or pleasure. I guess I was raised to respect other people’s property – mistreating someone else’s property is the same as stealing part of it in my book.
I wouldn’t buy a rental that is the type of car that young people, or stupid people typically rent – a rental Aveo, Focus, etc. I would buy a rental Town Car or Grand Marquis, as you have to work to hurt them.
The last car’s I’ve rented were a Town and Country, and a Ford Taurus – the Town and Country got surprisingly good fuel economy, and the Taurus was not nearly as good as the 1992 Taurus I actually owned – the vehicle has digressed, rather than improved, since then.
Look at this picture of a Kia Picanto parked on an Irish beach surrounded by curlicues and tell me rental cars aren’t great.
http://static.flickr.com/55/176964322_f76c3fc3a6.jpg?v=0
Now I don’t conside that abuse, but if I had a nice car I wouldn’t want to expose it to the salt.
Also, having rented a Mitsubishi Lancer in South Australia and drifted it along long White Metal roads with a mile-long rooster tail behind me, and bounced over potholes on a 4×4 only track, I’d like to point out that there’s something to be said for rental cars, but only if you treat them the way you would treat a beater you owned yourself.
I never tried to break those cars, that would be stupid. We just went on some sweet adventures together ;)
I actually had to hug the Picanto goodbye.
mikey:
November 18th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
I think like RF on this one.If your any sort of car guy you can’t beat the crap out of any auto any time, and feel good about it.
As much as I detest Japanese cars, if I was ever stuck with a Toyota rental,or god forbid a VW.I would treat it the same way as my own car.I think of the poor soul that might buy it some day.
But that just me,a car guy
Here, here!
I don’t get beating up cars at all.
Frankly, you have to look like a jerk doing some of the things people say they do with rentals and when has looking like a jerk become cool?
Part of any rental agreement is that by signing the forms, you promise to pay for any damages or excessive wear that you cause. If I want to squeal around a parking lot in a rental car, that’s fine because I said I would pay for everything. Since rental cars come with hockey pucks for tires, you get two bonuses: such low-force breakaway that no suspension or steering components get loaded significantly, and almost zero possibility of tire wear. Other than on-road safety, it’s a win-win situation.
People often say that insurance fraud or rental car abuse, etc. raises prices for everyone else. On the other hand, you are being preemtively charged for abuse–so could it really be considered a theft of services since you already paid?
RF,
This group of replies confirms my suspicions that a large part of your audience are teenagers, in mind, if not in body. This can’t do your business model any favors.
John
qfrog
I’d make the same conclusion as I would pay extra to rent a real jaguar (not the x-type which is a mildly worked over rebadged Ford). However I like to drive as well as being comforted and having that much power but not being able to use it is a slight shame.
I find the surplus of selfish immature “It’s not my car, so why should I treat it with respect?” attitudes in the commentary both interesting and saddening.
For those who are justifying their hooliganism on the perceived poor value they’re getting from their rentals, I say “BS!”. No one is pointing a gun at your head forcing you to rent a 2005 POS. If you’re not getting what you want, shop around.
I like rental cars, for a variety of reasons….
1) They can be a cheaper alternative to ones own car in some situations, especially if you live in highly price-competitive areas, such as Southern California. I recently rented a Suzuki Reno for $14 per day, and could have rented it for $9 per day if I kept my mileage under 150 miles per day. My main transport at the time was a 21-foot Class C motorhome (Toyota pickup-based, but still…). The savings in fuel costs more than covered the cost of renting.
2) They give those of us who don’t have access to automotive press fleets a chance to try out something different (usually not better, but different). I’ve had the opportunity to try a Toyota Pruis, a PT Cruiser and a Nissan Maxima when I’ve rented.
3) They make you appreciate your own vehicle that much more. When you get out of your rental GenericMobile and back into the car you shelled out big dollars for, it’s almost like driving it again off the showroom floor.
4) They’re the best alternative in (most) travelling situations. Would you rather fly 2000 miles and rent a car, or would you rather fly 2000 miles then leave yourself at the mercy of cabs, public transportation, and the generosity of friends (if any are availabile)?
Rental cars will always be marketed toward the average (a.k.a. disgracefully poorly skilled) driver.
Didn’t a New Jersey company try to block from renting those who had a record of trashing cars? I don’t think it was too successful, given today’s lawsuit culture.
