Although even if you buy a new car, there's no guarantee that it's been built properly or won't develop a fault later in life as a result of material defect.

But there is a three year guarantee to fix it and later life may well be no longer my problem....

But lets not get into that old new v used thing. Its been done to death before.

Each to their own as I said before.

Edited 19 April, 201115 yr by juan27

That argument fundamentally says "do not ever buy a used car".

I think you missed my point.

For me this isn't about whether or not an ex-rental is likely to be in better or worse condition than a privately owned car. I think we all agree that it's impossible to know for sure.

However, for me, the odds that an ex-rental has been abused or driven without consideration in its short life are higher.

Is an ex-rental worth less? The lengths to which some dealers go to hide an ex-rentals history would suggest so.

As a result I'd want to know if a car I was looking to buy was an ex-rental before I bought it as this should be reflected in its price.

Perhaps the OP should have done more checking, or perhaps the dealer should have volunteered or been more upfront with this information?

For the record, I would happily buy an ex-rental providing the price was right, I'd also consider well repaired Cat C and D write-off's, but importantly - as long as its history was reflected in the price.

But lets not get into that old new v used thing.

I wasn't getting into an old vs. new point - quite the opposite, as the point I was making was whether you're buying old or new there's a chance you're buying a shed.

I wasn't getting into an old vs. new point - quite the opposite, as the point I was making was whether you're buying old or new there's a chance you're buying a shed.

I was trying to avoid a general discussion along those lines rather than saying you were getting into that.

You are correct, there is a risk in buying a car, new or old. Just generally less uncertainty with a new one.

Edited 20 April, 201115 yr by juan27

I worked for an agent for Europcar, from the age of 17 I was driving their cars. In those days they purchased the cars and disposed of them themselves, they even set up their own company Carop in Hendon to refurbish and dispose of their own cars. I heard that it came to a bit of a sticky end, involving the sale of the best cars at low prices to another company which happened to be run by the wife of one of Europcar UK directors.

I've sat at the boardroom table at their old office in Bushey, managed to get stuck in a crowded lift at their new office in Aldenham Road, had the run around at Heathrow one night with brake failure on a Peugeot 505 and ended up with an 8 mile 230E Mercedes, witnessed my boss getting a *******ing on the phone from the Chauffeur drive manager at Victoria after having backed one of his SD1 Rovers into a wall and a few other things as well.

As mentioned previously, they don't own the cars these days, they get them from the manufacturer for a fixed time/mileage. They're down on the registration document, but that only shows the keeper, not the owner. The manufacturer likes to control the supply of used vehicles in both terms of age and miles. If the car clocks its 14,000 miles in a couple of months, they'll have to sit on it for another 4 months before the manufacturer will have it back. The cars have a comprehensive history, every rental, non productive movement and workshop visit is logged.

I've known some rental cars have very little use. When the Vauxhall Omega came out, Europcar in partnership with the AA had to have a load of them specifically to replace any customers Omegas which had broken down. A year after this was introduced, I was looking on the computer and came across a few that hadn't been out on a single rental. I have also known some have plenty of use, we had a Punto in that had clocked up 20,000 miles in 6 weeks.

As a student I did some driving for another hire car company, Eurodollar which became National, which in turn was purchased by Europcar. Their head office was in Leicester. They used to have Provincial Securities on the registration document.

I did a V888 enquiry with the DVLA on my 20 year old Ford, that came back with Europcar as the first owner and it was supplied by a Ford dealer less than 10 miles away from where I was living at the time. It's coming up to 95,000 miles and will last for years to come.

Without volume late used cars, prices would be higher and they would be more difficult to find.

It's what car rental companies do, they make used cars.

It's what car rental companies do, they make used cars.

Yep, less desirable used cars.

During my student days I worked for Avis and National.

The Avis branch was a franchise and the manager was as tight as they come.

As part of the preparation process we would check the fluids, the problem being the manager refused to spend money on oil, as long as the oil light wasn't on none of the cars were ever topped up. Even when the oil light was on they were only filled up enough to turn it off, with the cheapest oil from the local garage.

Recall notices were ignored.

Cars were washed with a normal floor brush in a dirty bucket of water with no or very little soap.

During the winter when the cars were frozen they would be started from cold and revved hard to warm them up.

Staff turnover was high, if you had a license you could drive. Low wages meant young drivers = thrashed engines.

If the cars were damaged they were taken to a local body shop, I saw some pretty poor repairs.

I could go on, may be this branch was unique, either way a car with many different drivers will be more likely to have had a tough life. Not for me.

And I have worked at main dealers where you would not believe the treatment some Demonstrator vehicles got!

Think about it, any car under 2 years old for sale has more than likely come from rental/dealer/lease/driving school stock.

Most privately owned cars from new don't make it back on to the used car market until 3 years old.

BUT

As others have said, some privately owned cars get a right thrashing and mistreatment form day 1 as well!

Like any car purchase, it isn't who has owned it that is important, it is how it has been treated and serviced.

I had a Mk1 Focus that was an ex-courtesy car. It was 6 months old with 10k on the clock. I kept it for 3yr and never had a problem.

Conversely the wife is terrible with her cars, never check anything, never takes them in for recalls, scuffs the alloys regularly, batters the clutch and if it wasn't for me doing her car's fluids, tyres and washing it the thing wouldn't last a year.