How Much Should I Pay: 2009 Toyota Corolla (Updated)
Follow Up Comment From Joy: Interesting information! Thanks so much for preventing this mistake. Is buying a rental fleet car ever a good idea or generally something to avoid.?
Joy
CarFinanceGuru: Joy, we are always happy to help and in this economy every financial decision counts.
In regards to buying rental fleet cars, there is nothing bad about it. However, having rented quite a few cars every year we don’t treat them as if they were our own.
Does that mean all of the rental fleet cars are bad? Absolutely not, but we would rather buy a used vehicle from a single owner. But like anything there is a price and if we had to buy a rental fleet car we would not pay more than 90% of the wholesale price.
Why is that you say? When the big rental companies like Hertz, Avis, etc. put their cars out to auction in the wholesale market they usually sell for less than wholesale market prices.
If you can save 10%-15% versus normal prices then think of it as a buffer to problems. The payoff is if there are no problems, you’ve saved money. If there are problems, you got money saved to use for the repairs. Obviously if the repair costs exceeds the savings then you are in a negative position.
If this all sounds like a bit of a gamble we would have to agree. This is a personal decision and if your risk tolerance is up to the challenge then take a shot. We’re not saying that buying a car from a single owner is not a gamble. It’s just that betting one driver was good to their car is a lot easier than betting that hundreds of people were.
