Used car buyers unwittingly bought ex-rental vehicles

ukjoel

Its not as bad as it used to be.
To keep residuals values sensible across the range the daily rental cars tend to be a much wider range of vehicles than they used to be and some do hardly any miles.

Also as they need to go back to dealers to be sold with sub 10k (often sub 5k) they need to be immaculate. The rental companies pretty much run them for pennies as the discount levels are astronomical.

In your case with a Focus Titanium it was registered March 09 so has 30 months warranty on it (which you could extend if you wanted) and i would do it if it makes you feel more comfortable.

The retailers just dont register enough demos to offer nearly new cars, so they buy these in through closed auctions.

We used to get 50 to 100 turn up each Monday morning. We would strip the plates and replace them with our own branded ones, remove any daily rental identification and throw any key rings saying Avis or Hertz in the bin.

After that they could have come from anywhere.

I wouldnt worry - nowone buys a car to sell it again after 6 months unless they are getting a 45% discount and guarunteed buyback price which is what these guys get.

In return they commit to 10,000 plus cars a year.

DON79

I bought an ex rental car in 2002, a fiat brava, from a dealer and it said on the V5 who the previous rental company owners had been. But the car was great, it had been looked after, never gave me any trouble at all, had an average mileage, not high, and I so wish I still had that car!

I didn't know at the time that I bought it that it had been an ex rental and it didn't matter to me at all because the car was great and just what I was looking for.

JonathanA

If there is nothing currently wrong with the car, I don't think I'd be concerned. In my (biased!) view, the Focus is a good car, we've had 3 of them and are now on our second CMAX. It had done a fairly low mileage and isn't old, it has the remainder of the manufacturers warranty too.

In your position, I think I'd enjoy the car rather than worry about potential faults or issues. I'm sure there would have been no difference between the price of the one you bought and one that hadn't been a rental car either.

Happy motoring...