Your Thoughts on Hertz Rental Purchase

Rentals give me pause, but you never know...that Prius may have been treated relatively well in comparison to the rest of their fleet given the kind of driver it attracts. One thing you forgot to mention, the mileage. For the price, I would presume around 50k?

 

If they have others ask to swap some of the better parts. The front under cover, better tires from another car etc. It should come with some warranty, if not I'd stay away and pay a little more for a private party with extended warranty or a certified dealer car with warranty.

 

There's an older thread about this. From what I remeber people were complaing about an initially good experience becoming not so good because of paperwork issues but not sure. You should search for earlier threads.

 

There was a guy here that posted about running mad scientist experiments on a rental Prius adding way more ethanol than there was supposed to be in the car. See his post here-
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii-2010-prius-technical-discussion/103934-running-e85.html
This is the sort of thing that world permanently scare me off ever buying an ex-rental. Only God knows what damage was done to the engine in the time that this guy was adding way more ethanol than the car was designed to run on and from what I understand about ethanol the damage could take a while to appear.

It is highly unlikely that anyone pulled such a bonehead move with the car that you are thinking of, but you can never tell.

 

sounds like a good deal to me. It is cheaper then 18-20K blue book.

with respect to plastic under bumper it is the case with many Prii, front is too low and it gets scuffed on curbs. If it is not horrible, take it.

Tires will run you ~500$ but if you get good LRR tires they will practically pay themselves off in savings.

 

I wonder if someone from the Forums could write in and say that they purchased a Rental Prius and now have 200k or 220k miles on the vehicle and have had good luck with it. I always thought the Rental Vehicles were kind of "beat on".

 

I bought a Mazda 626 rental around 1998 it died after 4-5 years.
But you don't see many of old 626 on the road suggesting car was not robust.
Prius is robust. Keep in mind it is electric car you are hoping battery looks good as far as lack of corrosion from unknown exposures, etc.

 

removed

 

I would never buy a rental car. You never know how it was mis-treated, somebody may have smoked in it, etc.

To give you some idea on pricing, I have a 2010 Prius II that I want to sell. (I'm buying the new Prius Plug-in). It has 37,000 miles, it's been perfectly maintained, with double the number of recommended oil changes and full maintenance records... it's been babied. It has a $1,000 Kenwood stereo unit with a full touchscreen that has backup camera, Garmin GPS, Bluetooth for the phone, AM/FM/ CD/DVD/USB, and options to add XM radio, HD radio and iPod control. I removed the wheel covers when it was a week old and put on the Toyota hubcaps (so the original wheel covers are in perfect condition). It has a trunk organizer and it's as clean inside and out as a brand new car. And I'm hoping to get $18,000 for it.

So, yes, I think the Hertz price is way too high for a car that has dents and has likely been badly treated and questionably maintained.

 

I would never buy a rental car. Contrasted with a privately owned car, where the owner probably cares about it, think about all the renters who, in the best case, don't care about the car, and in the worst case, drive it like they stole it.

 

I just bought 2010 Prius recently from dealer. Considering my budget ($20K max) to buy, i knew i would get the car from rental car or lease company (i run carfax before i bought, and it showing all prius 2010 available on the market within my budget, they came from car rental or lease comp.). I knew i would get between 35-50K miles on it, but it's still consider ok to me. What i did was, i brought the car to toyota dealer nearby to diagnose the car... Dealer said my car is fine. I think you should bring the car to dealer, it costed me only $100, but i got secure feeling to drive....

 

Your Thoughts on Hertz Rental Purchase:

Don't.

 

Carmax isn't all that great, I just entered 2010 Prius and they only came up with four cars nationwide.

 

Good luck. Hopefully you'll be getting the remaining warranty coverage. If possible I'd try to get an extended warranty as well.

 

I bought a 2010 Prius II from the Hertz Rent2Buy (SF airport) program a few months ago. The experience wasn't perfect, but I would do it again.

Some of the negatives of the program and/or my specific car:
- ~4/32" tread on tires when I bought the car
- only 1 key/fob
- no access to maintenance records
- no floor mats
- no tray inside center console
- flap covering oil filter/pan was previously cut off (missing)
- scuffed bumpers
- below average sound system
- rattling and creaking from center bridge, glove box and trunk
- warranty is good for only 2 months/2,000 miles
- all car features work!

And positives:
- MPG is in normal range (49-52 MPG on car computer)
- the car drives great - no unusual engine sounds/behavior
- overall very clean interior, exterior, and engine compartment
- oil was at correct level when I got the car
- factory powertrain warranty good until 60,000 miles
- emissions/battery warranty good until 150,000 miles (only in California emissions states)
- disabled repeated reverse beep

The car had 52,000 miles on it, and I got a great price of $16,000. I believe all of the Priuses that Hertz uses are Prius II, so they do have cruise control, etc.

With the Rent2Buy program, there really is no room for bargaining. For instance, I highly doubt they will swap tires. If you buy from a Hertz Car Sales lot, they are able to bargain.

I would be happy to answer any questions you have.

I would suggest you plug the VIN number of the car you're interested in into AutoCheck or Carfax. Back when I bought the car, there were a variety of Priuses to choose from. I entered in each VIN number to AutoCheck, and surprisingly, nearly all of the cars reported some form of body damage/accidents. That being said, I picked the Prius with no record of an accident.

 

One fob is a deal breaker for me. IMO, Toyota delivered two fobs with the car so deliver two when selling it. Toyota also delivered a compact spare & a jack. Is it OK if they are missing?