Bought a Ex hire car without knowing?

interstellaflyer

photome wrote: »

^^^^^^^

What has any of that got to do with the OPs problem

Beat me to it.

JonathanA

I agree this sounds like an ex lease hire car to me. I looked at a Volvo a couple of years ago that was ex Enterprise that had done 40k in 12 months. Garage was totally honest about its background and my checks with Enterprise confirmed they lease hire cars for 12 months to large companies on this basis. It had a full service history - only reason we didn't buy it in the end was that the garage offered such a rubbish p/ex value on my trade in that we bought elsewhere. The person who did buy the car we looked at lives round the corner from us and they are still driving the car 4 and a half years on.

If it was maintained under a lease agreement, I don't think I'd be too concerned.

If you look on Autotrader there are quite a few cars that fit this category..

s1lv3rdal5

If a car sold by a dealer has had a number of drivers, such as a Hire car or a Driving school car, the dealer has a DUTY to disclose that to any buyers.

As has been pointed out before:
OFT 1241/1242

If not, the buyer can take the dealer to the Small Claims Court, and will win.

Also, most of these cars are, out of warranty, they have been abused by a number of drivers, that do not care because it is not their car.

mystic_trev

Yeah, I reckon it's an ex lease car, as well. Most of the Car hire companies seem to be running their cars for at least a couple of years before changing them. The days when the Hire companies got rid them every six to nine months are long gone.I don't know if it's due to increased reliability or the fact many new cars come with a three year warranty.

Edit - I'm fairly certain my last Hertz rental was two years old with 67k on the clock. It was an upgrade so I didn't complain!

Stephb1986_2

I've spoken to ERAC UK today and asked them if they had any record of my car. Which they of course had, The lady on the phone told me it was hired out on a regular basis so therefore it wasn't a lease car.

Non of this was explained to me when I was buying the car. I do accept a certain amount of responsibility for not checking the V5, Service manual properly. But at the same time it should be explained to buyers where the car has been.

When I spoke to Arnold Clark today about the car he said that most dealerships do explain this to buyers before purchasing a car. Obviously the dealership failed to do this big time!

Steph

TradePro

mwbrown wrote: »

we bought a 55 plate brand spanking new Renault modus - took it for a test drive, checked everything out..... did the deal.. Went to collect the car on the Friday evening - got it, tried to change the radio channels with the steering column control and nothing....

Went back inside garage, they came out and checked it - thought I was doing it wrong!!! Nah, fault with the steering control for the radio - was booked into the local Renault dealers the following Saturday (bought the car from Motorpoint), they investigated the fault and said it would be about an hour to fix...... decided to wait - 4 hours later still waiting - was told that they had fixed the problem with the radio side of the control, but now we had no wipers and the side lights were permanently on.....

They advised that we would have to leave the car with them and they would have to contact Renault to see if they had any ideas why this had happened... I said ok, but I need a courtesy car...... got the response we don't have any..... I turned round and said to the service manager "not my problem", your mechanics tried to fix it and couldn't.... after about 20 mins and going round in circles I spoke to one the car sales managers and surprise surprise they found a car for me (a 6 month old clio that was delivered to the service bay from the car sales site with aa full tank of fuel)... got a phone call about 10am Monday to say they had fixed the fault.

We dropped the loan car of and picked the car up and it was fine in the 3 years we owned it.

Best memory of the car was, it was due a service and we got a quote from the local Renault dealer and it was something like £115ish, and as luck would have it we were going on holiday to France when the service was due - emailed the nearest Renault dealer to where we were staying in France to ask for a price for servicing the car..... didn't get a reply from them... so decided to go and have a look round whilst on holiday and see what the cost would be.

Middle of the first week on holiday, went in to the Renault dealer and enquired (in poor French lol) about the cost for servicing (to Renault specs) the car and the guy said come back after lunch and it would be about £40 or so..... took the car back, they did a full service to Renault schedules, plugged the computer in for any updates..... Best laugh of the day was the mechanic getting in the wrong side of the car to move it into the service bay (he did this 3 times in total), looking puzzled everytime.

Going to any garage (be it a main dealer, etc) isn't the guarantee of good service, I just tend to use the local garage that I have used for the last few years, reasonable priced, reliable etc.....

What a heartwarming story, thanks.

If I was you, I would copy/paste it into many other threads here on the forums to give everyone the opportunity to read it

TradePro

Hi again Steph,

Unlike some of the others I'm not being sarcastic or anything here, but I'm unsure what it is thats bothering you?

The roads are full of ex-fleet/hire/company cars, they all have to find new owners - these cars cannot be scrapped just because they were rented out at a point in their lives.

As long as you were happy with the condition and price of the car when you bought it, and it hasn't turned out to be particularly problematic, I would seriously just ignore the fact that it was ERAC's for a while.

Am I right in thinking that the only problem is the leak into the boot?

In my opinion, Honest John is by far and away the best motoring journalist in our country, and as you seen in the link I posted, he really approves of these cars.

Stephb1986_2

Hi Tradepro,

I read the article you posted on for me thanks.

There have been loads of problems with the car, the boot, the engine guard being ripped down so was flapping about underneath which obviously I didn't know about until the car was being serviced. Which just then tipped me over the edge about it as I've never really been that happy with it as I knew that it hadn't had the full respray as promised so there is swirls all over it, I've always washed my cars by hand so I know I've not put the swirls there.

I think it's just more about the promises that never happened and principal. The mould in the boot was the straw that broke the camels back. It's not so much it being a hire car that bothers me I just don't know how it's been treated before I bought it whether the cam belt etc has ever been changed on it.

I think I will be happy with the final outcome though

Steph

motorguy

Stephb1986 wrote: »

I think I will be happy with the final outcome though

What do you expect the outcome to be?

TradePro

I didn't know about the respray/paintwork thing, so can't really comment on that, but do understand that it would bug you if the selling dealer promised to do something about it.

I've seen a lot of those undertrays flapping about or loose, and 99% of the time it's due to a mechanic not refitting properly after doing an oil change, I really wouldn't fall out with the car over it.

I understand your concerns regarding how the car was treated, but I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this is an unavoidable situation when buying any used car. When all is said and done, no matter how attached people get to their cars they are just machines, their personality doesn't change due to a poor upbringing

Does your service book not mention a cam belt change? (not sure if the model has a belt or not off the top of my head)