Hi all,

Bought a Skoda fabia just oevr two weeks ago from a Skoda Dealership. I was told that the car had one 'local' previous owner, just received logbook from the DVLA today and it has AVIS Rental as the previous owner!!! I am furious to be mislead in this way by the salesman as I would never have entertained the thought of buying ex rental/fleet car........or am I being too fussy, should I expect problems. The car shows no signs of mitreatment but the penny has just dropped why there was no cigarette plug in the socket.....NO SMOKING!

Can anyone help put my mind at rest

Thanks

If it's under warranty and everything seems as it should be I wouldn't worry too much, they seem pretty robust cars.

Youre right to be furious, it will kill the resale value and lets face it... who wants an ex rental car thats now had another owner? Did you pay book price or get a good deal to reflect its previous life. They are robust cars but rental cars are thrashed, everyone knows that.

You can bet the dealer bought it at auction for a rock bottom price too.

To claim it had one local owner and not expand that to say it was ex-rental is a sneaky trick. The market value of an ex-rental car will be less than a genuine one owner vehicle. I'm not sure if there is some legal redress available under mis-selling rules or whether it is just buyer beware. It may be worth a phone call to trading standards or citizens advice to see if you can't get a few quid back if you want to keep the car. The issue really is one of feeling cheated, it really spoils the car buying process. I'm sure it will be okay mechanically it's just if you can be happy with it.

My Fabia was not a rental car but was a fleet car for paragon I think down south before it came up to Scotland and it's in good nick, mine has only covered 9500miles now, but I think a lot of Cars that the skoda dealers are getting are ex rental or fleet cars with low miles, we also looked at a roomster and found out that was a fleet car as well as it still had the fleet name on the number plates, I think as long as the car is ok and serviced I can see no problems with it.

Davy

When you come to change it, the log book will have you as the previous owner and that it has had 2 owners. I don't see how it's going to knock the value that much if at all. Fleet cars get handed out to company car drivers, they know they've got it for 3 years and then it gets taken off them. I've got a feeling most of them don't spend every Sunday morning polishing it on the drive and checking the oil every couple of days. More like machine washes and being flogged up and down the country. A quick look on Auto Trader will show you that doesn't really bother their values apart from mileage and obvious damage to body work etc.

Just a way of looking at it.

There may well be no problems but it seems a bit devious of a Skoda dealer not to give you the full story.It depends what the mileage is and what price you paid. I dont think that it should be priced as a genuine one owner if that owner was Avis.

Sorry to say but I wouldn't bet against your Paragon car being ex rental as well. Where I work we have lots of visitors from abroad so I see lots of rental cars in the car park. A fair number have fleet plates but some also have dealer plates. Wouldn't be surprised if the cars are sub let on to the rental company. Noticing lots of prestige cars being used for rental at the moment, A4s and 3 series tourings. I think there is some kind of vat avoidance that can be done by making a car rental and the retailing it later.

Having said all that ex Rental is not necessarily a bad thing, most people drive them carefully because they don't want the hassle of paying for damage.

That said, Back in the day, I was a valeter for a couple of rental companies. Trust me I and my colleagues gave the cars absolute death when driving them! Though on the plus side they were extremely well maintained!

Diplodocus, Actually, there is no need to be worried at all. I bought my wife an ex Avis fleet rental car from the Fiat main dealer. It was 6 months old and had 12,400 miles on it...some scratches and a water leak. It drove beautifully, and the petrol engine was in prestine condition. I paid under book value for it by a little, but not much. I asked them to fix the scratches and the water leak of course and they did. The car was presented to us in as new condition and fully serviced. It drove just like new too. My wife actually broke our normal rule and kept the car for 7 years (rather than replacing it after 12 months), trading it in against our new Skoda in 2008. It never went wrong either. The only car other than our Skoda that was ok. I would add that while we had this Fiat, we also bought other new cars all of which were brand spanking new and all of them were trouble, big time including a new Toyota.