That said, to gain an interesting customer demographic, I wonder if a theoretical company called Stick-Shift Rentals might be a good idea in some markets. Think about it – no seniors, no Town Car businessmen who love sofa-like suspensions, no mullet sporting plumbers on vacation looking for a rental to thrash. Maybe put it all on the net to keep costs down – and cull even more average drivers. However, good stick driving help may be hard to find.
Such a niche probably means zero profit. An Impreza (even non-WRX) stick would be a fun, fine rental, tho.
Rented a Cadillac DTS online. Got to the airport, the car was there, with 3 miles on it. THREE. I don’t know how they got it to there. It was flawless, wonderfully quiet, and had seat and seatback heaters and air conditioners! even got decent mileage – about 23 mpg, i fugured. Amazing experience. Cost about 25 bucks a day on special.
Another time I had to get a loaner through my insurance company, when i got to the budget place, I was horrified at what i might get. A light brown blob. ugh! I joked with the way too bored to be alive counter person that i would like something that i would not be embarassed to be seen in, she poked around a box of keys, handed me one that said mustang, and said “its the red one on the side” I went to find my ride was a brand ner (20 miles on it) red convertible. V6, of course, but i didnt care. Two weeks of someone elses Mustang for me for about 10 bucks a day cost to me.
Even tho mustangs are not made to well, the body panels were embarassing, the interior bits were flimsy and mismatched, I did’nt care. I did’nt have it long enough for anything to break. Drove it all over – people WAVED to me as i went by with the top down! It was in April, so the top was down alot.
So you can say that I’ve had a bit of luck with rentals.
Taxman100 – I would say that all of the cars in the rental car fleet received their fare share of extreme abuse, although my preference for the “J-turn” maneuvers where the Lincoln Town cars and Chrysler 5th Avenues because these luxury mobiles where the type of cars that would most likely have the CEO on board for the road block kidnapping attempt, but other guys had their preferences.
What people have to understand is that extreme abuse of these cars was required because of the layout of DFW International airport and the severe pressures we had to deal with during peak rental periods. Let me explain:
DFWI at that time (’85-’86) had two rental counters, one at each end of the ariport, a North and South. (I do not know if this layout is still in effect, I have never been a DFWI rental customer since my employment .) These two rental counters where identical in layout with a parking lot that was woefully inadequate in that it was too small for peak drop-off, peak pick-up periods, and sometimes both. So our rental agency (and our competitors as well) had to really scramble to keep these two small rental counter lots operating smoothly.
Most of our cleaned rental fleet would be parked at a huge exterior parling lot. During peak periods there would be a crew operating from either a station wagon or a minivan that would pick up the dirty (drop-off) cars from the rental counter and deliver clean cars to the rental counter.
The clean cars stored in the exterior parking lots are parked in very long lines bumper to bumper. The keys for these cars where in sequential order in a makeshift coat hanger key ring, except that occassionally they would not be in sequential order. Time pressures required that the keys be passed out while we are in route to the exterior parking lot, and we where not always able to get all of the five or six cars in sequential order.
So if you had a car behind you that did not have a driver then it was up to you to put your car in reverse, burn rubber, and push the car behind you out. If your car was a little car and the car behind you was a bigger car then two cars would push backwards in tandem. It takes a lot of force to move a parked car like that, since the drive wheels are locked and skidding on asphalt when the tranny is in park. What is the equivalent drivetrain wear and tear in highway miles, maybe 10k? Or 20k? Or 30k? I do not know, your guess is as good as mine. It is fair to say that ice cold drivetrains (in the winter months, it gets to be bone chilling cold in these parking lots with no wind breaking structures) are not designed for this type of abuse. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.
This was part of the job, and everybody was required to do this. Even the Bible thumpers (we are talking Bible belt here) did this. Some of the supevisors and lower management (all where aware, and approved of this practice) where Bible thumpers, for whatever that is worth.
So I stand by my opening line of my original post: “I would never buy a used car from a rental agency.” I would use maybe even more due diligence if I was buying a used car from the (DFW) area in North Texas.
Thank goodness for CarFax…real easy to make sure you didn’t buy a former rental car.
