I have been sold a used rental car as approved used car by Mercedes

WellKnownSid

Most new cars get sold to fleet buyers who churn the cars every 1-3 years, not to private owners.  The chances of a nearly-new car being cherished with unconditional love by its first owner - fleet or private - are small.

If you're hoping for a one careful lady owner car, buy direct from the careful lady owner off Auto Trader - but as others have pointed out, do clock the 18 y/o grandchildren who might be borrowing the car from Granny...

datostar

I bought a 'Renault Approved' 10 month old Megane in 2011, fully serviced and remainder of the 3 yr warranty honoured. The one previous owner was in fact Godfrey Davis. The previous user, 'Toby' had must have had it long-term because he left his contacts' phone numbers in the hands-free system and his favourites in the built-in TomTom SatNav. Other than regular servicing and a couple of time-based cambelt replacements I've had no problems whatsoever. Still going strong ar 14yrs old and it'll probably see me out. Best car buy I ever had.

basill

datostar said:

The previous user, 'Toby' had must have had it long-term because he left his contacts' phone numbers in the hands-free system.

My Approved Skoda Octavia was considerably less than a year old and I found a suspiciously large number of paired phones listed.  It was in perfect condition and gave me no trouble.   It was so new I didn't ask about previous owners.  Only when the paperwork arrived was the hire company previous owner revealed.
I have no idea why reset to factory defaults was not one of the first things done to prepare the car for sale. 

BlueHarbourBouy

basill said:

datostar said:

The previous user, 'Toby' had must have had it long-term because he left his contacts' phone numbers in the hands-free system.

My Approved Skoda Octavia was considerably less than a year old and I found a suspiciously large number of paired phones listed.  It was in perfect condition and gave me no trouble.   It was so new I didn't ask about previous owners.  Only when the paperwork arrived was the hire company previous owner revealed.
I have no idea why reset to factory defaults was not one of the first things done to prepare the car for sale. 

The previous owner is now not stated on new 'log books' sadly.