Your Skoda will not have been harmed by it's previous life. Cars today are incredibly tough and resilient to any heavy handed/footed driving. You won't break one. In fact, most rental car engines run very well and last forever without problems due to the fact they don't get one VERY protective owner pussyfooting the new engine around, thinking they are doing it good driving it gently. When in fact modern engines need someone to give them some beans to bed those pistons and rings in. Remember, running in an engine is hard work with todays modern fully synthetic oils. So you have to drive it quite hard to get the metal to metal contact you need for running in. Rental cars get that.

My previous car (Focus Mk II) was a year-old ex-Hertz car and came under my ownership in tip top condition - no signs of abuse or accelerated wear and tear. The salesman was frank about its previous life right from the off, obviously something he didn't consider a major put-off. I didn't have a single problem with it for three years before it was exchanged for my Fab. Ex-rentals, like ex-fleet cars do a large proportion of their miles in top gear at 60-90 mph, lots of regular self-cleaning of their engines. Based on my highly positive experience I wouldn't worry about it.

I believe the dealer, Spesh a mian Skoda one, should have informed you it was an ex-er, if only to let you pull out, offer less or agree to buy... BUT, as others have said, it is still fairly new, well maintained and probably a lot cheaper than new.. Based on knowing, You pays your money, to takes your chance! It will still have the remaining warranty. I would still go back and complain, preferably in front of other would be customers, and see if they will refund or offer a bit of cash back OR at the very least, a few years free servicing and some mats, mudflaps etc. Perhaps casually mention the misleading salesman and "Which? " magazine's interest in such matters!

As for the lighter, strangely, they don't come with one, just a plastic plug to fit in the hole, which is an accessory socket now. This is located near the handbrake, along with a small plug to plug in an mp3 or similar audio equipment.

Well thanks to everyone for their helpful opinions, it really does make a difference when you are trying to make a decision. Lots of people suggesting that the car will probably be no worse off for it's previous life and honestly the car looks and drives so well i have no reason to think otherwise............it's just the thought of being duped by a dealer , a thing i swore i would never let happen to me again!!!

I suppose you can have one prevoius owner say a grandmother in her sixties and you think oh great car, carefully driven etc but you don't know her eighteen year old grandson drives it like it's stolen every other night do ya :(

Thanks everyone, another lesson of life learnt!

My previous Octavia was Ex. Rental (alamo), I bought it with 14K miles on the clock and sold it 4 years later with just short of 100K on the clock. There was no effect on resale value, I got for it what it was worth, the car ran faultlessly for those 4 years only needing a 50p sensor replacing in addition to the standard sevice items.

The car you have bought has the remainder of the skoda warranty, and that will take care of the car for 3 years anyway so why worry about it.

Whether or not the car is excellent really misses the point. The OP bought from a Skoda dealer and should have been informed. `One previous owner` is, in these circumstances, attempting to deceive.....I most certainly would kick up a fuss just for this reason alone.

Makes me laugh when I see Skoda dealers praised and lauded by certain sections of the motoring press......Lazy journalists who havent yet realised that they have stooped as low as the rest of em :(

Edited 11 September, 201015 yr by paully

I would always want to be informed of the fact any car was an ex rental, but actually it doesn't really make any difference at the end of the day to the car. In this case I don't think the dealer had done anything legally wrong, although he or she could have been a bit more forthright wiht the info. He/she has informed the prospective purchaser it was a one owner car. That is correct. It may have been used locally too. On the face of it, in a court of law it is unlikely there would be any case to answer, that's according to Kim my corporate lawyer friend who has experience of these things. For any case to be successful, the car has to be substantially defective or it has to be shown there is a loss of some kind due to not being told something prior to purchase, and even if it's a ex hire car, there will not be a loss, as ex hire cars are proven to be good buys. What we are talking about here is someones feelings of being duped in some way, or feeling their new purchase is not going to be quite right. That doesn't work so much in court over here, apparently.

As someone said, whatever car you buy it may have been driven by numerous people over it's life, and everyone treats a car differently. Cars are designed to be driven, used and abused these days and won't suffer unless someone is completely stupid and drives from Edinburgh to London in first gear at maximum revs!!! Actually...that happened once and the American couple complained the car lacked power! The car, a Vectra, was actually still ok I recall.

Edited 11 September, 201015 yr by Estate Man