Though I enjoy just about any rental car (esp when I can use it for a TTAC road test) a guilty pleasure is getting a Crown Vic/Grandma Marquis/Town Car and having a little fun with the V8, RWD, and easily defeatable traction control. Just a little fun. :-)
A couple things…
1) The Durango loaner I had once when my TT was in the shop was good at hauling a lot of landscape bricks & left foot brake induced smokey burnouts.
2) macarose, can you imagine how bad the big 2.5’s sales would look if it weren’t for that 100+ wrecked rentals a week?
Actually a great many of them are imports.
And no…. I don’t ally myself with the habitual Detroit bashers around here.
I look at each vehicle strictly by it’s merits AND the demographic it attempts to attract.
I swear I’ll never try and re-enact any Days of thunder scenes again.
macarose, great contribution, very interesting.
I’ll start off by saying that I’ve never really abused a rental car other than a few e-brake turns and speeding despite poor (potholed) road conditions. Honestly, I enjoy driving my cars “well” and to have fun while doing so. Most of what ends up being a rental cannot provide that, I am beyond the stage where simply being wreckless with a car provides enjoyment (though I did go through the phase). Add to that the fact I usually have a rental car for a specific purpose (own car not working, work in another city, vacation elsewhere), and that means I have other things to do than risk trouble.
That said you do bring up another excellent point, that the whole automotive market (new and used) would be completely different if there wasn’t a such a huge rental car industry, feeding almost new (yet potentially tortured) cars onto used lots while absorbing fluctuations in new car sales. I can say for sure that the first G6, Malibu (current gen), Caliber, Elantra were all rentals. I’m sure they won’t be the last rental “firsts”.
Back in 1997, I took a trip to the west coast, we landed in Las Vegas, and there, at the Hertz desk, I was offered a V6 Mustang or a V8 T-bird, I took the T-bird, it had all options including a sunroof.
We drove the car 1700 miles in one week, it was the best car I have ever
driven as a rental, the engine was very responsive for such small body, if pushed hard, the back wheels would slip on second gear.
I even took it into monument valley where only 4×4 is recommended, since then, I hated all my rentals, Camry, Impala, Malibo and the last one was 3 month ago, a Corola, very bad!
The comments about rental cars and their abused nature is all well and good; it (nor Avis MSP airport) can explain why the brand new Buick I last rented (1700 total miles) had no functional left-side speakers and a piece of broken trim.
Just so I know, is this the same Buzz Lightyear that frequented the Cartalk site many years back?
Feel free to tell me the names of those two wonderful souls that moved to Atlanta from San Francisco. It would be wonderful to have a live conversation.
macarose (a.k.a. Bones)
Rentals do have one very valuable function for me. When seriously considering a car to purchase I’ll rent one for three or four days. The $150 I spend is a lot cheaper than getting stuck with a car I don’t want. I can also get more used to a car driving it for 400 miles or so as opposed to the 10 minute test drive.
“How is it at night? Are the controls well placed or annoying? Do all the kids fit comfortably?” Etc…
a 3am drag race in the wrong part of Philadelphia
That would probably be front street or else Delaware avenue. I’ve watched cop cars drag race teenagers ( I swear)
I love rentals for those times when I take a trip that requires a lot of mileage over a short period of time. Rentals let me do things I don’t normally do in my own car:
–bring drinks and food (they always have more/better cupholders than my German vehicle)
–not worry about rock chips
–not worry about road salt (holiday travels up north)
–not be irked by trash on floor
–act as chauffer to my hosts without having to say “please wipe your feet”
–get better gas mileage (I always pick something more efficient than my own car to help justify it)
–use off-brand 87 octane (vs. Chevron 93)
–not think about oil changes and the price of synthetic
However, my last experience with an Enterprise Chevy Classic (old Malibu) was 1,500 miles over 2 travel days. It made me appreciate good maintenance and the feeling of safety that my own car provides, so next time I think it’ll be worth it to skip the rental. There’s nothing like the (real) feeling of safety, especially compared to an underpowered, poorly aligned crapwagon with two slow tire leaks. Of course, you don’t realize this stuff until a couple hours into the trip, so it’s too late to exchange.
The only rental car I enjoy is one I’ve been getting for the last 2 years in Culebra, PR. It’s a FIERCE 38hp Kübelwagen from 1973… The “Thing” is great to drive in a down to earth kind of way. No distractions, no windows, and a nice view of the road throgh the floor boards (that was the first year, fixed last year…) It merrily goes where the wienies in the rental Jeeps don’t dare to go, and you can drift to trough the twisties at a blistering 25mph… And yes I booked it for this years winter vacation angain. As for other rental cars, they excite me as much as a fridge. As for rental car abuse, I don’t get off hurting appliances.
Link to the best rental car ever: http://nickericson.com/kubelwagen.jpg
Great article…I really don’t think comparing rentals to a prostitute is applicable…since I’ve never had a prostitute…but I have often noted that like sex, anytime you drive a car, no matter if it’s a rental or not, that becomes part of your knowledge-base to compare other cars against it (similar to comparing partners…).
Knowledge is good…but I’m curious why folks experiment/abuse cars so emphatically when they’d never do the same to their own.
Hey…if you wouldn’t bite your girlfriend/boyfriend on the back of the neck so hard as to actually draw blood…why do it to a temporary substitute?
Rental cars are because you have to, but you can get some good cars for specific uses…
EG: Mazda3 hatch is a great rental when Enterprise has one: light, well handling small car with a strong (160 hp) engine in it.
Also, the 300 touring I rented in Chicago was great, a nice highway cruiser for 500 miles of Illiana cornfields as I traced a triangle from Chicago to Urbana to West Lafyette.
Rental cars are fine. The vast majority of renters drive NORMALLY when they rent a car. Most of the cars the rental companies sell are JUST FINE. They’re transportation. Like a pair of shoes. Wear it out, throw it away. If you want something special, go somewhere else.
If you want solid transportation at a decent price, buying a previously rented car is a perfectly reasonable choice.
U-Wreck-Ems are the ultimate commoditization of cars. Vanilla transportation units that strive for mediocrity. And usually fall short.
I rent fairly often and am discouraged by the offerings in most fleets, but such is life. I always try to get something that might be marginally fun to drive, but only succeed about half the time.
I do try to avoid abusing a U-Wreck-Em–I just don’t think it’s appropriate to beat on someone else’s property–but I will sometimes push them as hard as I would my own car, assuming the beast has decent tires and the mileage is on the low end of the rental life cycle. That shows up the shortcomings real fast–which mkaes me slow down– and I get back into my own older steed with relief that the seats feel better, that someone actually thought about the ergonomics, and the suspension does more than insulate me from the road.
But best of all they make me appreciate my own cars more.
I travel for a living, which gives me plenty of oppertunites to play Hertz roulette. While I do enjoy driving a sporty number in it’s proper environment (the track or back road), I find most of their qualities provide for a boring drive while commuting. Give me a responsive 100hp economy car w/ a stick anyday. It affords me the oppetunity to flog something w/o the risk of hurting anyone. As for the rental lot, I look at it as an oppertunity to experience as many cars as possible. Granted, they aren’t enthusiast cars, but that aside it does give me a chance to give realistic advice to my friends and family purchasing cars, compare notes with media impressions, and fine tune my own opinions.
It is true rental companies are making lots more fun. At the core of this are additions to their fun/luxury lines, consolidation of the industry, and Hertz being spun off from Ford. THese changes have made the selection on rental lots a more interesting expernce. One day I’ll see a Lotus Elise on the lot (they are out there) and you can bet I’ll shell out the dough for it, but until then I’ll be happy with a Nissan Maxima.
You need to start renting frequently. I’ve been traveling for work every week for the last 6 years, renting a car for the week, and sometimes one on the weekends.
Hertz has been very good too me. I pay for a Taurus, but have never seen one in over 4 years. It’s always been something “better”. When you rent from the same location for long stretches, they get to know you and you always get something nice. I constantly get or can request Infiniti G35s FX35, Volvo S80 & S60, Audi A6, Mazda MX5s, Dodge Magnum RT, 300Cs for the same cost.
I’ve also gotten great value on vacation using Hertz points. No other rental company has such a wide selection of specialty cars which you can reserve using points. My business rentals have been converted to free week long rentals of Hummer H2 on Hawaii (normally $325/day), Audi A8L in LA ($125/day), Cadillac XLR in Orlando, and countless G35 and Volvo S80s as free upgrades from my free Taurus reservation.
http://www.thaitum.com/photos_public/hertz/